Recent Streetsblog SF posts about White House

How Quickly Will Caltrans Embrace Complete Streets Guidelines?

By Matthew Roth | Mar 30, 2010 | 6 Comments

Photo: Thomas Hawk Though it may seem esoteric, one of the biggest impediments to designing streets for people is the over-reliance on design standards that have long privileged movement of vehicles over any other consideration on the streets. That’s why advocates cheered when U.S. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood published a policy paper recently that, at […]

Study: Clean-Car Subsidies Alone Can’t Meet White House’s Climate Goals

By Elana Schor | Mar 9, 2010 | No Comments

Government subsidies for hybrid and electric cars, while "politically seductive," will fail to achieve the Obama administration’s national pollution-reduction goals if they are not coupled with a significant increase in fuel prices, according to a new study by Harvard University researchers. (Photo: Pop and Politics) The team at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International […]

White House: Transit Inflation Outstripping Private Transportation

By Elana Schor | Feb 12, 2010 | 1 Comment

The White House’s annual economic report, in addition to its endorsement of inter-city rail and transit spending, also sheds more light on transit inflation, which is often reported anecdotally in the many cities struggling with fare hikes but rarely put in statistical terms by economists. (Photo: UPI) In the appendices of its report, the president’s […]

White House Economic Report Touts TIGER, High-Speed Rail, Transit

By Elana Schor | Feb 12, 2010 | No Comments

The White House Council of Economic Advisers’ first annual report under President Obama made headlines today for its gloomy job-creation outlook, but tucked inside its 462 pages is a tangible reflection of a changed outlook on transportation policy under the new administration. Top White House economic adviser Christina Romer, at right, holds up yesterday’s report. […]

How Google and Portland’s TriMet Set the Standard for Open Transit Data

By Matthew Roth | Jan 5, 2010 | 9 Comments

Photo: Steve Rhodes With national data transparency efforts like President Obama’s Open Data Initiative and municipal projects like New York City’s Big Apps or San Francisco’s Data SF, government agencies across the country have been opening their raw data sets, some more reluctantly than others. With the debut of City-Go-Round and media coverage generated about […]

Quantifying the Value of San Francisco’s Unaccepted Streets

By Matthew Roth | Dec 15, 2009 | 4 Comments

As we have reported, Berkeley Professor Nicholas de Monchaux’s Local Code proposal for activating San Francisco’s "Unaccepted Streets" called for transforming the patchwork of 529 acres of underutilized alleys, street-ends, and pathways into a network of green spaces. Were San Francisco to build out the more than 1500 identified sites, de Monchaux estimates that the […]

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