Month: November 2009

Senate environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and fellow lawmakers today pressed the Obama administration to take a more active role in ending the current political stalemate over federal transportation funding, but the sense of urgency they sought emerged only intermittently during an 80-minute session on infrastructure.

Despite the growing national attention to the dangers posed by distracted driving, full accountability for drivers who kill or maim pedestrians while fiddling with electronic devices is likely a long way off. As today's post from Streetsblog Network member Sustainable Savannah notes, law enforcement officials too often seem to see things from the perspective of the person behind the windshield:

More headlines at Streetsblog Cap Hill

At 1:00 P.M. down at Metro Headquarters Board Room, the Metro Board Planning and Programming Committee will vote on a staff proposal to accept a "hybrid alternative" to the Route 2 Terminus project.  Last week, Streetsblog discussed the broken process that led to the "hybrid" where the community proposed a design that would have calmed traffic and added open space to the road but LADOT rejected that proposal because it didn't do anything to add capacity to the road.  Basically, all three agencies had to agree on a design, and despite Metro's approval of the local design, it had to "compromise" with the LADOT on what is now being called the "hybrid option."

Yesterday, C.I.C.L.E. announced that they are ready to take the next steps in advocacy when they announced their "North East L.A. Campaign."  Generally, C.I.C.L.E. has focused their advocacy efforts on helping people get, and stay, on their bikes by providing classes, workshops and social rides.  However, the group hasn't spent a lot of energy on traditional advocacy concerning engineering and enforcement issues.

The senior Republicans on three of the Senate's four infrastructure-centric committees signed a bipartisan letter on Tuesday asking the leaders of Congress' upper chamber to call up a six-month extension of the 2005 transportation law.

I wonder if it's still too soon to criticize the concept of digging a tunnel to connect the 710 Tunnel to the I-210.

She’s back!  The woman you love to hate (and hate not to love) Veronica Moss, a Washington, D.C. lobbyist for – ahem! – the Automobile User Trade Organization (A.U.T.O.) In this “chapter”, she’s getting her first gander ever at the new pedestrian-friendly Times Square and she invited Streetfilms along to record her virgin journey. Naturally … Continued

We've got a fine sampling of content from the Streetsblog Network today.