Tanya Snyder

Earlier this month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed a new rule requiring automakers to install event data recorders, known as EDRs or black boxes, in all light passenger vehicles. While the rule would expand the number of vehicles equipped to record critical information in the moments preceding a crash, that alone won't aid investigations of traffic deaths or strengthen cases against reckless drivers. For black boxes to help get to the bottom of pedestrian and cyclist fatalities, changes to local crash investigation procedures and to EDR technology itself need to happen as well.

Ford has spent the last few years fretting about how to reach out to Gen Y. The car company made news earlier this year when it re-designed its 2015 Mustang to appeal to buyers born between 1980 and 1999. (Apparently Gen Y just screams "shark-nosed grille and round headlights" to Ford.)

OK, truth: Raise your hand if you find federal transportation legislation intimidating and incomprehensible.

Six weeks after my daughter was born, my midwife asked me if I was getting any exercise. I confessed I wasn’t. I hadn’t figured out a new routine that included exercise, my old activities weren’t baby-friendly, I just didn’t have the time, and I wasn’t up for anything high-impact.

Walking can seem like a rather mundane thing to get organized about, until you realize that it’s a direct challenge to car-oriented transportation and it’s the best thing people can do for their health. Then walking is downright revolutionary.

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.

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.

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 against Amtrak have become white noise, and they’re about to fade into the background as Mica surrenders his post to Rep. Bill Shuster next year.

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.

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 quarters as "highway money" -- to transit programs, according to the Government Accountability Office.