Ben Fried

AARP announced today that it will join the Transportation for America campaign to advocate for a "broad restructuring" of national transportation policy.

The decline in driving makes the gas tax less reliable as a transportation funding stream. VMT graph: FHWA. One of the big challenges that federal policymakers will soon have to address is how to pay for a new generation of transportation investment. The federal gas tax, pegged at 18.4 cents per gallon since 1993, just … Continued

Robert Sullivan, author of a recent biking etiquette piece in the New York Times that sparked some heated discussion in the comments section of New York Streetsblog, presents this video introducing the concept of "schluffing." He says the word is meant to evoke "a kind of sleepy riding" not to be confused with schlepping, which this technique helps to minimize. (The origin of the term, I'm told, has something to do with the Yiddish word shlofn.) Etymology aside, the video makes it pretty clear what he's getting at:

Ready for some transit system envy? This week's StreetsWiki entry comes from Livable Streets member Andrew Nash, who fills us in on how surface transit became the mode of choice in Zürich, Switzerland:

BikePortland‘s Jonathan Maus is down in D.C. today for the National Bike Summit, where Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood gave the opening address this morning. From Maus’s recap: Photo: Jonathan Maus At the outset of his remarks, he said, “I want all of you to know you have a full partner at the US DOT in … Continued

Head over to Toronto bike advocacy blog Take the Tooker for the denouement to this transportation fable. Hat tip: Greater Greater Washington.

The AP reports that Boston is looking to launch a bike-share program -- and not the skimpy, half-hearted variety:

Here's newly appointed White House director of Urban Affairs Adolfo Carrión back in his Bronx Borough President days, striking a pose with Transportation Alternatives' Noah Budnick in 2006. The picture was snapped on Bike to Work Day, which Carrión observed every year by sponsoring a ride.

The inclusion of $825 million for Transportation Enhancements in the stimulus package should help pay for a lot of bike projects. Writing for Citiwire this week, transportation analyst Sam Seskin suggests investing a chunk of that stimulus money in bicycle boulevards, as opposed to bike lanes or cycle tracks. What are bike boulevards? This week's StreetsWiki entry explains:

In case you missed the broadcast on Friday, watch this episode of NOW. Told mostly from the perspective of Charlotte's Pat McCrory, the Republican mayor who brought light rail to North Carolina's biggest city, the show hits just about every major transportation issue to surface during the stimulus bill debate. Federal policies that discriminate against transit, state DOTs that throw money at politically-driven highway projects, transit agencies in dire need of federal support as local tax revenues shrivel up -- it's all here.