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
Five Reasons Reformers Are Rallying Behind Obama’s Transpo Push
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When President Obama announced his push for a long-term transportation bill on Monday, he introduced a report by his Council of Economic Advisors and the Treasury Department analyzing the economic impact of infrastructure investment [PDF]. At face value, the numbers in the president’s plan might not look so impressive. It calls for rebuilding 150,000 miles […]
A National Infrastructure Bank: Can the U.S. Learn From Europe?
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On Labor Day, President Barack Obama gave a speech in which he pushed for the creation of a National Infrastructure Bank. Legislation that would establish the bank was introduced over the summer in Senate Bill 1926, authored by Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. But the idea of an independent financing entity […]
Frontrunner for Tenn. Gov Gets Bike Award — But Look Behind the Curtain
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Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam is a biking mayor. He shows up almost every year to Bike to Work Day. The small-government Republican has allocated $20,000 for bike improvements. “Twenty thousand may not sound like a lot,” said Kelley Segars, Knoxville’s Principal Transportation Planner. “But it meant that we could put up our first three signed […]
How the Information Age Can Make Streets and Transit More Efficient
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In Pittsburgh, elderly para-transit riders get automated phone calls with the precise arrival time of their vehicle. Bus priority lanes and preferential traffic signals in the Twin Cities are improving on-time service. Here in Washington, DC, stored value on SmartTrip cards pays for Metro parking, train and bus, and it can sync with pre-tax employee […]
High-Speed Rail vs. Low-Cost Bus
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Last week I mentioned I was about to take Amtrak from DC to New York. Well, it cost over $200 (and there was nothing particularly “high speed” about that rail experience). Next time, I might take the bus instead. For all the attention given to the potential expansion of high-speed rail, there’s also been a […]
Former US DOT Bosses Call for Mileage Tax and Congestion Fees
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Bottlenecks cripple our productivity, and transitioning among modes of transportation remains a convoluted and inefficient process nationwide, with some major cities being the few exceptions. Concerns about the environmental impact of these inefficiencies further highlight the need for systems that offer quick, interconnected and efficient means for transportation. The message today from two Republican-appointed former […]
FTA: Transit Maintenance — Not Just Expansion — Will Grow Ridership
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Aging infrastructure across the country has become an enormous safety risk. It’s also becoming an economic hazard. Last year, the Federal Transit Administration announced that the seven largest rail transit systems had a backlog of $50 billion in maintenance needs to bring them into a state of good repair. In June, the agency determined that […]
State DOTs Make Deeper Bike-Ped Budget Cuts Than Expected
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We reported recently that the federal government was demanding $2.2 billion back from state DOTs in rescissions — money that was already allocated to states that they were then asked to give back. Bike and pedestrian advocates were worried that states would disproportionately target active transportation projects for cuts, instead of carving into car-centric programs. […]
High-Speed Rail: Do We Have the Will?
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Tomorrow morning, I’m getting on a train from Washington, DC to New York. It’s going to take me almost three-and-a-half hours to get there. Sure, I could pay more for an Acela and get there in less than three hours. But why can’t it take 90 minutes? Yesterday, Amtrak unveiled a plan [PDF] to build […]
Obama Admin Will Make Its Transportation Push During the Next Congress
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President Obama is “going to throw his support behind a six-year reauthorization of the transportation program” in Congress. That was the word today from Roy Kienitz, who represented the Transportation Department today as he testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. In a meeting with transportation reform advocates last week, Secretary Ray LaHood […]
Barbara Boxer Questions Need for Infrastructure Bank
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California Democrat Barbara Boxer, chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, expressed skepticism about one of the centerpieces of President Obama’s infrastructure plan today. As she tries to stave off an election challenge from the right, Boxer seems reluctant to embrace the creation of a national infrastructure bank to finance transportation projects. […]
Applications for TIGER II Funding Overwhelm What U.S. DOT Can Dish Out
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For every dollar awarded from the U.S. DOT’s TIGER II grant program, there are more than $30 that applicants are asking for but won’t be getting. That’s the word from the DOT, which announced on Friday that it had received about $19 billion in applications for nearly 1,000 projects “from all 50 states, U.S. territories […]