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New Urbanists: No Economic Recovery Without Smart Growth
What happened to the United States over the past several years is most commonly described as a recession. By the technical definition of the word we're two years into a recovery. But it sure doesn't seem that way.
October 6, 2011
Get on the Bus (With Everybody Else)
Has your morning bus commute gotten a little more crowded lately? Sharing the light rail car with a few more folks? That’s because transit ridership just keeps rising, according to the American Public Transportation Association. Americans took 85.7 million more trips on public transportation in the first six months of this year than they did during the same months last year.
October 5, 2011
USDOT Tries to Resuscitate the HSR Dreams Congress Wants to Bury
High-speed rail has had a rough go of it lately. The House refused to give it a dime for next year, while the Senate only managed to allocate a fraction of what the president wanted. President Obama stuck some money back in via his jobs package, but it already seems clear that the package won’t pass as proposed, and we know high-speed rail is the always first for the chopping block.
October 4, 2011
McConnell Spoiling For a Fight Over Jobs Bill, House Passes Budget Extension
Amid prognostications that the jobs bill is "dead" -- including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's announcement that the House won't vote on the bill in its entirety -- Senate Minority Leaders Mitch McConnell said today that he's just itching for a vote on the Senate floor.
October 4, 2011
Republicans Have Their Own Plan to Pay for Infrastructure Jobs: Oil Drilling
President Obama has proposed a plan to pay for the American Jobs Act, the $447 billion bill to create 1.9 million jobs, including $50 billion for infrastructure. His "pay-for" plan includes limitations on itemized deductions for the wealthy and the elimination of some tax loopholes for oil and gas companies.
October 3, 2011
Another Shutdown Avoided
It's getting to be a little like the Boy Who Cried Wolf over on Capitol Hill. I mean, it's hard to get all revved up about an impending government shutdown when Congress always insists on taking negotiations to the edge and they always figure out something right before the deadline.
September 29, 2011
Will Obama’s Transportation Jobs Plan Avoid Funding Sprawl?
USDOT has made public the breakdown of President Obama’s $50 billion plan to create jobs through transportation infrastructure investment. The administration says: “It will put people to work upgrading 150,000 miles of road, laying/maintaining 4,000 miles of train tracks, restoring 150 miles of runways, and putting in place a next-generation air-traffic control system that will reduce travel time and delays.”
September 28, 2011
TTI: Mass Transit Saved Drivers 45.4 Million Hours Last Year
Last year, the D.C. region ran away with the dubious honor of Most Congested Metro Area. D.C. area drivers wasted 74 hours and 37 gallons of fuel sitting in traffic last year, which would have cost about $100 over the course of the year. But the gasoline cost is just the tip of the iceberg.
September 28, 2011
Would President Romney Build Roads or Rail?
All eyes are on Texas Gov. Rick Perry these days, the faraway frontrunner in the Republican race. But as the primary goes on (and on and on) more Republicans might take note of the fact that in a matchup with President Obama, only one candidate stands a chance of winning: former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
September 27, 2011
New Survey Numbers Show Surprising, But Slight, Dip in Bike Commuting
Bicycling advocates say that the American Community Surveyhas never accurately measured bike commuting, because they don’t ask the right questions. That may be true, but the upshot is that a year that appeared to be a banner year for cycling ended up being kind of a dud, according to the ACS. The ACS recorded a slight dip in bike commute mode-share, from 0.55 percent in 2009 to 0.53 percent in 2010.
September 26, 2011