Photo: @jackNruth/Twitter via @MikeLydon

This Twitter photo of LeBron James biking to American Airlines Arena before facing off against Derrick Rose and the Chicago Bulls last night has gone viral on sports news sites all over America.

There are some interesting sociological currents swirling around LeBron James, bike commuter. While the photographer labeled James a “manchild” for taking to Miami’s none-too-friendly streets on a bike, the prevailing sentiment in the ESPN comments section seems to be that the sight of LeBron riding to work will help rehab his public image.

After the Heat edged the Bulls, James told reporters in the locker room that bike commuting is pretty routine for him. In fact, he seems to enjoy talking about the bike ride more than the basketball game:

The Heat forward isn’t as vocal about his modal proclivities as say, Baltimore Orioles pitcher Jeremy Guthrie, but he sure has a higher pulpit if he ever chooses to speak up about street safety. Our friends at Transit Miami are hoping LeBron the bike commuter can quicken the pace of change in south Florida: “Maybe now we can get some Lebron-sized bicycle lanes.”

Reader Paul Murphy sends along this ad from the Australian division of Giant Bicycles. The spot, by the Melbourne-based firm Leo Burnett, started airing last summer as part of Giant’s “Real Riders” campaign. Imagine if images of grocery bags slung over handlebars could somehow saturate the airwaves as much as sleek new luxury sedans gliding through traffic-free downtown streets.

Has anyone seen an ad with so many scenes of city cycling air in the U.S.?

Before I get to that, congratulations to the winner of last week’s prize: Long-time Streetsblog reader Marc Agger will be taking home a Zero Tweed bag from Rickshaw Bags.

This week’s prize comes courtesy of Levi’s. Make a one-time or monthly gift by Friday at midnight and you could win a jacket and jeans from Levi’s new Commuter line, designed specifically for cyclists.

The jeans

The jacket

I have the Commuter jacket and it’s great for riding in the spring or fall, even in the rain.

Thanks again to all our dedicated supporters. If you haven’t donated yet, please pitch in and help make 2012 a great year for livable streets coverage.

The Washington Metro system keeps hundreds of thousands of cars off the streets a day, and is responsible for hundreds of millions in tax revenues and household savings per year. Photo: thisisbossi/Flickr

At the heart of the region’s success is, of course, the Washington Metro, which has shaped development for more than three decades. In fact, so much of the land near Metro stations has been developed that ridership is projected to reach the design capacity of the current system within the next 20 years. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority is currently mapping out how to respond.

At a panel this morning, Nat Bottigheimer, an assistant general manager at WMATA, shared some results from an internal study the agency conducted as part of this process. The core question he investigated: “What is it you’re actually getting from a transit investment?”

The agency’s research and modeling produced some intriguing numbers demonstrating how the creation of Metro — its 86 stations and 106 miles of track — has benefited the region:

• Since the system was created, $212 billion in real estate value has been added within a half-mile of Metro stations.
• Land value near Metro stations generates $2.8 billion annually in property tax revenues. $195 million of that is directly attributable to transit.
• Households in the region reap the equivalent of $705 million per year in time savings thanks to Metro.
• Households save $305 million per year on costs related to owning and driving cars.
• Every day Metro riders walk 33,000 miles.

On the other side of the coin, there’s everything that Metro has prevented from happening. Without Metro…

• Commuters would have to put up with commutes that take 25 percent longer. This would effectively curtail people’s access to jobs and employers’ access to the workforce.
• The region would see more than a million additional auto trips per day.
• This traffic would require 1,000 additional lane miles to accommodate, the equivalent of two Capital Beltways’ worth of asphalt.
• Four to six more traffic lanes across the Potomac would be necessary.
• The downtown core would be eviscerated by parking. To store all the extra cars would take 200,000 parking spots, the equivalent of 170 blocks filled with five-story parking structures.
• All that car infrastructure would cost nearly $11 billion to build, and impose huge maintenance costs every year.

From the Irish Independent:

Rebellious Lithuanian mayor Arturas Zuokas has taken clearing bike lanes of illegally parked cars into his own hands.

He drove an army personnel carrier over an old Mercedes-Benz S-Class that had been parked in a bike lane in the capital Vilnius in a bid warn owners of “posh” cars that they have to abide by the rules like anyone else.

“I wanted to send a message,” the avid cyclist and former war correspondent said.

Not only does their mayor crush bike lane blocking luxury cars by running over them in armored military vehicles, but residents of Vilnius can apparently make trips on their public bike system for free. Can Rahm Emanuel top that?

Posting on Streetsblog gets the word out about your job opening to a national audience of professionals and advocates who are committed to moving cities toward a more sustainable future.

Each month, nearly 200,000 unique visitors come to Streetsblog, making us the most watched transportation and planning news source in America, according to the web analytics site Alexa.com. A job listing posted on Streetsblog will reach a targeted and educated audience:

• 41 percent of our readers have advanced degrees
• We have a strong following among professionals in the public and private sectors who specialize in bike and pedestrian planning, transit planning, urban design, parking management, and the intersection of transportation and technology
• We’re widely read by non-profits working for safer streets, smart growth, and more sustainable transportation
• Our readership ranges from students and professionals at the outset of their careers to top executives and experienced managers

The price for a job listing on Streetsblog, which will be highlighted on all of our sites, is $50. Early adopters get a 100 percent discount: Our first 40 listings are free.

If you’re searching for a job, it’s easy to browse our database for openings in your field. (We have ten listings in five cities — and counting — as we go to press.)

As an independent, not-for-profit news source, we’re also excited about the jobs board as one more way to diversify the way we fund Streetsblog and support the work we do. Try it out and if you have any feedback on how we can improve it, please drop us a line at tips@streetsblog.org.

Disqus is a popular commenting platform and you’ve probably seen it on other sites already. Having read the comment threads on the other Streetsblogs, I understand that there are some concerns folks have with using the Disquis platform, but we can make you a couple of guarantees: Streetsblog will still protect your personal information, you can still choose to post anonymously, and as moderator of the site I (Damien) decide what comments stay and go (and I think you all know I prefer to moderate as little as possible.)

If you’re new to Disqus, here’s how it’s going to change things at Streetsblog.

• Threaded comments: You can now reply directly to someone else and have your reply appear indented below the original comment, instead of adding your thoughts at the bottom of the thread. The idea is to make it easier to track different discussions within a single comment thread. To reach a happy medium where the discussion doesn’t get too fragmented, we have the system set up to allow one level of replies, but not more than that. (So we won’t have endlessly indented threads delving into ever-more-off-topic digressions.)
• Your identity: Disqus has some nice features that allow you to link your identity on Streetsblog to your accounts on social networking sites. You can now create an account with Disqus or use your Facebook, Twitter or Google accounts to identify yourself when you comment here. Your photo from this account will be pulled in beside your comment and other readers will know where they can look you up online. If you want to post anonymously, you still can. We have never and will never share your email or IP address with anyone else.
• No more LivableStreets.com: Now that we have these better ways for commenters to identify themselves, we are going to finish shutting down livablestreets.com, where we’ve been hosting personal accounts for readers to share a little bit about themselves. A number of readers use those profiles to post comments here, but this is largely redundant given the integration between Disqus and other social networking platforms. If you have a livablestreets.com account, you will be receiving more information on this shutdown before it happens.
• Liking and flagging: If you think another reader’s comment is spot-on, or is a nice addition to the discussion, you can now “like” it. The new system also lets readers help moderate the comments. If you read a comment that you believe should be removed, click the flag icon and a site editor will be notified. We do not want this feature to morph into a way to negatively rate comments that people disagree with, so here are three questions to ask before you flag a comment: Is it spam? Is it a personal attack? Is it hopelessly off-topic? If it falls into any of those categories, go ahead and flag it. If not, please leave it be.
• Sorting: Streetsblog’s comment threads have always shown the oldest comments first. That will still be the default setting, but now you can choose to organize them so that the newest ones, or the most “liked” ones, are the first ones you see.

There are bound to be a few hiccups as we settle in to this new system. Please report any bugs to damien@streetsblog.org. If you’d like to give us feedback on the new system and how you think Streetsblog can make the most out of the Disqus features, please leave us a comment below.

You may have noticed something different about Streetsblog’s comment system this morning. We’re doing a tech upgrade and introducing a new commenting platform called Disqus, which we hope will enrich the conversation here and make it easier for you to connect with other readers.

Disqus is a popular commenting platform and you’ve probably seen it on other sites already. If you’re new to Disqus, here’s how it’s going to change things at Streetsblog.

• Threaded comments: You can now reply directly to someone else and have your reply appear indented below the original comment, instead of adding your thoughts at the bottom of the thread. The idea is to make it easier to track different discussions within a single comment thread. To reach a happy medium where the discussion doesn’t get too fragmented, we have the system set up to allow one level of replies, but not more than that. (So we won’t have endlessly indented threads delving into ever-more-off-topic digressions.)
• Your identity: Disqus has some nice features that allow you to link your identity on Streetsblog to your accounts on social networking sites. You can now create an account with Disqus or use your Facebook, Twitter or Google accounts to identify yourself when you comment here. Your photo from this account will be pulled in beside your comment and other readers will know where they can look you up online. If you want to post anonymously, you still can. We have never and will never share your email or IP address with anyone else.
• No more LivableStreets.com: Now that we have these better ways for commenters to identify themselves, we are going to finish shutting down livablestreets.com, where we’ve been hosting personal accounts for readers to share a little bit about themselves. A number of readers use those profiles to post comments here, but this is largely redundant given the integration between Disqus and other social networking platforms. If you have a livablestreets.com account, you will be receiving more information on this shutdown before it happens.
• Liking and flagging: If you think another reader’s comment is spot-on, or is a nice addition to the discussion, you can now “like” it. The new system also lets readers help moderate the comments. If you read a comment that you believe should be removed, click the flag icon and a site editor will be notified. We do not want this feature to morph into a way to negatively rate comments that people disagree with, so here are three questions to ask before you flag a comment: Is it spam? Is it a personal attack? Is it hopelessly off-topic? If it falls into any of those categories, go ahead and flag it. If not, please leave it be.
• Sorting: Streetsblog’s comment threads have always shown the oldest comments first. That will still be the default setting, but now you can choose to organize them so that the newest ones, or the most “liked” ones, are the first ones you see.

For now, we’re launching Disqus on Streetsblog New York City. If all goes well, we’ll be rolling it out on the other Streetsblog outlets soon. Thanks to Streetsblog technical director Chris Abraham for getting everything up and running.

There are bound to be a few hiccups as we settle in to this new system. Please report any bugs to tips@streetsblog.org. If you’d like to give us feedback on the new system and how you think Streetsblog can make the most out of the Disqus features, please leave us a comment below.

A little weekend viewing from the west coast of England. Since the summer of 2009, neighbors in Bristol have organized “Playing Out” events on seven streets, setting aside car-free hours for kids to play in the street without constant parental supervision. Watching this video immediately brought to mind Clarence’s Streetfilm of the 78th Street play street in Jackson Heights.

The Bristol moms behind “Playing Out” have put together a stellar web site laying out the case for car-free time on residential streets. I especially like their answer to the question: “Why do children need to play in the street when there are parks nearby?”

Parks are great for family outings and for older children who can get there independently but, unless you happen to live right next to a park, it usually involves a special trip, escorted and supervised by adults. Street play is very different. Firstly, it is literally on the doorstep so children can play ‘semi-supervised’ whilst parents get on with other things. This allows for more free, unstructured play, without being under the constant gaze of adults. Secondly, it is a step towards greater independence, giving both children and parents more confidence to gradually extend their ‘freedom to roam’, leading to children eventually being able to get to parks and other local places by themselves.

We’ve put together a short questionnaire for our readers. Take the survey and tell us a little bit about yourself, why you read Streetsblog, and any feedback you have about the site. It takes a couple of minutes and will do a world of good for Streetsblog.

There are two reasons we’re posting the survey. One is that it’s been way too long since we asked our readers for feedback, and we want to hear from you about how we’re doing. The other is that we want to know more about who reads Streetsblog.

Collecting this information will help guide our coverage and get the most value out of potential advertising space on Streetsblog. Yes, ads are coming (for Los Angeles readers, the ads have already arrived). It’s all part of our long-term financial plan: We’ve run the numbers, and in order to keep Streetsblog strong, we will need a mix of ads, sponsorships, major donations, and reader contributions.

So I entreat you to help us pay our bills and fill out the survey. Rest assured that your response will be kept private and the information we receive will only be used in aggregate.

For some extra motivation, we’re also giving out a $100 Amazon gift certificate to one lucky reader. Check off some boxes and it could be yours.

Martin Erzinger, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney wealth manager. Photo: Treehugger

Over in Vail, Colorado, the new rule seems to be that you don’t even have to stay at the scene, if you’re sufficiently rich and well-connected. Manage a billion dollar portfolio, and you can do whatever the hell you want with your car and get away with no felony charges.

Vail Daily reported last week that Martin Erzinger, a wealth manager for Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and local resident, will not face felony charges stemming from a July 3 collision in which he reportedly ran down New York City physician Steven Milo, causing severe spinal injuries, and drove away. Over Milo’s objections, District Attorney Mark Hurlbert won’t pursue anything stronger than a misdemeanor charge for the hit-and-run. The decision has little to do with justice or deterrence and much to do with money:

“Mr. Erzinger struck me, fled and left me for dead on the highway,” Milo wrote. “Neither his financial prominence nor my financial situation should be factors in your prosecution of this case.”

Hurlbert said Thursday that, in part, this case is about the money.

“The money has never been a priority for them. It is for us,” Hurlbert said. “Justice in this case includes restitution and the ability to pay it.”

Hurlbert said Erzinger is willing to take responsibility and pay restitution.

“Felony convictions have some pretty serious job implications for someone in Mr. Erzinger’s profession, and that entered into it,” Hurlbert said. “When you’re talking about restitution, you don’t want to take away his ability to pay.”

Blogger Felix Salmon says the decision amounts to Erzinger buying his way out of a felony charge. Over at Cyclelicious, Richard Masoner is calling for a Vail tourism boycott and points to other reactions around the web, including this petition to Hurlbert at Change.org.

Adding a few more lanes should do the trick. Photo of the 405: Atwater Village Newbie

After yesterday’s electoral drubbing, the Obama administration will have to deal with a starkly different Congress when they make their expected push for a multi-year transportation bill early next year. We know that some influential House Republicans, like John Mica, don’t necessarily believe that bigger highways will solve America’s transportation problems. And we know that some pro-transit voices in Washington originate from the right. But no one expects the GOP ascendancy to make transportation reform any easier.

For a taste of the right-wing line against transportation reform, check out the election week issue of the Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard. Inside, editor Fred Barnes (under fire recently for accepting speaking fees from the GOP) mounts an attack on just about every federal transportation policy other than highway spending. There’s nothing really conservative about Barnes’s screed — it could have come straight from the pen of an asphalt industry lobbyist. Wondering what a transportation bill would look like if it were reshaped according to what highway boosters believe should be the “core program”? Read Barnes and find out.

He starts by ridiculing Ray LaHood’s speech at the 2010 National Bike Summit, where the transportation secretary said that Americans “want out of their cars, they want out of congestion, they want to live in livable neighborhoods and livable communities.” Barnes disagrees:

LaHood was half right. People hate traffic congestion. But they want to get out of their cars about as much as they want to get stuck behind a bicyclist who rides at a donkey’s pace before running through red lights and stop signs. What people mainly want is to stay in their cars and have LaHood do something to reduce congestion.

Like finance the construction and maintenance of highways and bridges to facilitate the flow of autos and trucks. That, rather than promoting “livability” or “the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of nonmotorized,” is the job of the Department of Transportation. Always has been.

This is, basically, his entire argument: People just want to “stay in their cars.” We have zero interest in getting around any other way. According to Fred Barnes, we are perfectly content to drive and drive and drive, as long as we don’t have to put up with all the other people driving. If you believe that, then his cheerleading for highway construction makes a lot of sense.

If being inside our cars is what we’re really all about, by all means lets throw more money down the sinkhole of highway expansion. That will guarantee more quality time inside our cars. Then, a few years later, when we’re in our cars but not enjoying it so much because the new lanes are jammed with traffic again, we’ll repeat the whole expensive process.

But if we’d rather spend more time with our families and loved ones — or, you know, doing actual work instead of commuting — maybe we should try a different way of building our transportation system. According to public opinion research by Transportation for America, 57 percent of Americans would like to spend less time in their cars. Even with our highway-centric system, we’re already voting with our feet: These days, Americans are driving less and opting to walk, bike, and ride transit more than we were at the beginning of the decade.

A cursory internet search reveals that, when Barnes says the job of U.S. DOT has always been to build highways and only highways, he’s just making stuff up. The U.S. DOT mission statement does not mention any particular mode. The department’s job is, in fact, to “serve the United States by ensuring a fast, safe, efficient, accessible and convenient transportation system that meets our vital national interests and enhances the quality of life of the American people, today and into the future.”

So there’s some flexibility here. Now, consider that the Pentagon is under the impression that climate change poses a risk to national security. Or that public health experts peg the annual medical costs imposed by traffic and pollution at more than $200 billion. Or the mounting evidence that car dependence begets obesity and higher medical costs. Or that, according to research by CEOs for Cities, travel times are longest in sprawling metro areas, while areas that pursued smart growth and livability strategies have actually reduced commute times. All of which points to the conclusion that at this moment, the U.S. DOT’s job — providing an efficient transportation system that meets our vital national interests and so forth — is indeed to advance livability and stop promoting motorized transport.

Back to the Barnes highway-building argument. Maybe you’re worried that fighting congestion by building more roads that generate more congestion is a bad way to spend money. But Fred Barnes isn’t. He is, however, highly concerned about spending on rail:

The stimulus included $8 billion for high-speed projects, again not “paid for.” Now the administration is taking “the next step toward realizing its vision for high-speed rail,” the Department of Transportation said in June, handing out “$2.1 billion in grants to continue the development of high-speed intercity passenger rail corridors.”

On top of that, there’s talk in Washington of spending $50 billion more on high-speed trains. Where the funding would come from is anybody’s guess, but LaHood is fully on board. High-speed rail between cities is needed “so people can get out of their cars,” he said in an interview last month with Grist magazine. “They can take a train ride to see Grandma rather than doing it in a car.”

You know what else we haven’t figured out how to pay for? Highways. According to Subsidyscope, gas taxes and other fees have never covered the costs of the highway system. In 2007, fees collected from highway users barely covered half the costs of building and maintaining highways. That year, about $70 billion in highway funding came from other sources. (Even in New York, which, more than any other state, uses fees on driving to support public transit, drivers cover only 65 cents of each dollar spent on highways [PDF].) Meanwhile, the bicycle and pedestrian projects that Barnes moans about received all of $1.2 billion in federal funding in 2009, a record-setting year.

You could say that these massive subsidies for the highway system affect our behavior and induce driving. But Fred Barnes has different ideas about what affects our transportation decisions:

Last year, George Will zinged LaHood as the “Secretary of Behavior Modification” for his fervent opposition to cars. LaHood all but pleaded guilty. Steering funds from highways to bike and walking paths and streetcars, he said, “is a way to coerce people out of their cars.” His word, coerce.

But it’s hardly an answer to traffic congestion. Most people, most of the time, aren’t going to ride a bike to work or walk. They’re going to drive, even in the face of disincentives erected by LaHood.

LaHood will wear “coerce people out of their cars” around his neck forever. Which is ironic, because if anything, the Obama DOT has assiduously avoided erecting any “disincentives” to driving. The gas tax rate has been untouchable under LaHood. A mileage tax has been a non-starter. The last time U.S. DOT encouraged cities to pursue policies like congestion pricing or performance parking, which do affect driving behavior, George W. Bush was president.

Barnes wraps up with the following policy proposal:

The Obama administration, with its priority on ejecting people from their cars and its embrace of an environmental ethic that regards highways as evil, is unlikely to champion a higher gas tax. Any other tax increase you can imagine, yes. This one, no. That means Republicans will have to step up. They can insist the revenues be used solely for highways and bridges. Local governments would then be free to spend on bikeways.

A lobbyist for highway builders could hardly have said it better. The gas tax is theirs — it belongs to highways. This is the mentality that advocates for transportation reform will face off against in the months ahead, when the administration moves forward with its infrastructure push. Every dollar for transit, bicycling and safer streets will be contested. Be prepared.

Before joining Streetsblog, Tanya covered Congress for Pacifica Radio’s Washington Bureau and for public radio stations around the country. She worked as a reporter and editor for WTOP, the Washington area’s most listened-to radio station, and pioneered some changes to their transportation coverage, weaving in bike and pedestrian issues on the same station bringing readers traffic updates “on the 8′s.” When Tanya first approached me about the national reporter position, she said that livable cities are no abstract issue for her — as a bike commuter who’s never owned a car, her own safety and mobility depend on complete streets.

With the Obama administration finally getting serious about a long-term re-authorization of the national transportation bill, Tanya and Streetsblog’s national team will be covering developments on Capitol Hill and also — this is critical — why reforming the current highway-centric system matters.

In addition to introducing Tanya, a warm welcome is way overdue for Angie Schmitt, who’s been bringing you daily updates from the Streetsblog Network, the national coalition of bloggers and advocates dedicated to sustainable transportation and livable streets that’s now more than 400 members strong. Angie is an urban planner and journalist who reported for the Toledo Blade for three years. She’s also a founder of Network member Rust Wire.

Our ongoing national coverage at Streetsblog Capitol Hill and the Streetsblog Network is possible thanks to a grant from the Surdna Foundation and support from Transportation for America.

In the next few months, we’ll be trying out some new things with Streetsblog’s national beat. We’re going to need your help, so here’s what we’re thinking.

The legislative stories unfolding inside the Beltway have a very real impact on the local fights for transit funding and safer streets that Streetsblog Network members write about every day. But sometimes it can be hard to connect the dots. To bring home what’s at stake in the transportation re-authorization, Streetsblog is going to plumb the ins and outs of local transportation reform stories. Transit funding in Seattle. Smart growth in northeast Ohio. Potential highway teardowns in New Orleans and St. Louis. All over the country, people are fighting for a greener, more equitable transportation system on their home turf. We’ll make state and federal policy more engaging by linking it to these local opportunities for reforming our transportation system.

Add that to the Beltway beat, and it’s a lot of ground for one reporter to cover. We’re plotting out the best way to do it, so stay tuned, but there’s no doubt we’ll be asking Streetsblog readers and Streetsblog Network members to pitch in. For now, if you have a transportation reform story you’d like to see tackled on Streetsblog, drop Tanya a line at tanya [at] streetsblog [dot] org.

You can also get in on the ground floor of Tanya’s Streetsblog Twitter feed: Follow her @StreetsblogDC.

Editor's note: Our search for a national reporter to take over Streetsblog Capitol Hill wouldn't be complete without putting out a call to the audience with the greatest passion for livable streets and sustainable transportation policy -- our readers.

We are looking for a talented professional journalist, eager to make an impact, to take over Streetsblog’s national coverage -- creating original online content, interpreting news, and managing freelance writers and reporters. Building on the initial success of Streetsblog Capitol Hill, Streetsblog's national reporter will research, write, and edit enterprise stories about the movement to reform the American transportation system by reducing motor vehicle congestion and automobile dependence, while improving conditions for transit use, cycling, and walking.

The ideal candidate shares our vision of Streetsblog as a respected, insightful information hub about how transportation and land use policy are shaped at the federal, state, and local levels -- and why those policies should be improved. With Congress and the Obama administration dragging their feet on the passage of a critically important five-year transportation bill, Streetsblog's national coverage will be essential both to make the case for reform to an influential audience of insiders, and to attract a constituency of grassroots advocates to press for more sustainable transportation and development policies.

Responsibilities

Streetsblog combines a distinct advocacy bent with newspaper-quality journalism. Toward that end, we are seeking a reporter with previous professional experience to do original research, interviews, investigation and coverage of events, and to develop and manage a stable of freelance contributors to round out the beat. The ideal candidate will be comfortable with the notion that journalism can be conducted with integrity and fidelity to the truth while retaining a point of view. The reporter and freelance staff will be expected to:

• Produce engaging enterprise pieces about local transportation stories happening around the country: Bus cuts in Atlanta, highway widenings in Kentucky, freeway-tolling fights in Pennsylvania, transit expansion plans in Los Angeles, bike and pedestrian safety projects in Indianapolis -- all are part of the national Streetsblog beat.
• Manage the flow of transportation-related news from Congress in a timely manner: Track bills and provide updates on the status of transportation-related legislation.
• Conduct in-depth interviews and Q&As with lawmakers, lobbyists, activists, and experts.
• Cultivate relationships with advocacy groups and lobbyists working on federal transportation issues and state-level implementation. This includes everyone from environmental activists to highway lobbyists to state DOT watchdogs.

Qualifications

• Professional journalism experience, ideally covering the legislative process and/or transportation policy issues, and experience managing and editing other journalists
• Passion for and knowledge of progressive urban planning, transportation, and land use policy issues
• Excellent writing and research skills, as evidenced by clips
• Experience with Word Press or other blogging/content production technologies is a big plus

To Apply

Send a resume, cover letter, and relevant clips/links to jobs [at] streetsblog [dot] org. This position is full-time.

We’ve got an update today on a storyline we’ve been following for
months: The Ohio Department of Transportation’s refusal to build a path
for biking and walking when they replace Cleveland’s I-90 Innerbelt
Bridge. Back in December, cyclists rallied to urge the DOT to include such a path, which would create a direction connection to downtown. In the face of ongoing pressure from local activists, as well as Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Senator Sherrod Brown, DOT Commissioner Jolene Molitoris has continued to stonewall the idea.

Marc Lefkowitz at member blog GreenCityBlueLake writes:

ODOT finally released a letter
explaining why it doesn’t see a way to design a bridge today with a
simple multi-purpose path. Working against ODOT in this case are at
least 30 instances where multipurpose paths are already on highway bridges. The problem has never been one of can it be done, the issue has always been our DOT cannot imagine why it should be done.

In her letter to the Governor last week, ODOT Director Jolene Molitoris
shed more light on ODOT’s thinking – the bridge is a problem to be
solved, not an asset to be gained. Molitoris writes: “ODOT took a
different approach to evaluating this issue as part of this renewed
second look. To start, we asked the very simple question: if bicycle
and pedestrian access were added to the Innerbelt Bridge, what
challenges would need to be overcome?”

That sounds eerily similar to the old approach. Rather than figure
out how to meet the community’s expectation, ODOT is looking for an
excuse to lower those expectations…

Members of Congress and local business leaders alike continue this
week to press Governor Strickland to request that ODOT Region 12 ask
the bridge designers to think of a creative solution in their bids. In
other words, this fight isn’t over; not by a long shot.

Read Lefkowitz’s full post for some sharp observations about Ohio DOT’s opaque decision-making process.

More good stuff from around the Network: Joe Urban debunks Joel Kotkin’s recent piece in the Wall Street Journal claiming the demand for city living has been exaggerated. A visit to Boston prompts a Burqueño to wonder — what if the Big Dig had been a big freeway teardown instead? And Twin Cities Streets for People posts a sickening computer simulation of how oil spewing into the Gulf may spread.

Last week, USA Today reported rather gleefully that the U.S. gas tax has never been lower. Having remained unchanged at 18.4 cents per gallon since 1993, American drivers are now paying half as much in inflation-adjusted gas taxes, per 1,000 miles driven, that they did in 1975. We can pretty much forget about investing in new and expanded transit systems — or even just holding up our bridges — as long as this is the case.

USA Today also cited a recent national survey by the Mineta Transportation Institute, which pegged public support for a 10-cent gas tax increase at a paltry 23 percent. Thanks to a post from Streetsblog Network member TrailBlog, penned by Steve Schweigerdt of the Rails to Trails Conservancy, we have a more complete — and interesting — picture of what this survey actually revealed. Schweigert reports from a recent panel discussion about the survey:

A couple key points from the survey were that:

• Linking transportation tax to environmental benefits will increase support, specifically if the tax helps address global warming.
• Support for gas taxes can be significantly increased with good program design.

The panelists portrayed the gas tax increase as a needed short-term fix, but a restructuring of transportation financing is necessary for long-term investment in the system. William Millar [of the American Public Transit Association] reminded the audience that we shouldn’t assume that the way things are can never change. We spent the last 60 years building the system we have, he said, and we can spend the next 60 building a better system.

You can download the survey results here. Of particular note: Support for the 10-cent gas tax hike rose to 42 percent if the revenue would be spent to reduce global warming. The survey also gauged public opinion on a mileage tax, finding that support increased from 21 percent to 33 percent if the rate would vary according to the fuel efficiency of the vehicle.

Tellingly, Americans seem more willing to tax everything they purchase than to pay for transportation infrastructure by taxing driving: A half-cent national sales tax enjoyed the highest support of all the options given, at 43 percent.

But the big takeaway from the Mineta survey is that a national gas tax hike gains support if you make a strong case for how the revenue will be spent. Should some national political figure come along and deliver a compelling public message that we need to raise the gas tax to invest in cleaner, more efficient transportation, move us away from oil addiction, and keep our existing infrastructure from falling apart, who knows, maybe you could break the 50 percent threshold.

Of course, seeing as how most Americans mistakenly already think the gas tax goes up regularly, and gas prices have fluctuated within a 24-cent range in just the last three months, you could also reach the conclusion espoused in this classic Infrastructurist post: Just raise the g-dd-mned gas tax already.

Federal funding for pedestrian and bicycle projects reached a new high last year, according to a report released yesterday by the Federal Highway Administration.
In terms of dollars, federal investment in walking and biking more than
doubled compared to the previous high, set in 2007, thanks largely to
an infusion of $400 million in stimulus funds.

The share of
all federal transportation spending devoted to bike-ped projects also
rose to an unprecedented level — all of two percent. Advocates for
walking and biking applauded the trend while pointing out the potential
for much greater federal commitment to active transportation.

"It continues to be an improvement, and it continues to be a tiny
fraction of the money that’s available to potentially be spent on
biking and walking," said Andy Clarke of the League of American
Bicyclists.

Subtracting
the $400 million one-shot in stimulus funding, Clarke noted, yields a
less impressive year-on-year increase. And part of the increase in
reported bike-ped spending might also simply reflect better record
keeping by state DOTs, as agencies document the construction of
sidewalks and bike lanes as part of larger projects, according to
Barbara McCann of the National Complete Streets Coalition.

The
spending figures come from an update on the state of walking and biking
that the feds release every five years. The original National Bicycling
and Walking Study, released in 1994, set two major targets: to double
walk and bike mode-share, from 7.9 percent of all trips to 15.8
percent; and to reduce pedestrian and cyclist fatalities by 10 percent.

Today, walking and biking
account for 11.9 percent of all trips in the country, according to data
from the National Household Travel Survey cited in the FHWA report. The
safety target, meanwhile, has already been met, with pedestrian deaths
down 22 percent and cycling deaths down 13 percent between 1994 and
2008.

In a post on the U.S. DOT Secretary’s blog, Ray LaHood implied that the targets have to get more ambitious:

But, we are still talking about 4,378 pedestrians and 716 bicyclists
killed in 2008. No matter how we look at the data, that is just too
many.

One
way to strengthen national goals for walking and biking, Clarke
suggested, is to make them less open-ended and attach specific
timeframes for achieving them. "That performance metric is essential,"
he said, noting that the original 1994 targets were weakened by the
lack of a deadline. "One could argue that we could have achieved [the
mode-share target] years ago. We would say, let’s recalibrate, so that
by 2020 we need to reach 20 percent mode share for bike-walk."

The
progress cited in today’s report, said Clarke, highlights the need for
a robust federal commitment to walking and biking in the next federal
transportation bill. "States wouldn’t have done this if left to their
own devices," he said. "Without the federal leadership, without the
funding and targets, we would not have seen movement voluntarily. We
need that continued federal leadership in the next transportation bill
moving forward. The states have not embraced it sufficiently for it to
be left to chance."

On
behalf of the Streetsblog staff in New York, San Francisco, and Los
Angeles, as well as the Streetsblog Network, I’d like to share my
appreciation for Elana’s work over the past year. She created her beat
from scratch, and quickly became an indispensable daily read for Hill
staffers, administration officials, seasoned transportation wonks and
advocates of all stripes. When it came to national transportation
policy news, Elana scooped everybody.

If you’d like to keep up with Elana’s work, she’ll be writing for Greenwire,
the environmental news service. Be sure to check for her byline on the
New York Times online, which syndicates some Greenwire content.

Elana set the bar high for Streetsblog’s national coverage. With the major national transportation bill
still brewing in Congress, there’s an urgent need to continue her
excellent work. Big stories are developing at this very moment: A $2 billion transit operating aid bill could stave off disastrous service cuts in dozens of cities; President Obama pledged yesterday to pass major energy and climate legislation; and the U.S. DOT’s livability program is increasingly becoming a flashpoint for debate. On the local scene, state DOTs are still plowing ahead with ill-considered highways, neglecting opportunities to build infrastructure for walking and biking, and allowing bridges to rot until it’s too late to salvage them.

We’ve
begun a national search for a reporter who can synthesize local stories
from across America with news from inside the beltway to help make the
case for transportation reform. While that search for a full-time
replacement progresses, we’re also looking for freelance contributors
to write lively, engaging stories to keep Streetsblog readers up to
speed on national issues. If you’re interested in writing about the
movement for green, equitable, 21st-century transportation, send us
your resume and a short note about your areas of expertise to tips@streetsblog.org.

The Post reports that the jury has reached a mixed verdict in the trial of Patrick Pogan, the ex-NYPD officer who was seen by millions of YouTube viewers slamming his shoulder into approaching cyclist Christopher Long during a 2008 Critical Mass ride, sending Long to the pavement. Pogan was found guilty of falsifying records when he filed a criminal complaint alleging that Long assaulted him. He faces up to four years in prison for that conviction.

The jury found Pogan not guilty, however, of misdemeanor assault charges. Got that, NYPD? Go ahead and knock people off their bikes, just tell the truth about it afterward and you'll be okay.

Earth Day is coming around the bend, and cities are
timing their new green initiatives to coincide with the public’s
heightened eco-consciousness. Here’s one we’re partial to: In Denver,
Mayor John Hickenlooper and city leaders are using the occasion to
launch their 500-bicycle, 50-station bike-share system. It will be the
largest bike-share system in the U.S. until Minneapolis and Boston roll theirs out later this spring.

Denver will launch its bike-share system this week with 500 bicycles at 50 stations, aiming to expand to 1,100 bikes in 2011.

While Minneapolis and Boston selected the company behind Montreal’s Bixi to run their bike-share systems, Denver went with B-cycle, a joint venture between Trek Bicycles, health insurer Humana, and PR firm Crispin, Porter + Bogusky. B-cycle had a demo station
set up at Pier 84 on the Hudson River Greenway yesterday, where I had
to the chance to talk to company president Bob Burns about how the
system works.

In Denver, B-cycle will be financed by ads and
user subscriptions, with annual memberships priced at $65. Members get
RFID cards that they can swipe at individual docks to check out
bicycles. The first 30 minutes of each ride are free, with each
additional hour priced at one dollar.

The stations can
run on solar or A/C power. Denver has chosen to place their kiosks in
plazas and other pedestrian spaces, not in parking lanes like they do
in Paris.

One of the interesting features that
distinguishes B-cycle is its tracking system. Each bike is equipped
with a GPS unit, so users can access their member profiles online and
see where they biked, how far they rode, and how many calories they
burned. The cumulative GPS data from the entire system should also
prove to be a valuable resource for transportation planners. "It gives
cities a lot of information on where cyclists are going and which
routes are being used," said Burns. "They can make more intelligent
decisions about where to invest in infrastructure."

Buoyed by Ray LaHood’s recent statements of support
for bicycle infrastructure, Burns was appropriately bullish, for a
bike-share exec, on the future of bike-share in American cities. "Once
people see it can happen and that it can work, and people in those
cities appreciate it," he said, "we think it’s gonna explode."