State DOTs
Streetsblog Basics
Data: State DOTs Look Nothing Like the Residents They Serve
Why are state DOTs so overwhelmingly white and male — and what impact does it have on road users who don't share those identities?
April 4, 2024
‘Stop the Highway-Expansion Madness,’ New Coalition Demands
"Endless highway expansions are pulling our country into an environmental, budgetary, and public health crisis," the letter states.
February 7, 2024
Safety Last: Feds Rely Too Much on States’ Vision to Get to ‘Zero’
State DOTs play a central role in the safety and sustainability of transportation systems because states set policies. Here are two that do it poorly and two that do it well.
December 28, 2023
The Debt Ceiling Deal Could Be Bad News For Freeway Fighters
A poison pill buried within the new debt ceiling deal would "gut" key elements of the nation's bedrock environmental law in exchange for preventing a national default and could make it easier for highway-building agencies to expedite road projects that harm vulnerable communities for generations, advocates warn.
June 2, 2023
Here’s How State DOTs Can Help the Unhoused — On and Off the Road
A new study finds that departments of transportation can and must do more to protect a particularly vulnerable group: the unhoused people who take shelter on and alongside American roads.
February 27, 2023
How Traffic Engineers Blame You for Their Profession’s Mistakes
"Street design and land use are at the root cause of a lot of the traffic safety challenges we see across the country,” said Mike Lydon, founding principal of Street Plans. “And to fail to acknowledge that is a problem.”
December 18, 2022
Report: State and Federal Officials Are Asleep at the Wheel on AV Safety
"We have concerns about this technology now — not even considering how complex it might someday become," said one report author.
December 8, 2022
Opinion: Whose Child Will Be Killed on a Stroad?
We can’t keep using the places that poor people live in as highways for wealthier people to move through quickly.
October 23, 2022
What The Proposed GHG Rule Will (And Won’t) Do for the Climate
Federal regulators want local governments to track transportation sector emissions — but they can't do much to force communities to reduce those emissions, never mind doing so in ways that would address the other damages of car dependency, experts say.
July 21, 2022
THE BRAKE: Should Cities Train Their Own Transportation Advocates?
On this week's podcast, we explore why it's so hard to get a new crosswalk — for both the citizen and the transportation professional at the other end of the request.
April 26, 2022
