Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Federal Highway Administration

Petitioning U.S. DOT to Recognize That City Streets Should Prioritize Walking

By Angie Schmitt | Jun 10, 2013 | No Comments

The Federal Highway Administration classifies roads as either “rural” or “urbanized.” But the “urbanized” label is deceptive, because it applies suburban street design standards to any street that isn’t rural. So if you live in, say, downtown St. Louis, the FHWA applies the same standards to your streets as to the streets in Orlando’s most […]

FHWA Helps Cities and Towns Land Bike/Ped Funding

By Tanya Snyder | Oct 23, 2012 | No Comments

American cities and towns should get a leg up on using federal funds to make streets safer for biking and walking, thanks to rules enacted yesterday by the Federal Highway Administration. MAP-21, the current transportation law, was passed hurriedly enough that not all the i’s could be dotted and t’s could be crossed — and […]

Five Factors That Will Determine Whether TIFIA Benefits Transit

By Phineas Baxandall | Oct 16, 2012 | No Comments

Phineas Baxandall is a senior analyst at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Last week, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood touted his department’s $545.9 million TIFIA loan to construct Los Angeles’ 8.5-mile light rail transit line along the Crenshaw corridor as “just one example of how DOT’s TIFIA credit assistance program extends the value of America’s transportation dollar.” But will […]

How Highway Spending Could Become as Transparent as Bike/Ped Spending

By Tanya Snyder | Sep 11, 2012 | No Comments

“There’s an inverse proportion of the size of a transportation program to the amount of transparency,” says Deron Lovaas of the Natural Resources Defense Council. While anyone can easily find in granular detail anything they would ever want to know about where bike/ped money goes, and they can get a pretty good idea of what’s going […]

When Livability Projects Meet Eisenhower-Era Design Standards

By Angie Schmitt | Jul 25, 2012 | No Comments

Tearing down highways, as New Haven, Connecticut is planning to do to a short section of Route 34, is a rare (though increasingly sought after) outcome in American transportation policy. Some highway removals are unintended consequences of neglect or disaster, like the collapse of New York’s Miller Highway and the damage caused to San Francisco’s […]

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