Elana Schor
Recent Posts
TIGER Grant Winners to be Announced By February 17
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The winners of $1.5 billion in merit-based transportation stimulus grants through the program known as TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) will be announced on or perhaps even before February 17, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood confirmed this week. A rendering of Phoenix’s SkyTrain, which has applied for TIGER aid to link light rail with the […]
Two Troubling Transportation Numbers for the Obama Administration
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Today brought news of two grim transportation numbers from the Obama administration: 2 and $53 million. Atlanta’s Metro won a share of the emissions-cutting transit grants that the White House proposes to cut next year. (Photo: Atlanta Metblogs) The first figure is the percentage of federal transport stimulus contracts that have gone to disadvantaged and […]
Senate Dems to Call Up Jobs Bill Monday … With Transport Details TBA
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Senate Democratic leaders appeared this morning to tout their commitment to passing a job-creation bill by the end of next week — but the substance of their jobs measure, including the fate of pivotal transportation provisions, remains up in the air. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) (Photo: LV City Life) Harry Reid (D-NV), the […]
White House Pitches $400M for Healthier Neighborhood Food Outlets
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The connection between walkable development and grocery shopping may not seem immediately apparent — until you consider studies conducted in cities from Austin to Seattle that showed the share of trips taken by foot or by transit rises as local food outlets move closer to residential areas. The White House budget envisions a new investment […]
A Modest Proposal: Ask Developers to Help Pay For Better Transport
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At today’s debate on conservative support for transit, developer Chris Leinberger had a modest proposal for lawmakers who are desperately seeking new transportation financing strategies in an era of diminishing gas tax returns: Ask real-estate developers to pay for projects that will increase their profits. Chris Leinberger at last year’s Walk21 conference. (Photo: M. Katz) […]
How Can Transit Backers Sway Conservatives? Oberstar Joins the Debate
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In the years before partisan warfare became the norm in Washington, transportation tended to unite both ends of the ideological spectrum. Can rationality return to infrastructure policy debates that have become subsumed by culture clashes between cyclists and drivers, urbanists and suburbanites — and, of course, Democrats and Republicans? Highways and transit, side by side […]
U.S. DOT Names the Transit Projects Set for Federal Funding
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The Obama administration last night revealed the names of local transit projects getting recommendations for federal aid under the U.S. DOT’s New and Small Starts programs, which are set to receive $1.8 billion during fiscal year 2011. The list includes some familiar urban projects — New York’s Second Avenue Subway, for instance, already had a […]
LaHood Talks Budget: “Very Bright” Future for Infrastructure Fund
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Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said today that he sees "very bright" prospects for congressional approval of the Obama administration’s $4 billion National Infrastructure Innovation and Finance Fund, the new iteration of the long-discussed National Infrastructure Bank proposal. Transportation Secretary LaHood, at left, with the president. (Photo: NYT) "There is a great deal of interest in […]
The White House Transportation Budget: What’s In Line for the Axe?
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In a fiscal year 2011 budget that proposes to increase spending on several core transportation priorities, the White House also aims to eliminate a few infrastructure programs that may prove popular with lawmakers. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) used the STP program to earmark millions of dollars for road projects in his home state, including the […]
White House Budget Includes $530M for Local Sustainability, $1B for HSR
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The White House officially unveiled its $3.8 trillion budget for the fiscal year 2011 this morning, seeking $1 billion to continue its high-speed rail investment and $530 million for the transportation leg of the Obama administration’s inter-agency push to promote sustainable planning on the local level. White House budget chief Peter Orszag challenged employees to […]
Biden Says High-Speed Rail Money Ignored Politics — Was He Right?
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During yesterday’s Tampa event awarding $8 billion in federal rail grants, Vice President Joe Biden pointed to the two states receiving the biggest share of stimulus money for true high-speed train projects: Florida and California, both run by GOP governors. The vice president takes the president’s coat yesterday. (Photo: AP via Politico) "We didn’t pick […]
The Urbanist Case Against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
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The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), an advocacy group working to reform local development practices, is seizing on House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank’s (D-MA) recent call for a new system of housing finance to replace government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Mixed-use developments, such as Atlanta’s Atlantic Station (above), are often incompatible […]