Day: April 1, 2010

The Obama administration today released its final rule raising U.S. auto fuel-efficiency standards to an average of 35.5 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2016, winning plaudits from environmental groups while offering extra benefits to makers of electric and luxury cars.

As the federal government moves forward on a mandate to set stronger fuel-efficiency rules for trucks and buses, a new report from an independent scientific body is urging lawmakers to take another approach: raise fuel taxes. The 2007 federal energy law aimed to set new fuel-efficiency rules for trucks as well as buses. (Photo: TTI) … Continued

Yesterday, the Center for Transit Oriented Development, the leading national non-profit dealing with T.O.D. issues, released a report full of recommendations for Los Angeles as the local transit system grows in the coming years.  The study looks at 71 existing and under construction station areas in Los Angeles, not the stations that will be built because of Measure R, and provides guidelines and a tool box to help insure that the future projects do a better job of integrating and supporting the existing community.

Florida DOT’s windshield perspective isn’t good enough anymore. (Photo: wallyg via Flickr) For decades, the automobile has been the central organizing principle for planning in South Florida, a primacy that hasn’t often been questioned. But there are signs that things are changing.  Today on the Streetsblog Network, Transit Miami reports that advocates of traffic calming … Continued

LADOT General Manager Rita Robinson spoke to a standing room-only crowd at NYU's Rudin Center this morning, kicking off the New York City Street Summit. Robinson's speech, delivered just two weeks after NYCDOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan brought lessons from the Big Apple to her backyard, was both a spirited defense of LADOT's planning policies and a response to Sadik-Khan's vision of change.

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill