Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Highway Expansion

The Grassroots Triumph Over a Ruinous Highway Plan for Charleston

By Angie Schmitt | | No Comments
Highway opponents in Charleston, South Carolina, “beat Goliath.” That’s how the Post and Courier described the finale of a long grassroots campaign to stop the extension of I-526 into Johns Island and James Island. Local officials made it official earlier this month: There will be no highway through the historic island communities outside Charleston. They conceded as much after learning the […]

The Problem With “Infrastructure Week”

By Angie Schmitt | | No Comments
You may have noticed that it’s “Infrastructure Week” in America — a time where engineering and construction industry groups beat the drum for more money, using big numbers and images of collapsing bridges. You can follow the dialogue on Twitter. It’s full of value-neutral statements like this one from Democratic members of the House Committee on Transportation […]

U.S. DOT Blows Chance to Reform the City-Killing, Planet-Broiling Status Quo

By Angie Schmitt | | No Comments
The Obama administration purportedly wants to use the lever of transportation policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx recently said he’d like to reverse the damage highways caused in urban neighborhoods, but you’d never know that by looking at U.S. DOT’s latest policy prescription. U.S. DOT has drafted new rules requiring state DOTs to track their […]

How San Diego Planners Spun the Press to Sell Highway Expansions

By Angie Schmitt | | No Comments
How far will transportation agencies go to spin public perception of their highway expansion plans? San Diego’s KPBS has produced a brilliant case study in this video and the accompanying report — a deep dive into the media operation mounted by the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) to defend its slate of highway expansion projects. In late 2011, SANDAG passed […]
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