A new opinion piece in the Washington Post from Transportation for America takes a contrarian view of all the talk about money during Infrastructure Week. In short, let’s skip a special infrastructure plan and focus on policy; without good policy more spending could actually do more harm than good.
It’s Infrastructure Week again and politicians are back at it, bemoaning our “crumbling roads and bridges” and insisting we must spend more to fix the problem. But we’ve got some cold water to throw on this pity party: Despite more transportation spending over the last decade, the percentage of the roads nationwide in “poor condition” increased from 14 to 20 percent.
This month on Building Better Communities with Transit we’re joined by Maritza Pechin, a planner with AECOM who works with city staff in Richmond on long-range planning. On the podcast, Maritza talks about the Pulse and the broader bus network redesign that was rolled out at the same time. In a wide ranging conversation, Jeff Wood and Maritza discuss how the new system is bring people back to transit, how the city might tackle housing affordability, and what big ideas the city is considering for the future.
It’s time to pick the nation’s top form-based code. While this type of zoning is catching on, some form-based codes can miss the mark if they deviate from best practices. That’s where the Form-Based Codes Institute’s standards—and the Driehaus Award—come in.
Advocates and policy makers around the country are working hard to make streets safer. But the messages some twitter accounts were sending on Bike to School Day inadvertently highlight how far we still have to go to make sure everyone can safely use the road.
The National Complete Streets Coalition has released their annual evaluation of new Complete Streets policies. This year, a new and improved grading framework set a higher bar for communities by emphasizing equity and implementation. Download the full report—The Best Complete Streets Policies of 2018—for the full ranking and community profiles.
Mark your calendar! On Wednesday, May 8, 2019 we’re unveiling our ranking of the best Complete Streets policies of 2018. For an in-depth look at how policies fared this year—and how our grading has changed—join us for a webinar on Thursday, May 16 at 2:00 p.m. ET
This year’s small-scale manufacturing technical assistance funded by the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) is well underway with a pair of successful visits completed. We recently caught up with two communities we helped in 2016—Knoxville, TN and Youngstown, OH—to learn about their achievements with local makers. Their progress illustrates the potential for high-quality jobs and placemaking opportunities tied to this emerging sector.
Under President Trump, the USDOT has effectively turned the formerly innovative BUILD program—created to advance complex, hard-to-fund, multimodal projects—into little more than a rural roads program, dramatically undercutting both its intent and utility. A new analysis illuminates how the program has changed and what Congress can do about it.
Transportation for America is excited to announce the Arts, Culture, and Transportation (ACT) Fellowship, a new opportunity for professionals to increase their knowledge of the transportation planning and design process, and develop creative placemaking skills to better integrate artistic and cultural practices in transportation projects.