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
Major Transpo Projects Chosen For Federal Fast-Tracking Lean Multi-Modal
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Last month Streetsblog asked whether President Obama would select transportation projects that reduce congestion, improve air quality, and create jobs when he picked several infrastructure investments, among those recommended by agency officials, to fast-track. The selection of these projects, intended to help spur short-term job creation, could avoid the mistakes of the 2009 stimulus program, […]
Transit Union Challenges NYPD Order to Help Arrest Fellow Protestors
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After Saturday’s arrest of 700 Occupy Wall Street protestors, the New York Police Department ordered bus drivers to go to the Brooklyn Bridge, and transport protestors to police facilities for holding and processing. Police arrest a protestor on the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday. Transit workers say it's not their job to help. Photo: Reuters But the […]
USDOT Tries to Resuscitate the HSR Dreams Congress Wants to Bury
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High-speed rail has had a rough go of it lately. The House refused to give it a dime for next year, while the Senate only managed to allocate a fraction of what the president wanted. President Obama stuck some money back in via his jobs package, but it already seems clear that the package won’t […]
Republicans Have Their Own Plan to Pay for Infrastructure Jobs: Oil Drilling
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President Obama has proposed a plan to pay for the American Jobs Act, the $447 billion bill to create 1.9 million jobs, including $50 billion for infrastructure. His “pay-for” plan includes limitations on itemized deductions for the wealthy and the elimination of some tax loopholes for oil and gas companies. Republicans have a different idea, […]
Will Obama’s Transportation Jobs Plan Avoid Funding Sprawl?
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USDOT has made public the breakdown of President Obama’s $50 billion plan to create jobs through transportation infrastructure investment. The administration says: “It will put people to work upgrading 150,000 miles of road, laying/maintaining 4,000 miles of train tracks, restoring 150 miles of runways, and putting in place a next-generation air-traffic control system that will […]
TTI: Mass Transit Saved Drivers 45.4 Million Hours Last Year
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Last year, the D.C. region ran away with the dubious honor of Most Congested Metro Area. D.C. area drivers wasted 74 hours and 37 gallons of fuel sitting in traffic last year, which would have cost about $100 over the course of the year. But the gasoline cost is just the tip of the iceberg. According […]
Would President Romney Build Roads or Rail?
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All eyes are on Texas Gov. Rick Perry these days, the faraway frontrunner in the Republican race. But as the primary goes on (and on and on) more Republicans might take note of the fact that in a matchup with President Obama, only one candidate stands a chance of winning: former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. […]
Mica, GOP Leadership Looking to Raise Transportation Spending Levels in Bill
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According to yet another great report from Jeff Davis at Transportation Weekly, House Republican leadership has given House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica permission to seek additional revenues to fund the transportation reauthorization at levels $15 billion higher than initially proposed. One Republican source, quoted in Transportation Weekly, said that given the persistently high unemployment […]
Dealbreaker: Senate Rejects House Budget Due to Lack of Car Subsidies
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What’s keeping Congress from passing an extension to the federal budget? Democratic protection of automobile subsidies. After midnight last night, the House finally managed to narrowly pass a budget extension bill, but Senate leaders have already rejected it out of hand, since it includes about half the disaster relief they’d like and cuts $1.5 billion […]
Senate Saves a Sliver For High-Speed Rail
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President Obama had sought $8 billion for high-speed rail in 2012. The House-passed budget had exactly zero. The Senate bill approved by the Transportation subcommittee Tuesday followed suit. But the full Appropriations Committee yesterday put $100 million back into next year’s budget for the president’s signature transportation initiative. Senator Dick Durbin, co-chair of the High-Speed […]
Senate Strips High-Speed Rail Funding
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The Senate’s transportation budget proposal is still under wraps, but we’re getting some clues about what’s in it. This morning, a subcommittee marked up the transportation and HUD appropriations bill, and the full committee will consider it tomorrow afternoon. Only after that will the draft bill be released. During this morning’s subcommittee markup, though, a […]
Federal Support for Smart Planning Is on the Line Today
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A Senate panel will vote today on two budget bills for FY2012, one of which is for transportation and housing programs. The draft of the bill isn’t available until after the subcommittee markup today, but Smart Growth America is calling attention to the fact that it’s important to make sure the bill includes funding for […]