Tanya Snyder

Via the League of American Bicyclists, new information is out about how much the feds are spending on bike-ped projects. While federal funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects is down a bit from last year's all-time high, it still comes in at more than a billion dollars. A third of the money is from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), which begs the question of what will happen to bike-ped funding once the stimulus funds dry up. We got some somber foreshadowing last week of what could happen to bike-ped funding if Republicans cut the transportation bill to the "core program."

Continuing with our series on key governor’s races, here’s some news on the contest in California. We’ve taken a look at some races in Maryland and Colorado where pro-transit, pro-bike candidates are likely to win. We examined the nuances of a candidate in Tennessee who’s a mixed bag on transportation issues. And yesterday we brought you the bad news that Rick Perry of Trans-Texas Corridor fame was driving a Hummer to victory in that state. That was sort of a bummer, so let’s get back to good news.

Thanks to Transportation for America for putting together this handy map of U.S. DOT's TIGER grant recipients. It shows the geographical reach of the program, as well as the broad range of projects benefiting from the grants.

This is the fourth installment of Streetsblog Capitol Hill’s series on key governor’s races. Earlier we brought you stories about a candidate who likes bikes but isn’t sure about transit in Tennessee, the choice between light rail and bus rapid transit in Maryland, and how bike paranoia is cutting the GOP off at the knees in Colorado. Here we turn to Texas.

This is the third installment of Streetsblog Capitol Hill's series on key governor’s races. Earlier we brought you stories about a candidate who likes bikes but isn't sure about transit in Tennessee, and the choice between light rail and bus rapid transit in Maryland. Here we turn our attention to Colorado.

We see it over and over again in our cities. Migration out of central cities hollows out neighborhoods and leaves the people who remain struggling with the consequences of disinvestment. But when development returns to urban areas, the arrival of new residents can impose burdens on people who never left. Often, as amenities come into an area and crime goes down, property values rise and poorer residents can no longer afford to live there.

Those looking for hope in this era of transit service cuts took heart from the words of William Millar, President of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), at the Rail~volution conference yesterday. In his keynote speech, he Millar reasons to hope for a better future -- despite the fact that 84 percent of APTA members were cutting service, raising fares, laying off personnel, or delaying projects this year due to budget cuts.

I promised in my last post to tell you the triumphant stories of citizens beating back highways, both planned and already built. Here are more stories from the Rail~volution bike tour around Portland's "lost highways."

Rail~volution is underway in Portland, Oregon, bringing together more than 1,000 city planners, engineers, transit advocates, bike policy experts, and elected officials to strategize about making cities and towns better for transit, walking, and biking.

Planners in 45 regions in 27 states have a little more to work in their efforts to shape sustainable growth.