Tanya Snyder
Tanya became Streetsblog's Capitol Hill editor in September 2010 after covering Congress for Pacifica Radios Washington bureau and for public radio stations around the country. She lives car-free in a transit-oriented and bike-friendly neighborhood of Washington, DC.
Recent Posts
Boxer Confirms Bike-Ped Funding, Gang of Six Loves infrastructure Spending
| | No Comments
At today’s hearing, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee celebrated the bipartisan consensus it has reached on a new transportation reauthorization – but details of that consensus are still not public. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) did confirm that dedicated federal funding for bicycle and pedestrian programs remains in the bill. Addressing LA Mayor Antonio […]
GOP ‘Streamlining’ Plan Threatens to Clear a Path for Highways and Pollution
| | No Comments
The summary of the House Transportation Committee’s reauthorization bill – no legislative text has been released yet – includes several provisions for “streamlining” project delivery. While on its face, a little streamlining could help reduce excessive delays and bring costs in line, environmentalists are concerned that underlying the “streamlining” provision is a desire to gut environmental review […]
No Commitment to Bike-Ped Funding in Senate Transpo Bill Outline
| | No Comments
The Senate EPW Committee just posted a transportation bill outline on their website, and despite previous assurances by committee chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA), there appears to be no dedicated funding for bicycling and pedestrian programs in the bill. The outline focuses on the consolidation of programs and streamlining project delivery, much like the House bill. […]
Rich People Love Sidewalks, And Other Livability Lessons From USDOT
| | No Comments
When asking people what transportation options are important in their communities, why do poll-takers never ask them to choose between different options? Here comes another survey in which people say they want everything and are never asked to make the tradeoffs that come in the real world. USDOT’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics asked 1,000 households […]
House Votes to Strip High-Speed Rail Funding
| | No Comments
This morning, the House voted 232-182 for an Energy and Water Appropriations bill that redirects $1 billion of high-speed rail money to flood relief for the Midwest. Never mind that that flood relief won’t arrive for many months, since this is a 2012 appropriations bill. The important thing here is to kill high-speed rail. (Why? I dunno. […]
Desperately Seeking: One Senate Transportation Bill, Preferably Bipartisan
| | No Comments
Rumors were flying yesterday that a rollout of the Senate transportation bill, or at least a significant announcement about its status, was imminent. Staffers were locked away in meetings, finalizing the last details – or so we hoped. Some said that Democrats and Republicans were still trying to work out some significant issues, and that […]
Rail-Wary FL Gov. Scott Threw Caution to the Wind in Supporting SunRail
| | No Comments
On Monday, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will travel to Orlando for the ground-breaking of the SunRail commuter rail project in central Florida. We reported with some pleasure two weeks ago that Gov. Rick Scott had approved the project. But what we didn’t mention was that there’s significant opposition to the project, and it’s not all from the […]
Big Oil Lobbies to Keep Its Tax Breaks Off the Table in Debt Talks
| | No Comments
Deron Lovaas is the federal transportation policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. This story is cross-posted on his blog. As debt negotiations continue in Congress, President Obama appears to be sticking to his guns on repealing the enormous tax breaks enjoyed by the oil and gas industry. The industry takes advantage of tax breaks dating back […]
Georgia Mom Convicted of Vehicular Homicide For Crossing Street With Kids
| | No Comments
We don’t normally report on vehicle crashes here on the Capitol Hill blog, but this was so outrageous we couldn’t help ourselves. A 30-year-old woman in Marietta, Georgia was convicted of vehicular homicide this week – and she wasn’t even driving a car. The woman was crossing the street with her three children when a […]
Ford, Verizon Support Distracted-Driver Law — And Its Loophole
| | No Comments
Yesterday, Ford became the first automaker to endorse a bill, introduced by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), to ban distracted driving. When a similar bill was introduced in the last session, Ford was the first to endorse it then, too. McCarthy’s bill requires USDOT to set minimum standards for state bans on “the use of hand-held mobile […]
Bi-Partisan Political Veterans Team Up to Design a New Gas Tax System
| | No Comments
Transportation reformers around the country have long been disappointed at politicians’ unwillingness to raise the gas tax to pay for infrastructure. It seems, to many, an obvious and necessary solution for the chronic underfunding of our transportation system. Meanwhile, to the politicians, it is just as obvious that raising consumer taxes during a recession is […]
Mica: Why Are the Democrats Picking On Me?
| | No Comments
We were sad to see that Rep. Mica was sad to see that the Democrats were sad to see that the House transportation proposal is an unmitigated disaster for transportation policy. As Alice reported last week, Democrats on the committee called the GOP plan a “road to ruin” and “a cruel imitation of a proposal.” […]