Tanya Snyder

When the buzz about a new, stimulus-funded, discretionary transportation grant program started to circulate in 2009, some environmentalists opposed it. They worried it would be a slush fund for the Federal Highway Administration, used to build unnecessary roads that would aggravate sprawl and pollution. But insiders knew that wasn’t how the new Obama administration would be handling things.

On Monday, we featured a Systemic Failure post about FRA regulations in our morning round-up from the Streetsblog Network. Systemic Failure indicated -- and Streetsblog repeated -- that the FRA was unwilling to change its rules to allow Amtrak to use “off-the-shelf” trainsets and other equipment.

Just last month, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave U.S. infrastructure another dismal grade and every media outlet and lawmaker in the country, it seemed, bellyached about how we need to invest more. And then Gallup asked Americans if they’d be willing to raise the gas tax by 20 cents a gallon. The answer was a big, fat, “No.”

To hear some urbanists talk, you’d think the outer suburbs have been abandoned wholesale, lawn-mowers still running with no one to drive them, picket fences left open in the owners’ haste to beat it to the city.

If Jane Doe rides her bike a mile to the post office and then back home, is it fair to assume she just avoided two miles of driving? And can we then assume that she prevented 2.2 pounds of carbon dioxide from being emitted?

Since 1970, the National Environmental Protection Act has required federal agencies to consider the impacts of their projects on air, water, and soil pollution -- but not on climate change.

The American Society of Civil Engineers released its new report card for U.S. infrastructure yesterday. The topline grades: The country’s “GPA” has gone from a D four years ago to a D+; roads have gone from a D- to a D; transit has stayed steady at a D; and rail made the biggest leap, from a C- to a C+.

“In 2014, federal investment in surface transportation -- which is currently about $50 billion per year -- will drop to $6 billion or $7 billion. In one year.”

Now that the surface transportation bill fight is over -- at least for the moment -- transportation reformers are eying the expiration date of another key piece of legislation later this year. The reauthorization of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 (PRIIA) could be a chance to make some needed changes to jump-start progress in the passenger rail system. Or it could be the next partisan battleground, making it a process as unnavigable as the lead-up to the passage of MAP-21.

If bicyclists want to convince policymakers of the benefits of cycling, they need to stop talking about cycling. That was one major lesson of this year’s National Bike Summit, thanks to some strategic research done by a friendly consultant. So the Summit’s theme was “Bicycling Means Business” – and the economic impacts of a healthy cycling culture don’t end with the cyclist.