Elana Schor
Recent Posts
First Lady Launches Childhood Obesity Push With Nod to Biking & Walking
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First Lady Michelle Obama took to the mikes this afternoon to kick off a national campaign to combat childhood obesity, emphasizing new initiatives to promote biking and walking alongside a strong focus on healthier food options in schools. The first lady visited "Sesame Street" last fall as part of her push to fight childhood obesity. […]
US PIRG: How About High Speed Rail for Every Major City
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(Image: U.S. PIRG) Now that the Obama administration has awarded $8 billion in high-speed rail grants to more than two dozen states, with $2.5 billion more coming soon, why not keep thinking big when it comes to bullet-train expansion? That’s the ethos of a new report released today by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group […]
Report: White House Budget Office Helped Weaken EPA Pollution Rule
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Pensacola, Florida. Springfield, Missouri. Fort Wayne, Indiana. All three of those metropolitan areas have populations between 350,000 and 500,000, and all three would have been required to install nitrogen dioxide monitoring stations near major roadways under a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule cracking down on the pollutant. Cass Sunstein, chief of the White House […]
EPA and HUD Make Big Investments in Sustainable Development
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The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are making significant progress on their joint effort, with the U.S. DOT, to connect cleaner transportation options with affordable housing and denser urban development. A future commuter rail station along Boston’s Fairmount Line, one of five areas selected for EPA sustainable […]
A Vow to ‘Bring Republicans to the Table’ for a New Transport Bill
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Despite Senate Democratic efforts to move quickly on a new jobs bill that includes infrastructure investment and takes steps towards solving the nation’s transportation financing dilemma, Congress has just two more weeks of work until time runs out on the latest short-term extension of the five-year-old law governing federal transport policy. "We will bring Republicans […]
Two Troubling Transportation Numbers for the Obama Administration
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Yesterday brought news of two grim transportation numbers from the Obama administration: 2 and $53 million. Atlanta’s Metro won a share of the emissions-cutting transit grants that the White House proposes to cut next year. (Photo: Atlanta Metblogs) The first figure is the percentage of federal transport stimulus contracts that have gone to disadvantaged and […]
Senate Dems to Call Up Jobs Bill Monday … With Transport Details TBA
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Senate Democratic leaders appeared this morning to tout their commitment to passing a job-creation bill by the end of next week — but the substance of their jobs measure, including the fate of pivotal transportation provisions, remains up in the air. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) (Photo: LV City Life) Harry Reid (D-NV), the […]
Miami, Sacramento, Boston Transit Projects Still Seeking Federal Approval
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Amid the good vibes yesterday over new federal funding agreements for transit projects in New York City, Oakland, Hartford, and other metro areas, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) also offered a spell of bad news to a few local proposals that are still working to meet the agency’s standards for aid. An extension of Miami’s […]
White House Pitches $400M for Healthier Neighborhood Food Outlets
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The connection between walkable development and grocery shopping may not seem immediately apparent — until you consider studies conducted in cities from Austin to Seattle that showed the share of trips taken by foot or by transit rises as local food outlets move closer to residential areas. The White House budget envisions a new investment […]
How Can Transit Backers Sway Conservatives? Oberstar Joins the Debate
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In the years before partisan warfare became the norm in Washington, transportation tended to unite both ends of the ideological spectrum. Can rationality return to infrastructure policy debates that have become subsumed by culture clashes between cyclists and drivers, urbanists and suburbanites — and, of course, Democrats and Republicans? Highways and transit, side by side […]
U.S. DOT Names the Transit Projects Set for Federal Funding
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The Obama administration last night revealed the names of local transit projects getting recommendations for federal aid under the U.S. DOT’s New and Small Starts programs, which are set to receive $1.8 billion during fiscal year 2011. The list includes some familiar urban projects — New York’s Second Avenue Subway, for instance, already had a […]
LaHood Talks Budget: “Very Bright” Future for Infrastructure Fund
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Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said today that he sees "very bright" prospects for congressional approval of the Obama administration’s $4 billion National Infrastructure Innovation and Finance Fund, the new iteration of the long-discussed National Infrastructure Bank proposal. Transportation Secretary LaHood, at left, with the president. (Photo: NYT) "There is a great deal of interest in […]