Streetsblog USA

Another year, another decline in per capita driving. For the ninth year in a row, the cumulative distance Americans drive is down, adjusting for population, according to new data from the Federal Highway Administration. Total driving by all Americans has fallen about 2 percent since 2007 -- or 7 percent per capita -- and is lower than it was in 2005.

This post was originally published on the blog of the Frontier Group, where the author is a senior policy analyst.

Jeff Wood of the Overhead Wire (now working with NRDC's crack transportation team) and I talk to Randy Simes in this week's podcast about the streetcar movement in Cincinnati -- and how they finally grabbed the long-elusive gold ring.

Joseph Brown might be alive today if the District of Columbia had cleared the snow from the sidewalks on the John Phillip Sousa Bridge across the Anacostia River last week. Instead, Brown celebrated his 61st birthday in the hospital after being struck by a pickup truck driver, then succumbed to his injuries on Monday. How did DC police respond? They gave Brown a ticket for walking in the street, reports Greater Greater Washington.

You would be lucky to get half as much information about a $5 million transportation project in your state as you can get from a toothpaste tube about how to brush.

A growing number places are adopting policies to create safe space on the streets no matter how you get around. This year 80 new complete streets policies were passed by municipalities, states, counties, and planning agencies around the United States looking to make walking and biking safer. That brings the total number of such policies in the nation to more than 600.

American transportation policy has a woeful history of civil rights abuses. For a good part of the 1950s and '60s, using highways to level black neighborhoods was a matter of national policy. And the white flight and segregation that those highways engendered have left a legacy that continues to shape much of America in the present day.

Freeway teardowns are no longer as rare as an earthquake during the World Series.