Study: Too Many Drivers Fail to Look for Pedestrians When Turning Left
Drivers turning left are a leading cause of pedestrian crashes in urban areas. Where drivers can only turn left with a green left-turn arrow, pedestrians are more protected. But when drivers are watching oncoming traffic for a chance to make their turn, they tend not to be as vigilant as they should to watch for pedestrians. In fact, 5 to 11 percent of drivers don’t look for pedestrians in the crosswalk at all.
April 5, 2013
What Should the Surgeon General Say to Get More People Walking?
What if cars came with a Surgeon General’s warning like the ones that come on cigarette packs: "Sitting in this seat could lead to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, and divorce."
April 2, 2013
How Much Driving Is Avoided When Someone Rides a Bike?
If Jane Doe rides her bike a mile to the post office and then back home, is it fair to assume she just avoided two miles of driving? And can we then assume that she prevented 2.2 pounds of carbon dioxide from being emitted?
March 29, 2013
Another Slanted High-Speed Rail Story From Anderson Cooper
Not one to back away from a terrible argument, CNN’s Anderson Cooper is sticking with his series exposing the “boondoggle” of federal high-speed rail funding. In a segment aired Monday night, he and reporter Drew Griffin hammered away yet again at their argument that high-speed rail has been a waste of money. Under the tagline “Keeping Them Honest,” Cooper and Griffin hope to raise public ire about the taxpayer money “dumped” into a program sold as high-speed rail but is really just moving slow trains “a little faster.”
March 27, 2013
Will New Oil Supplies Slow the Transition to Green Transportation?
What if peak oil doesn't take care of gas-guzzling by cutting off the supply?
March 26, 2013
Will Big Highway Projects Have to Consider Climate Change?
Since 1970, the National Environmental Protection Act has required federal agencies to consider the impacts of their projects on air, water, and soil pollution -- but not on climate change.
March 22, 2013
Obama’s Clean Energy Policy Elevates Efficient Cars Over Efficient Modes
It has a nice ring to it: using oil and gas revenue to shift transportation off oil and gas dependence. President Obama announced a plan to do just that on Friday -- but the details of his plan are disappointing if you want to see the conversation on clean transportation go beyond cars.
March 18, 2013
Lawmakers Fret About Impact of Budget Cuts on Transit
“In 2014, federal investment in surface transportation -- which is currently about $50 billion per year -- will drop to $6 billion or $7 billion. In one year.”
March 14, 2013
Eleven Things to Look for in the Passenger Rail Reauthorization
Now that the surface transportation bill fight is over -- at least for the moment -- transportation reformers are eying the expiration date of another key piece of legislation later this year. The reauthorization of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 (PRIIA) could be a chance to make some needed changes to jump-start progress in the passenger rail system. Or it could be the next partisan battleground, making it a process as unnavigable as the lead-up to the passage of MAP-21.
March 13, 2013
Transit Trips Rose Faster Than Driving in 2012, Despite Impact of Sandy
As driving continues to stagnate in America, transit ridership keeps rising. Last year saw the second highest annual ridership since 1957, despite the fact that the nation's busiest transit systems had several days of blackout due to Superstorm Sandy.
March 11, 2013