Angie Schmitt
Angie is a Cleveland-based writer with a background in planning and newspaper reporting. She has been writing about cities for Streetsblog for six years.
Recent Posts
Americans Are Driving Less, But Road Expansion Is Accelerating
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Americans drive fewer miles today than in 2005, but since that time the nation has built 317,000 lane-miles of new roads — or about 40,000 miles per year. Maybe that helps explain why America’s infrastructure is falling apart. The new data on road construction comes from the Federal Highway Administration and reached our attention via Tony Dutzik at the Frontier […]
50 Years After a Highway Revolt, a Quiet Surrender
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Can cities that won highway fights two generations ago still defeat destructive road projects today? Marc Lefkowitz at Green City Blue Lake is looking back at Cleveland’s history of highway revolts. In the late 1960s, the city successfully beat back a proposal — the “East Side Highway” — that would have obliterated neighborhoods. Now, all these decades later, […]
America’s Heartless Transportation System at Work
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Fedora Henderson, 31, was struck from behind and killed by a snow plow driver earlier this week in Richmond, Virginia. Henderson was commuting to her job at a Target, and bicycling along wide, dangerous roads was “the only way she could get to work” because she didn’t own a car, a co-worker told the local CBS affiliate. Network […]
4 Things to Know as Transportation Bill Negotiations Heat Up
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Lawmakers in Washington are just beginning their latest attempt to craft the first long-term transportation bill in roughly a decade. The current bill expires in just a few months, on May 31, but in Congress that’s an eternity. While it’s a long way from go time, the contours of the debate are starting to become […]
Portland Sued Over Faded Crosswalk Where Driver Killed Two People
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The family of a young woman who was killed trying to cross a Portland road is suing the city for not properly maintaining the crosswalk where she was struck by a driver. Lindsay Leonard and her roommate Jessica Finlay, both 23, were both killed when they were struck by Tito Feliciano while trying to cross S.E. Foster […]
High-Rises Don’t Cause Traffic; Parking Lots Do
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Few things evoke carmaggedon hysteria quite like the construction of a tall residential building. As Austin has seen more growth, some have seized on the relatively few high-density housing developments as a source of the region’s traffic problem. But housing density is not the cause of traffic congestion, says Carrie Gammell at Car Free Austin: It seems […]
Russia’s Daredevil Pedestrian Safety Advocates
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Have you ever thought about taking matters into your own hands when you see someone drive in the bike lane or block the sidewalk? Well, these Russians are living your vigilante traffic enforcement fantasy — and it looks absolutely terrifying. A group of men calling themselves the “Stop a Douchebag” movement are willing to risk […]
St. Louis Stunner Runs Away With the Vote for America’s Sorriest Bus Stop
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In the end, it was never even close. This bus stop on Lindbergh Boulevard in suburban St. Louis won wire-to-wire in the voting for the Sorriest Bus Stop in America. There was plenty of worthy competition, but something stood out about this stick in the ground next to what seems to be a divided highway. The only […]
Are Engineers Allowed to Speak Up for Reforming Their Profession?
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In a case that has attracted the attention of the Union of Concerned Scientists, well-known and outspoken civil engineer Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns recently had his professional license challenged by a fellow engineer. The charges were quickly dismissed by the Minnesota licensing board, but the incident has raised questions about engineers’ freedom to speak openly […]
How State DOTs Waste Money Bailing Out Local Planning Mistakes
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A few weeks ago, we featured a video of Tennessee Department of Transportation chief John Schroer describing the reforms he’s applying at his agency. One problem he pinpointed — and this happens to every state DOT — is when local governments ask his DOT to spend big sums of money fixing transportation problems that could have […]
Dallas Advocates Launch a PAC to Tear Down a Highway
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The movement for a more livable, less car-clogged Dallas has legs. A group of reformers advocating for the teardown of Dallas’s Interstate 345 has set out to reshape the political landscape — and they’re off to a blazing start. The Dallas Morning News reported this week that the group, A New Dallas, has launched a […]
Upending the Assumption That Transportation Policy Is All About “Mobility”
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Charles Marohn at Strong Towns has been giving some thought to what’s ailing the Minnesota Department of Transportation. And he traces the agency’s biggest problems back to its core assumptions. The agency sees its mission as increasing people’s mobility — which it defines, more more or less, as “how far they can travel in a given period of […]