What would you think of a city planner, out ruffling feathers with his bold ideas about density and urbanism — who commutes to work an hour each way from his ranch way outside the city? Ironic — or hypocritical? That’s the question we wrestle with in our discussion of Brad Buchanan, the head honcho at […]

The Supreme Court has the chance to redeem its spotty record of late by making the trains run on time. Yes, it’s in their power. If you’ve noticed lately that Amtrak trains have been more delayed and more run-down than usual, there’s a very good reason for that. Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for […]

Welcome to the dog days of summer! Before skipping town, Congress passed a transportation funding patch so they wouldn’t have to deal with the real problem of the unsustainable way our nation builds and pays for infrastructure. I give the briefest possible rundown of where we are now before Jeff and I launch into discussions about the issues of the […]

This post is part of a series featuring stories and research that will be presented at the Pro-Walk/Pro-Bike/Pro-Place conference September 8-11 in Pittsburgh. Last week, Pittsburgh got its first suburban bus stop makeover. And the results were beautiful. The new IKEA “super-stop” lies in a shopping center along an interstate highway, surrounded by surface parking, between a TGI Fridays […]

Uber and Lyft have set out to upend the taxi industry in American cities. But are they the traffic-busting “ride-sharing” services they’re often portrayed to be? Not really: Using an app to hail a driver and take you where you’re going isn’t fundamentally different than any traditional for-hire vehicle service. But both Uber and Lyft are […]

“Our transportation problems are easy to see but often difficult to explain.” That’s how Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx opened his virtual town hall meeting on the theme “Moving from Uncertainty to Long-Term Transportation Investment” this afternoon. “We have signs that warn you when traffic is ahead,” he went on. “But those signs don’t always tell […]

Last night, Missourians decided overwhelmingly to reject a ballot initiative that would have raised the sales tax by three-quarters of a cent to pay, almost exclusively, for roads. It would have been the largest tax increase in the state’s history. Voters voted 59 percent to 41 percent to reject the tax. “It’s difficult to pass […]

Who is most at risk of being hit by a car? People on foot make up a growing proportion of people killed in traffic — 15 percent in 2012, up from 11 percent in 2007. Children, seniors, and people of color account for a disproportionate share of the victims. So do people living in low-income areas, according […]

In this week’s podcast, Jeff and I take on the infamous New York City “poor door,” designed to keep tenants of affordable units segregated from the wealthy residents that occupy the rest of the high-rise at 40 Riverside. In the process, we take on the assumptions and methods that cities use to provide housing, and […]

Someone had to cave and last night, it was the Senate. The upper chamber had fought as long as it could to adjust the House transportation bill so it wouldn’t expire when the GOP controls both chambers of Congress. But senators were never willing to actually let the Highway Trust Fund go broke. U.S. DOT would […]

This post is part of a series featuring stories and research that will be presented at the Pro-Walk/Pro-Bike/Pro-Place conference September 8-11 in Pittsburgh. To get to Seoul Gumsan Elementary School in South Korea, students have to cross a heavily trafficked road with a blind curve. Between 2009 and 2010, 89 children were injured and one killed in 86 traffic […]

UPDATE 2:40 p.m.: The House has rejected the Senate amendment, as expected. Today is the House of Representatives’ last day in session before departing for an August recess full of photo ops and electioneering in their districts. The Senate will stick around DC for one more day before going home. Before that happens, the two […]