The enthusiasm among some lawmakers to finish a multi-year federal transportation bill seems to have fizzled over the long August recess. House Transportation Committee Chair Bill Shuster is already talking about another extension. In July, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell teamed up with Senator Barbara Boxer to craft a three-year transportation bill that bore more […]

https://youtu.be/mq3DxArKAEo Physical activity is essential to people’s health, but dangerous streets and spread-out, sprawling communities prevent Americans from getting enough of it, says the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy. Murthy issued a call to action this morning to highlight how walking — and building walkable places — can benefit a nation where chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and […]

Rail travel has many advantages over flying, like the view out the window, or arriving at a downtown location. Perhaps most importantly: You don’t have to get to the train station an hour early to go through security checkpoints like you do in airports. But last month’s attack on a Paris-bound train has amplified calls to beef up rail […]

From the creative minds of bike activist and filmmaker Joe Biel and feminist bike ‘zine writer Elly Blue comes a new project that I bet you’re going to love. Groundswell is a series of videos that spotlight grassroots bicycle activists who don’t normally get much glory. Eight videos have been completed — the one above is the first […]

Delaware got rid of its “Share the Road” signs about two years ago. Though the signs were designed to affirm cyclists’ rights to the road, they were widely misinterpreted — by both motorists and cyclists — as an exhortation to cyclists to stop “hogging” the road, or as a recommendation that drivers and cyclists share a lane (leading to tight squeezes and […]

The Governors’ Highway Safety Association wants you to know it’s working really hard on pedestrian and bicycle safety. The coalition of state road safety agencies just put out another report in a series of well-intentioned but a off-base attempts to draw attention to the issue. In Everyone Walks: Understanding and Addressing Pedestrian Safety, GHSA notes that pedestrian […]

Indianapolis is building public support for a major street redesign the same way DIYers and tactical urbanists do: by testing out temporary changes. Monument Circle, where the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument stands tall at 285 feet, is a downtown traffic circle and city park with a lot of potential, but with three lanes of traffic whirling around […]

This year, Louisiana will raid $21.6 million from its road maintenance fund to pay for road projects, including some expansions, that have been on the books since 1989. The state will have to keep stealing from the fund for the next 27 years to pay for them. Voters approved a package of 16 road and bridge […]

A year after the Washington Metro opened the Silver Line in Northern Virginia, apartment rentals are booming and development is roaring ahead. But Martin Di Caro of WAMU reported Monday that the Metro itself isn’t meeting expectations: Only 17,000 riders board the Silver Line on a typical weekday, a figure that includes more than 9,100 […]

How did Portland get to be a national model for sustainable transportation and walkable development? Yes, Mayor Neil Goldschmidt stopped the Mount Hood Freeway from being built in 1974 and began negotiations that eventually led to the implementation of the urban growth boundary. But Goldschmidt didn’t do it alone. Grassroots activists from a group called […]

Yesterday, the Senate passed both a three-month transportation extension and a six-year reauthorization bill (albeit with three years of funding), which the Senate hopes to workshop with the House in the fall. The bill’s name itself — the DRIVE Act — raised the hackles of transit advocates. Looking deeper, it seems those advocates have more […]

Antiquated, car-oriented road design guidance is losing its vise grip on our cities. Other manuals are challenging the dominance of the “design bible” issued by AASHTO, the coalition of state DOTs. But the federal government might be missing an important opportunity to enshrine street safety for all modes. Over the past few years, the Federal Highway Administration […]