So how can states best spend their stimulus money? How can livable streets advocates keep it from going to useless highway widening and other sprawl-inducing projects? Smart Growth America, a key partner in the Transportation for America campaign, has some ideas, which are detailed in a report called Spending the Stimulus (you can find the […]

Today Streetsblog Network member The City Fix reports on the "cost of place" in the Washington, DC, area — the way that the price of housing and transportation stacks up for people in the urban core and the suburbs. According to a report recently released by the Urban Land Institute, Photo by ehpien via Flickr. […]

Today on the Streetsblog Network, Richard Layman of Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space finds some interesting ideas about the future of American roads in a somewhat unlikely source — the super-mainstream Parade magazine, which comes as an insert with more than 400 newspapers around the country and claims a circulation of 33 million. Layman […]

Today on the Streetsblog Network, we turn to member blog Trains for America, which looks at the idea of using  stimulus funds to bring rail-equipment manufacturing — and expanded passenger rail service — to the state of Montana: Photo by Katie via Flickr. [N]ew rail passenger equipment is coming to America and it should be […]

We want mass transit in American cities, right? Right. So how are we going to pay for it? Photo by wallyg via Flickr. Today on the Streetsblog Network, Yonah Freemark at The Transport Politic suggests looking across the Atlantic for some answers to that question, taking New York’s MTA and Paris’s RATP as examples of […]

Barack Obama is justly renowned for his speaking style; he chooses his words with professorial precision. But on today’s featured Streetsblog Network post, the NRDC‘s Deron Lovaas, writing at The Infrastructurist, points out that the president used the "H" word — that would be "highways" — inaccurately during a recent visit to the USDOT: Photo […]

Is the whole plummeting economy thing forcing you take stock of what you truly value in life? Yep, us too. And we’ll take a wild guess that accessible, beautiful public spaces are on the short list for you as well. Photo by Petra and Baby Z via Flickr. Which is why, today on the Streetsblog […]

Several Streetsblog Network members, including the Bicycle Coalition of Philadelphia and Decatur Metro, have blogged about the latest numbers from traffic information firm INRIX, which show declining congestion in 2008 vs. 2007 in nearly every metro area surveyed (Baton Rouge, LA, bucks the trend; go figure). INRIX reports "peak hour congestion on the major roads […]

Yesterday was a big day for livable streets and progressive transportation advocates — and not just because of what happened in New York City. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) speaking at the launch of Transportation for America’s campaign platform. Photo by Steve Davis/Transportation for America. Down in DC, Transportation for America went to the U.S. Capitol […]

Today, The Transport Politic continues its excellent coverage of high-speed rail proposals around the country with a comprehensive roundup of the projects that will be vying for federal funds in the months to come. As Yonah Freemark writes, Photo by reallyboring via Flickr. The economic stimulus bill included $8 billion for high-speed rail projects. Though […]

This morning on the Streetsblog Network, we’re featuring a thoughtful post from Greater Greater Washington in which David C dares to challenge the very foundation of the "American Dream" — home ownership. Photo by Transguyjay via Flickr. A variety of government policies and programs have dramatically increased home ownership. But lately, some have been advocating […]