Streetsblog.net

With the rising popularity of bike-share systems around the world, one inevitable issue is the availability of helmets. This is particularly true in the United States, where a bare-headed cyclist is considered a daredevil miscreant who's practically begging for trouble.

There's a double standard in American transportation. Propose a transit project, or even some extremely cheap bicycle or pedestrian improvements, and you'll be met with a chorus of skepticism from politicians or local media about the high cost. Propose a highway project and few will even bat an eye at the price tag. Can you name the last highway expansion killed by a so-called budget hawk with great fanfare? They only seem to set their sights on rail and transit expansions, like New Jersey's ARC Tunnel or various high-speed rail projects.

Across the country, everyone's looking to San Francisco when it comes to parking policy. Big cities like Los Angeles and New York City are moving toward their own versions of the pioneering SF Park system, which sets meter rates based on the actual demand for parking spaces.

Pop-up urbanism, or tactical urbanism as it's sometimes called, seems like an idea that belongs to our era.

Big announcement yesterday out of Chicago: Mayor Rahm Emanuel is moving ahead with a system of priority busways between Union Station and Navy Pier. The "Central Area Transitway" will include dedicated bus lanes, signal priority for transit vehicles, and frequent service during rush hour, improving trips for riders on several different bus routes.

Congress is in recess this week, but that doesn't mean the furor surrounding the House transportation bill has died down.

Here's what's happening around the Network today:

To hear some key Republican lawmakers talk transportation policy, you'd think that state DOTs are straining under the burden of onerous national mandates.

On January 6, 1983, the icon of the modern conservative movement, Ronald Reagan, signed legislation to raise the gas tax for the first time in more than two decades, devoting a portion of the revenue to transit.