For many troops who have served in U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, combat is just one of many dangers they face. Upon returning home, they have higher rates of suicide, homelessness, and mental illness. Now we can add another threat to the list:  Car crashes. The Washington Post published an astonishing article yesterday about the […]

Deaths from motor vehicle crashes rose 5.3 percent in 2012, according to new numbers from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration [PDF]. It’s the first time since 2005 that fatalities have gone up. Vehicle miles traveled only rose 0.3 percent last year. The winter was especially nasty, with 12.6 percent more deaths than the previous winter. […]

The Partnership for Sustainable Communities has had a rough couple of years. The program got zeroed out of the 2012 budget, and the 2013 budget is just a carbon copy of 2012. But they’re looking to make a comeback. The three-agency partnership celebrates its fourth anniversary in June. In those four years, the collaborative effort […]

Before I became your editor here at Streetsblog Capitol Hill, I was a reporter for WTOP, the DC area’s “most-listened-to” radio station. Its traffic reports “on the 8s” helped feed my ire toward auto-centrism – they wasted one out of every 10 minutes of airtime on an unintelligible litany of route numbers and exits. Meanwhile, […]

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy called for a federal transit funding plan. Two years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson took baby steps toward starting that program, but Johnson’s true transportation legacy was signing the bill that created the Department of Transportation, bringing all modes under one roof. Nixon oversaw the creation of Amtrak. Ford […]

Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx just accepted President Obama’s nomination to be the next transportation secretary. Before we get into the details of Anthony Foxx’s résumé and policy positions, let’s just take a moment to appreciate this: The White House has nominated a mayor to be secretary of transportation. There is often a wide gulf between […]

This article is the second of a two-part series about how U.S. DOT’s Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery program — TIGER, a discretionary grant program that got its start under the Recovery Act in 2009 — has made transportation planning more strategic, based on a benefit-cost analysis and national goals. Read the first part here, about […]

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s signature issue has been distracted driving. He’s spent the last four years amplifying the heartbreaking voices of those who have suffered the consequences of this highly dangerous habit. The stories of the needless loss of so many people, especially children and teens, are tragic. Clearly, it’s time to take decisive action to stop […]

When the buzz about a new, stimulus-funded, discretionary transportation grant program started to circulate in 2009, some environmentalists opposed it. They worried it would be a slush fund for the Federal Highway Administration, used to build unnecessary roads that would aggravate sprawl and pollution. But insiders knew that wasn’t how the new Obama administration would […]

Just last month, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave U.S. infrastructure another dismal grade and every media outlet and lawmaker in the country, it seemed, bellyached about how we need to invest more. And then Gallup asked Americans if they’d be willing to raise the gas tax by 20 cents a gallon. The answer […]

To hear some urbanists talk, you’d think the outer suburbs have been abandoned wholesale, lawn-mowers still running with no one to drive them, picket fences left open in the owners’ haste to beat it to the city. A new Brookings report puts the re-urbanization of America in perspective. During the economic crisis, from 2007 to […]

MAP-21 pushed U.S. DOT to get serious about freight: In recent months, the agency has announced the creation of a national freight policy, a National Freight Advisory Committee, and a Freight Policy Council, as mandated by the bill. Now the House Transportation Committee is getting in on the action. The committee announced today that Rep. John Duncan […]