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
There’s a Lot Riding on U.S. DOT’s Definition of “Congestion”
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Congress has done its job, such as it is, and passed a transportation bill. Now it’s handed off the policymaking to U.S. DOT, which must issue a raft of rules, definitions, and guidance to accompany the new law, known as MAP-21. According to sources with intimate knowledge of this process, much depends on how DOT […]
International Funders Shift Investments Toward Sustainable Transportation
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If you think the United States is doing a bad job shifting toward sustainable transportation, take a look at the developing world. The places with the most to lose from auto-oriented development are doubling down on it — to the enormous detriment of their citizens, especially the poorest. The number of cars in the world […]
The Strain of Job Sprawl on Two-Income Households
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When Mark Lampert was a kid, his mom stayed home with him and his brothers. His dad was out the door by 4:30 every morning, driving to the commuter lot in their distant Houston suburb to take the bus in to the city for work. He had friends whose parents both worked, and when those […]
In New NHTSA Report, Scarce Information on Causes of Pedestrian Deaths
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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported last December that while overall traffic fatalities in the United States dropped in 2010, pedestrian deaths rose higher – up four percent in 2010 over 2009. Yesterday, the agency released some more detailed statistics about those crashes [PDF], but the report includes scarcely any data or analysis about the underlying […]
Governors Get on Board With Smart Growth
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As yesterday’s post about Oklahoma City’s fight to replace a downtown highway with a real urban boulevard illustrated so well, cities are often at the vanguard of smart urban planning and transportation choices while state-level agencies can be laggards. So it’s nice to see some governors and ex-governors stepping forward to emphasize the value of […]
How Much Bang Are Cities Getting From Federal BRT Bucks?
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How substantial are the benefits delivered by federal investment in bus rapid transit projects, and how can the feds help local governments build better bus improvements? A new report from the non-partisan Government Accountability Office [PDF] looks at the results of BRT projects that have been completed in 20 cities since 2005, when SAFETEA-LU expanded federal […]
MAP-21 Puts the Squeeze on Bridge Repair and Bikes
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One of the most popular elements of the new transportation authorization is its consolidation or elimination of 60 federal programs. But this cleanup is not without its casualties. One of those casualties is the off-system bridge program. And another one, indirectly, is funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects. As you can see, the Highway Bridge […]
No Explanations as Traffic Deaths Jump 13.5 Percent
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In the wake of the shocking and tragic massacre in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater, many people are now, understandably, skittish about going to the movies. But the most dangerous part of going to the movies is driving there. In the first three months of this year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 7,630 […]
How State DOTs Got Congress to Grant Their Wish List
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Bike and pedestrian funding got slashed. Federal assistance for transit operations was rejected. Even the performance measures – arguably the high point of the recently passed federal transportation bill – are too weak to be very meaningful. For Americans who want federal policy to support safe streets, sustainable transportation, and livable neighborhoods, there were few […]
Why Congress Can’t Kill the Partnership for Sustainable Communities
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Let’s say you worked for a city that was trying to revitalize a piece of land with a bunch of dilapidated buildings on it. You want to build some residences and some retail space, and you want to make better connections to the street grid. Congratulations – HUD and U.S. DOT both have money to […]
Tea Party Deficit Hawks Don’t Mind Charging the Taxpayer For Personal Cars
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From the Drivers-Don’t-Pay-Their-Own-Way Department… ThinkProgress has done some sleuthing and found that seven Tea Party freshmen, who came to Congress on a platform of strict frugality and deficit reduction, have been sticking taxpayers with the bill for their own personal cars. These are some of the same people who hijacked the transportation bill conference process by […]
Brookings: Inadequate Transit and Sprawl Cut Off Workers From Jobs
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If there’s a problem connecting workers with workplaces, it stands to reason that there’s a problem connecting workplaces with workers. A new report from the Brookings Institution has teased out the subtleties of this side of the transit/jobs equation. Last year, Brookings found that, on average, 70 percent of jobs in a metropolitan region are […]