Talking Headways: Level of Disservice
In California, whether you’re building an office tower or a new transit line, you’re going to run up against the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The law determines how much environmental analysis you need to do for new projects. But sadly, in practice it’s better at propagating car-oriented development than improving the quality of the environment.
December 12, 2014
Hastily-Debated Collins Measure Could Put More Tired Truckers on the Road
It just wouldn’t be Congress if we weren’t trying to debate substantive policy changes, with drastic implications for public safety, with a government shutdown deadline fast approaching.
December 9, 2014
Poll: Support for Active Transportation Funding Is High Across Party Lines
When will Congress debate a new transportation bill? Your guess is as good as mine (May 31 expiration date of the current extension notwithstanding). But here’s some advice for whenever they do: Increase federal funding for biking and walking. Your voters demand it.
December 8, 2014
How to Make Shared-Vehicle Services Accessible to People of All Incomes
Washington’s Capital Bikeshare is one of the biggest and most well-established bike-share systems in the nation. Its annual fee of just $75 buys you unlimited free half-hour trips. The system now has 2,500 bicycles at 300 stations in the District and the nearby suburbs.
December 8, 2014
Eno: Stop Obsessing Over the Gas Tax and Change How We Fund Transpo
Twenty years ago, Japan’s electoral reform redistributed power, giving urban constituencies a greater voice. One result: Japan eliminated its version of the Highway Trust Fund, which urban voters saw as satisfying the interests of the construction lobby, not their own.
December 4, 2014
What Would a National Vision Zero Movement Look Like?
Earlier this week, New York-based Transportation Alternatives released a statement of 10 principles that emerged from the Vision Zero symposium the group sponsored last Friday. It was the first-ever national gathering of thought leaders and advocates committed to spreading Vision Zero’s ethic of eliminating all traffic deaths through better design, enforcement, and education.
November 21, 2014
Talking Headways Podcast: I’m Not a Scientist
Do you ever think about the ecology of the city you live in? Not just the parks and the smog. Scientists are starting to examine urban ecosystems more holistically: the trees and the concrete, natural gas lines and soil, water pipes and rivers. The natural and the synthetic feed off each other in surprising ways. We're not scientists, but we found it interesting.
November 20, 2014
The Parking Tax Benefit: A $7.3 Billion Subsidy for Traffic Congestion
The federal government spends billions of dollars a year on tax subsidies that make traffic congestion worse, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis by TransitCenter and the Frontier Group. The culprit is the parking commuter tax benefit, which costs taxpayers $7.3 billion in foregone revenue each year, all while adding more than 800,000 cars to rush-hour traffic on the nation's roads each workday, the authors estimate.
November 18, 2014
Lesson From the States: Index Your Gas Tax to Something, Anything
Amid all the hand-wringing in Congress about transportation funding is one simple fact: The federal gas tax has been unchanged at 18.4 cents per gallon for 21 years. During that time, rising fuel efficiency and inflation have chipped away at how much the tax brings in and eroded the value of what remains.
November 13, 2014
Talking Headways: You’ve Got to Fight for Your Right to Party Politics
Has the stupor worn off yet? Election Day was last Tuesday, and we'll be living with the results for years. But Beth Osborne, a former Hill staffer and U.S. DOT official now at Transportation for America, says the changes on the Hill are no big deal: Nothing was getting done anyway.
November 13, 2014