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The American Highway Safety Establishment Warms Up Some Leftovers
A group of heavy hitters in the road building and traffic safety establishment recently came out with a plan called "Toward Zero Deaths" [PDF], presented as an ambitious strategy to cut traffic fatalities in America. But don't get too excited by the branding -- the ideas inside don't present much of a challenge to practices that have made the U.S. a shameful laggard on traffic safety compared to other affluent nations.
March 20, 2015
Report: All New NYC Garbage Trucks Should Have Life-Saving Side Guards
Earlier this month, the city announced a pilot program to add side guards, which prevent people from being dragged under the rear wheels of large vehicles, to 240 trucks in the city fleet. It's a start, but there are thousands more trucks on NYC streets that need this life-saving equipment.
February 26, 2015
Obama’s New Transportation Budget: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
With federal transportation funding on track to run dry by May 31, Washington lawmakers are gearing up again to reset national transportation policy... or, if that doesn't work out, to limp along indefinitely under the status quo.
February 2, 2015
Four Nice Touches in U.S. DOT’s New “Mayors’ Challenge” for Bike Safety
Michael Andersen blogs for The Green Lane Project, a PeopleForBikes program that helps U.S. cities build better bike lanes to create low-stress streets.
January 23, 2015
Anthony Foxx Challenges Mayors to Protect Pedestrians and Cyclists
With pedestrian and cyclist deaths accounting for a rising share of U.S. traffic fatalities and Congress not exactly raring to take action, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx is issuing a direct challenge to America's mayors to improve street safety. Yesterday Foxx unveiled the "Mayor's Challenge for Safer People and Safer Streets" at the U.S. Conference of Mayors Transportation Committee meeting in Washington.
January 23, 2015
The Feds Quietly Acknowledge the Driving Boom Is Over
The Federal Highway Administration has very quietly acknowledged that the driving boom is over.
January 7, 2015
NHTSA Touts Decrease in Traffic Deaths, But 32,719 Ain’t No Vision Zero
Twenty-four-year-old Taja Wilson was killed near the Louisiana bayou in August when a driver swerved on the shoulder where she was walking. Noshat Nahian, age 8, was killed in a Queens crosswalk on his way to school in December by a tractor-trailer driver with a suspended license. Manuel Steeber, 37, was in a wheelchair when he was killed in Minneapolis while trying to cross an intersection with no crosswalk or traffic signal on a 40-mph road. One witness speculated that Steeber must have had a "death wish."
December 22, 2014
Documentary to Explore Racial Discrimination in Transportation Planning
Beavercreek, Ohio, nabbed its own infamous place in civil rights history last year, when the Federal Highway Administration ruled that the suburb had violated anti-discrimination laws by blocking bus service from nearby Dayton.
October 29, 2014
U.S. DOT Releases New Guidance to Make Streets Safe for Cycling
Last month in Pittsburgh, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx unveiled a new federal initiative aimed at reducing pedestrian and cyclist fatalities. Despite declining overall traffic fatalities, people walking and biking are being killed more often on American streets, a disturbing trend that U.S. DOT wants to reverse.
October 10, 2014
U.S. DOT to Publish Its Own Manual on Protected Bike Lanes
Before the end of this year, the Federal Highway Administration will release its own guidance on designing protected bike lanes.
September 23, 2014