Pennsylvania’s New Governor Is Awesome
Here's another race for governor with big implications for transportation policy: In Pennsylvania, businessman Tom Wolf handily beat incumbent Tom Corbett.
November 6, 2014
Local Ballot Results: The Good, the Bad, and the Highway Money Grabs
While last night's election is looking like decisively bad news for transit in the Senate and in several statehouses, the results from local ballot initiatives are a little brighter. Here are the highlights that have Streetsblog Network members buzzing, as well as results from other referendums around the country.
November 5, 2014
Florida Republican: Vote Down Transit Because Driverless Cars Are Coming
St. Petersburg doesn't need light rail, according to local Republican state legislator Jeff Brandes, because self driving cars are going to make transit irrelevant. That's why Brandes is fighting a ballot issue to be decided today in Pinellas County that would expand bus service 65 percent and open the way for future light rail, he told Fortune.
November 4, 2014
Ohio DOT’s Defense of the Transit-Inaccessible Transit Meeting
On Friday, the Ohio Department of Transportation held a meeting ostensibly to gather feedback from transit riders in the Dayton and Cincinnati regions. But ODOT held the meeting in exurban Lebanon -- a hour's trip by car from Cincinnati and totally inaccessible by transit from either city.
November 3, 2014
Sprawl Is Back in New Jersey
It’s starting to look like 2005 again in New Jersey. That’s what Andrew Besold at Network blog WalkBikeJersey has been noticing on his bike rides lately. Tracts of large houses are popping up again in formerly rural areas, and it’s threatening to overrun what’s left of the state’s unspoiled areas:
November 3, 2014
Portland Suburb: To Fight Climate Change, Expand Highways!
Clackamas County, outside of Portland, has some opinions about the region's plan to address climate change. According to Michael Andersen at Bike Portland, county commissioners have drafted a letter to regional planners saying the right way to control carbon emissions is to build more highways.
October 31, 2014
Ohio DOT Hosts Transit Meeting That No One Can Reach Via Transit
Ohio DOT is one of those old-school transportation agencies that’s still just a highway department. The director is a former asphalt industry lobbyist. The state — despite being fairly densely populated and urban (about 1 million people don’t have cars) — spent only $7.3 million supporting transit in 2013, far less than it devotes to mowing highway medians.
October 30, 2014
The Airtight Case for Road Diets
Bill Lindeke at Streets.mn calls them "death roads." Four-lane roads in urban areas can indeed be perilous.
October 29, 2014
Why a Street Designed for Transit Is Also Great for People
When cities devote street space exclusively to buses or trains, they usually encounter some stiff resistance to change. Dan Reed at Greater Greater Washington has been giving the topic some thought, because many of the DC region’s upcoming transit projects will require reallocating some lanes from cars to transit.
October 28, 2014
NACTO to Take Safer Street Designs to Developing World Cities
Last year, the National Association of City Transportation Officials brought us the Urban Street Design Guide, and now it’s going global.
October 27, 2014