Recent Streetsblog LA posts about DC Streetsblog

Hybrid drivers: Nice try, but your wheels aren’t really saving the planet. Consumer Reports announced Thursday that Ford was inflating the mileage on its hybrid models. Instead of getting “47 city/47 highway/47 combined mpg” as advertised, the Fusion sedan gets 35/41/39 and the new C-Max wagon gets 35/38/37. That’s a pretty big difference — far bigger than […]

California Republicans from Fresno and Bakersfield put their foot down in a House hearing yesterday, rejecting the high-speed rail project whose initial segment would run between those two cities. Rep. Jeff Denham, whose district includes Fresno, is the author of an amendment, passed in June, to ensure that no more federal money gets spent on […]

Grand Rapids, Michigan. Fort Collins, Colorado. Savannah, Georgia. Mid-sized cities like these are stepping up and demanding many of the same transit improvements as their larger cousins. A new report from Reconnecting America [PDF] offers recommendations for these less populated cities to consider, whether they’re pursuing some version of bus rapid transit or a streetcar. The mid-sized […]

Walking can seem like a rather mundane thing to get organized about, until you realize that it’s a direct challenge to car-oriented transportation and it’s the best thing people can do for their health. Then walking is downright revolutionary. Not only that, but it can be joyful. That was the message that the U.S. Surgeon […]

President Obama is pressing for infrastructure investment again as part of the fiscal cliff negotiations. The president kicked off talks calling for an end to the debt ceiling, the extension of middle-class tax cuts, and $50 billion in infrastructure spending — a proposal that first arose last year as part of his ultimately unsuccessful American […]

If I’ve learned one thing from all the meetings about transportation I’ve covered, it’s this: There is no progress without a solution on funding. Every conversation about infrastructure turns on the question of how to pay for it. As the power of the gas tax declines, can it be restored or replaced? Does the political […]