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
Four Republicans Who Might Work Across the Aisle on Transportation
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First Rep. Tim Johnson of Illinois announced his retirement. Then Ohio’s Rep. Steve LaTourette said he couldn’t take the petty gridlock anymore and followed suit. They belonged to a disappearing class: moderate Republicans in the House of Representatives. And they were both known for recognizing the value of investments in transit, biking, and walking. Johnson, […]
Eight Burning Questions About Post-Election Transpo Policy and Politics
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If I’ve learned one thing from all the meetings about transportation I’ve covered, it’s this: There is no progress without a solution on funding. Every conversation about infrastructure turns on the question of how to pay for it. As the power of the gas tax declines, can it be restored or replaced? Does the political […]
What Would Meaningful Amtrak Reform Look Like?
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For the past two years, Amtrak has been under constant attack from House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica (R-FL), who has used his gavel to bully the rail company. He likes to call it a “Soviet-style” monopoly and he goads it for losing money on everything from long-distance routes to food service. His vitriolic diatribes […]
How States Are Adapting to MAP-21’s Changes to Bike/Ped Funding
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The current transportation law dealt a few hard knocks to bicycling and walking programs. One big one was the restructuring of the Transportation Enhancements program into something called Transportation Alternatives, which has to fund more types of projects with less money. The idea is that each state’s TA money will get split in half. Fifty […]
GAO: States “Flexing” Fewer Federal Dollars to Transit
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Supporters of livable streets may hear about the “flexibility” of transportation dollars and cringe – after all, that word often refers to the ability of states to use bike/ped money for road building. But flexibility can work both ways. Between 2007 and 2011, states devoted $5 billion in surface transportation funds — known in some […]
Why Traffic Deaths Are More Common in Red States Than in Blue States
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Public interest journalist Stuart Silverstein at FairWarning.org has uncovered the fact that red states (defined as those that went for Mitt Romney in the last election) have higher traffic fatality rates than blue states (those that went for Barack Obama). The correlation is striking, Silverstein says, but he’s at a loss to explain it: The […]
Poll: Who Should Be the Next U.S. Transportation Secretary?
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Ryan Holeywell over at Governing Magazine has put together a pretty comprehensive list of possible contenders for the top job at U.S. DOT, if Ray LaHood makes good on his word and splits for the private sector. It’s unclear when he’s leaving, or if he even really meant to say he was definitely leaving, but […]
Will the Next Transpo Chair Continue Attacks on Bike/Ped Funding?
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This is the second of two posts examining Rep. Bill Shuster’s candidacy for the chairmanship of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Yesterday, we took a look at Shuster’s positions on rail and his leadership style. Here we delve into his record on active transportation and the always-thorny topic of funding. While you might […]
What Kind of Leadership Would Bill Shuster Bring to the Transpo Committee?
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This is the first of two posts examining Rep. Bill Shuster’s candidacy for the chairmanship of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. We’ll post the second one, focused on his positions on bike/ped programs and funding issues, tomorrow. Over the next few weeks, we could see a shake-up on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee […]
Grover Norquist Buckles to Pressure From Koch-Backed Group on Carbon Tax
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Some readers took issue with yesterday’s post that characterized a carbon tax as a terrific but politically unlikely proposal, after the Obama administration shot down the idea last week. Putting a price on carbon emissions is, after all, generating renewed interest from across the ideological spectrum. Notably, the libertarian American Enterprise Institute is co-sponsoring a forum on […]
Yes, We Have No Carbon Tax
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About 12 hours after President Obama won re-election, Bloomberg News ran this tantalizing headline: “Obama May Levy Carbon Tax to Cut U.S. Deficit, HSBC Says.” The article suggested that a $20-per-ton tax on carbon emissions, rising gradually over time, could help reduce the deficit by half within a decade. Within the same story was the […]
Communities Vote to Tax Themselves to Support Transit
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In addition to some of the high-profile measures that we covered already, Election Day brought many successes on some smaller ballot initiatives. According to the Center For Transportation Excellence, pro-transit campaigns had an 80 percent success rate this year at the ballot box, with more ballot measures coming up for a vote than any previous […]