Tanya Snyder
Tanya became Streetsblog's Capitol Hill editor in September 2010 after covering Congress for Pacifica Radios Washington bureau and for public radio stations around the country. She lives car-free in a transit-oriented and bike-friendly neighborhood of Washington, DC.
Recent Posts
Crawlable Urbanism: Cities Are for Kids, Too
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All of a sudden, I feel like all anyone is talking about is whether it’s a good idea to raise kids in the city. I’m raising a kid in the city. I feel great about it when she has a blast on the back of the bike, or makes friends on the bus, or gets […]
Rasmussen: Americans Want More Federal Support for Transit
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Rasmussen Reports, the polling firm that got the 2012 election completely wrong, asked 1,000 Americans last week how they feel about public transportation [PDF]. The takeaway they reported was this: “74% Rarely or Never Use Mass Transit.” On the flip side, 6 percent said they used transit every day or nearly every day, and another […]
U.S. DOT Launches “Everyone Is a Pedestrian” Campaign
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Yesterday, U.S. DOT launched a new campaign called “Everyone Is a Pedestrian,” including $2 million in grants that will be awarded to as many as six focus cities for pedestrian safety education and enforcement initiatives. While $2 million is peanuts in the grand scheme of the nation’s pedestrian safety needs, it’s notable that Transportation Secretary Anthony […]
Credit Rating Agencies Uneasy About Toll Roads as Americans Drive Less
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Toll roads aren’t the cash cows they used to be. The assumption that the roads will “pay for themselves” is no longer a reliable one, and credit rating agencies are taking notice. In Orange County, California, traffic on the San Joaquín Hills toll road is half what was projected. A recent toll road extension outside […]
Foxx: “We’ve Got to Look at Transportation in a Multimodal Fashion”
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Tomorrow marks the end of Anthony Foxx’s first month as the U.S. secretary of transportation. Today he met with reporters who have been eager for an on-the-record meeting with him. Though Foxx has been confident and specific in answering questions by members of Congress, he was more reserved with the press gaggle. He repeated some […]
Stuck With Bad Transit Options? There’s an App for That.
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The next time your subway car is overcrowded, or your train is delayed, or your bus is bogged down in traffic, you can access a direct line to your members of Congress and let them know you’re not gonna take it anymore. Building America’s Future, a lobbying group for more federal infrastructure spending, just released […]
Vitter Seeks to Cut Environmental Reviews for Massive Road Projects
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Bridges are getting a lot of attention as senators add their two cents to the upper chamber’s transportation budget proposal for next year. The Senate transportation appropriations bill includes $500 million for “bridges in critical corridors” (BRICC), designed as a response to the recent bridge collapse along I-5 in Washington state — home of Senator […]
Paul Krugman Links Sprawl to Persistent Social Inequality
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Is sprawl holding back social mobility in America? Paul Krugman didn’t mince words yesterday in a follow-up to a post he wrote soon after the Detroit bankruptcy was announced. In that initial blog post, he compared Detroit to Pittsburgh and concluded that it wasn’t just the loss of manufacturing jobs that hurt Detroit — it was […]
At First Hearing, Foxx Defends Projects That Advance the “Public Good”
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Should the nation’s largest infrastructure loan program finance projects that make the transportation system more productive and efficient? Hell no, says Senator David Vitter, ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Hundreds of millions of dollars should be available to any old project that comes along, as long as it has a […]
Car Ownership May Be Down in the U.S., But It’s Soaring Globally
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Two weeks ago, transportation researcher Michael Sivak brought us the news that there are fewer cars per person in the U.S. now than there were a few years ago – and that the number isn’t expected to rise again. But globally, the trend is in the opposite direction, and it’s alarming. The world is producing more […]
Anthony Foxx Confirmed Unanimously as U.S. Secretary of Transportation
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After a remarkably smooth and uncontentious process, Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx has just been confirmed by the full Senate as the 17th U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Not a single senator voted against — or even abstained from — his confirmation. Coming to the position as the mayor of a major southern city, Foxx brings with […]
APTA Goes After Transit-Harassing Patent Troll
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For years, transit agencies and other companies have been harassed by a patent troll seeking to extort them for “settlements” when they use real-time vehicle tracking technologies. ArrivalStar and Melvino Technologies, offshore firms led by one Martin Kelly Jones, claim to hold the rights to those ideas. Jones has been picking off agencies one by one […]