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
Government Shutdown Would Be a Punch in the Gut to Transit Agencies
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A powwow between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, President Obama, and House Speaker John Boehner last night failed to yield a compromise that would put a budget in place before the government shuts down at midnight tonight. The failure of yet another attempt to negotiate makes a government shutdown all but inevitable. Just a month […]
More From the House Transpo Hearings: The Advocates Edition
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Editor’s note: These are the highlights from hearings on the upcoming transportation bill, where people made the case to Congress for sustainable transportation options. I’ll follow up with the Bad and the Ugly (like a whole lineup of people who want to kick transit out of the Highway Trust Fund). This week’s stakeholder hearings in […]
Strange Bedfellows Unite for Infrastructure Investment, Financing Tools
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The “Tom and Rich Show” continued on Capitol Hill yesterday. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue and AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka joined up for yet another event to show that business and labor, which don’t agree on anything, agree on a major infusion of federal investment for infrastructure. They weren’t the only strange bedfellows there. […]
The Week Ahead: Congress Fights About Budget Cuts and Talks Transpo
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I hope members of Congress had a nice, relaxing recess this week, because it’s about to get crazy on Capitol Hill. The Budget Congress isn’t any closer to consensus on the FY2011 budget than when they adjourned March 18 with a three-week budget extension to avoid a government shutdown while they duke it out over […]
The Secrets to Success for Transit-Oriented Development
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Proximity to downtown and employment centers, and the availability of developable land, are what lead to big real estate impacts from transit expansion. Source: CTOD “Transit alone is insufficient to make a real estate market,” said Dena Belzer, the president of Strategic Economics, an urban design consulting firm. Her group is a partner in the […]
WSJ: Mica Says Transit Funding Will Stay “About the Same”
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Update: Transportation Committee staff says Mica has confirmed what he meant: “He was referring to the share. Keep in mind that we have no numbers or details for a bill yet — the hearing process is not yet finished and we have not drafted a bill. He was simply speculating at this point.” Using the […]
House Transportation Committee Rejects Obama’s 2012 Budget Request
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The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is having its say about the president’s ambitious – and unpaid-for – budget request for transportation. “The [president’s] proposal assumes a ‘placeholder revenue increase’ of $435 billion over a 10-year period but does not identify how to pay for the revenue increase,” says the committee’s “Views and Estimates” document, […]
Rep. LaTourette Tells Transit Advocates to Ask Congress for What They Need
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Transit officials spent the day on Capitol Hill yesterday, meeting with Congressional offices as part of the American Public Transportation Association’s legislative conference. Transportation Committee Chair John Mica suggested they ask members for a six-year bill. Secretary Ray LaHood urged them to ask for support for President Obama’s “big, bold vision” for transportation. Rep. Steve […]
“Grab a Hold of Your Shorts”: Mica and LaHood Talk Transportation Bill
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This morning, House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica told transit professionals gathered at the American Public Transportation Association’s legislative conference that he’s still hoping to pass a bill out of the House by May in order to get it signed before September 30, when the current extension of SAFETEA-LU expires. “It’ll be very difficult after […]
Kerry, Hutchinson, and Warner Introduce New Infrastructure Bank Bill
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Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), along with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), just announced that they’re introducing the BUILD Act today, which would create a national infrastructure bank. They’re proposing to start the bank with $10 billion of seed money that would leverage hundreds of billions of dollars, according to their […]
Will Senate Republicans Send Back Their Own States’ TIGER Money?
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TIGER grants, announced last year, hang in the balance as the Senate debates the package of House-passed spending cuts. Congress is about to vote on another extension of the current budget, cutting another $2 billion per week. (Up until now, those “cuts” have mostly been budget items from 2010 that the Democrats weren’t going to […]
Cyclists Descend on Capitol Hill, Ask Lawmakers to Preserve Bike Funding
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Every year, the cyclists that gather in Washington for the National Bike Summit meet with hundreds of Congressional offices to ask for expanded bike funding. This year, they’re just asking lawmakers not to cut it. With an anti-spending mood prevailing inside the Beltway, bicycling advocates are trying to be realistic. “We haven’t forgotten that there’s […]