CA Voters Reject Measures With Lots of Highway Money and a Dash of Transit
On Tuesday night, voters approved major transit improvement plans in Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Raleigh, and Seattle.
November 10, 2016
If Not for Trump, Last Night Would Have Been Great for Transit
Last night had the makings of a historic election for transit. Voters in cities as varied as Raleigh, Indianapolis, and Los Angeles turned out to support ballot measures to dramatically expand bus and rail service. But the election of Donald Trump and the retention of GOP majorities in both houses of Congress cast a pall of uncertainty over transit agencies everywhere, with continued federal support for transit suddenly in doubt.
November 9, 2016
Transit Vote 2016: What’s at Stake on Local Ballots and How to Track Results
With federal transportation policy stuck in DC gridlock, more cities and regions are taking it upon themselves to shape the future of their transit systems. Today there are 78 local ballot measures that will affect funding for transportation in some way, with $200 billion in transit investment at stake, according to the Center for Transportation Excellence.
November 8, 2016
Transit Opponents Fight Ballot Measures With the Language of Tech Futurism
Today's a huge day for transit on local ballots.
November 8, 2016
Milwaukee Is Claiming Its Excess Street Space for Bicycling
Milwaukee has shrunk since the 1960s, when its population was about 19 percent bigger than today, leaving the city with a lot of excess road capacity. As a result, Milwaukee is a city where it's relatively easy to replace general traffic lanes with bike lanes. Other cities in the Rust Belt -- and anywhere suffering from population loss -- could be doing the same.
November 7, 2016
How the Accommodations We Make for Cars Impose Huge Costs on Cities
Wide highways, big parking lots, dangerous intersections designed for speed -- there are a lot of downsides to all this car-centric infrastructure, including the way it saps the fiscal health of cities.
November 4, 2016
How Can Cities Make the Most of an Infrastructure Spending Spree?
Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have indicated that they intend to spend big on "infrastructure" if elected president. Whether this ends up making cities stronger or just fueling more wasteful sprawl, however, is an open question.
November 3, 2016
Will Seattle Blow Its Chance to Reclaim Its Waterfront?
It's bad enough that Washington DOT is building a huge underground highway by the Seattle waterfront at enormous expense and financial risk. Now the city is poised to ruin the one benefit of the highway tunnel -- better pedestrian connections to the waterfront.
November 2, 2016
Transit Vote 2016: Raleigh’s Chance to Grow Smarter
We continue our overview of what’s at stake in the big transit ballot initiatives this November with a look at Wake County, North Carolina. Previous installments in this series examined Indianapolis, Seattle, Detroit, and Atlanta.
November 1, 2016
Pedestrian Shaming — an Annual Rite of Halloween
Cutrufo has a good roundup of how different agencies performed: Florida, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina and New York state DOTs, and the Federal Highway Administration get the worst marks, while Missouri, Texas, Illinois and Louisiana DOTs get points for placing responsibility on motor vehicle operators.
November 1, 2016