Transportation

Trump’s DOT continues playing fast and loose with transit funding

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a bus drives alongside a gaggle of bikers
The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) claims that it isn’t intentionally slowing down and undermining transit funding. But nine communities have been waiting months for federal funding on shovel-ready transit projects that have been “allocated” money by USDOT without actually receiving a single dollar. For one of those communities, it has been 10 months since USDOT “allocated” money—an unprecedented and unnecessary delay. How long are communities supposed to wait for USDOT to do its job and fund these transit projects?

Transportation

Building a family-friendly city

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In the conversations about cities, much of the media attention has been focused on young professional or older, retiring Americans. But families with children have been largely overlooked in the midst of our current urban renaissance. There has been some recent debated over whether the number of children (and thus families) is increasing or on the decline in cities, and it got us thinking: what would a place designed for families look like?

Complete Streets Creative Placemaking Economic development Transportation

Indianapolis rolls out the red carpet for transit

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A Red Line bus stopped at a new station prior to launch.
More than a decade ago, local business and civic leaders in Indianapolis realized that for the city to remain competitive it needed to be better at moving people. Today, after an exhaustive planning process, changes to state law, and a successful local referendum where local voters raised their income taxes to invest in transit, the first major piece of Indianapolis’s transit upgrade is set to open.

Transportation

New federal bill would make our streets safer—plus, see the 100 most dangerous House districts

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A handful of leaders in the House and Senate just introduced a bill that would finally require states and metro areas to design and build safer streets for everyone. Plus, our new report shows which U.S. House representatives have the highest rate of people struck and killed while walking in their districts.

Advocacy Complete Streets Transportation

Announcing our inaugural Arts, Culture and Transportation Fellows

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Transportation for America, a program of Smart Growth America, announces its inaugural class of fellows for the new Arts, Culture and Transportation Fellowship to help 11 individuals in four cities take their work at the intersection of arts and transportation to the next level.

Creative Placemaking Transportation

Economic mobility drives Charlotte’s new TOD zoning

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Charlotte is booming. Since 2003, upwards of 12,000 new housing units have opened along the LYNX Blue line. But when planners went back to look at the development over the last decade, they weren’t entirely satisfied with the results. So the city decided to create new TOD zoning that would better reflect the needs and context of different stations as we hear on this month’s episode of Building Better Communities with Transit.

Technical assistance Transportation

Repair Priorities 2019

The nation’s roads are deteriorating, contributing to a looming financial problem. When the first edition of Repair Priorities was released in 2011, the condition of the nation’s road network was a direct reflection of decades of underinvestment in repair. In the years since, policymakers continue to pay lip service to the notion of prioritizing repair … Continued

Transportation

Our take on Infrastructure Week in the Washington Post

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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.

Advocacy Transportation

Repair Priorities 2019: more money won’t fix our infrastructure problems

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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.

Advocacy Transportation
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