Streetsblog USA

Downtown Columbus, Ohio, is facing a parking crunch. But parking prices aren't high enough in this city to make garage construction a viable private investment. Faced with this situation, a lot of cities would pour a bunch of money into a big subsidized garage or two. But in Columbus, several officials have hit on a smarter idea: providing free transit passes to downtown workers.

Welcome to day two of the 2016 Parking Madness tournament. Yesterday, the assortment of surface parking between the Capitol and Union Station in Washington crushed the parking lots that greet people entering downtown Burlington, Vermont.

Does your city have what it takes to compete in Streetsblog's fourth annual Parking Madness tournament? Who will join Tulsa, Rochester, and Camden, NJ, as winners of the coveted "Golden Crater"?

Once again, state lawmakers in Georgia have undermined urban transport in Atlanta. A bill to allow residents Fulton and DeKalb counties to vote on a half-cent sales tax to fund transit died in the Georgia Senate this week when leaders refused to bring it to the floor for a vote.

Rental assistance from HUD isn't enough to make the cost of living affordable when the subsidies go toward housing in car-dependent areas, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Texas and the University of Utah. The study evaluated transportation costs for more than 18,000 households that receive HUD rental subsidies, estimating that nearly half of recipients have to spend more than 15 percent of their household budgets on transportation.

The city of Detroit lost a stunning 25 percent of its population between 2000 and 2010. Even as the city struggles heroically to repair the damage, the Michigan state government is undermining Detroit's fragile recovery.

Michael Andersen blogs for The Green Lane Project, a PeopleForBikes program that helps U.S. cities build better bike lanes to create low-stress streets.

Michael Andersen blogs for The Green Lane Project, a PeopleForBikes program that helps U.S. cities build better bike lanes to create low-stress streets.

Build parking spaces and they will come -- in cars. New research presented this week at the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board finds a direct, causal relationship between the amount of parking in cities and car commuting rates.