Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Transportation Policy

PBS Exposes the Joys of Transit

By Ben Fried | Oct 10, 2008 | 12 Comments

NOW host David Brancaccio does an interview on the LA Metro. Click through for the full video. The latest episode of NOW is surely the most effective takedown of car-dependent planning ever broadcast in news magazine format. Adhering to the familiar contours of pocketbook journalism, "Driven to Despair" starts with a sympathetic portrayal of the […]

James Oberstar on the Future of U.S. Transportation Funding

By Ben Fried | Oct 10, 2008 | 1 Comment

Minnesota Representative James Oberstar is perhaps the strongest advocate for transit on Capitol Hill. In a recent Q&A with the Kansas City Star, he shared his thoughts on how the financial crisis will affect federal investments in transportation: Transit currently receives about 20 percent of federal surface transportation funding. Next year’s surface transportation authorization will […]

Economy Hitting the Skids? Time to Get Ambitious About Transportation

By Ben Fried | Oct 7, 2008 | 17 Comments

T.A. director Paul White sends along this little nugget he came across in the New York Times archive. Read it for a timely review (penned by a pre-Bilbao Herbert Muschamp) of a Municipal Art Society show staged the last time an economic downturn coincided with a presidential election, in 1992: "Steel, Stone and Backbone," which […]

Amtrak Bill Clears the Way for Bike-Friendly Trains

By Ben Fried | Oct 7, 2008 | 14 Comments

The five-year Amtrak authorization that Congress passed last week includes a nice inter-modal touch. It states in no uncertain terms that funding can be spent on making trains accessible for bikes: NONMOTORIZED TRANSPORTATION ACCESS AND STORAGE. — Grants under this chapter may be used to provide access to rolling stock for nonmotorized transportation, including bicycles, […]

The Bailout: Won’t Someone Please Think of the Car Dealers?

By Brad Aaron | Oct 3, 2008 | 1 Comment

Cap’n Transit pointed out the other day how US Senators, including Majority Leader Harry Reid, were pushing Bailout 2.0 by emphasizing the precipitous drop in new car sales and the slowing of highway construction as indicators of national crisis. (Mayor Bloomberg, by the way, also alluded to empty dealer showrooms during yesterday’s third term pitch.) […]

Bailout Bill Includes Bike Commuting Benefit

By Brad Aaron | Oct 2, 2008 | 24 Comments

Remember Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer’s long-sought $20 per month tax credit for bike commuters, intended to extend a benefit to cyclists that motorists have received for decades? The measure ridiculed by North Carolina Rep. Patrick "Give Me Fossil Fuels or Give Me Death" McHenry? It didn’t make it into law last year, but it seems […]

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