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RPA: Growing Outer Boroughs Need New Generation of Transit Investment
With the boroughs outside Manhattan adding people and jobs faster than the city core, New York needs to reorient its transit priorities, argues the Regional Plan Association in a new report. The authors warn that increasing travel in the other boroughs will strain the local bus system and lead more people to drive, causing more traffic congestion and imposing the burden of car ownership on more low- and middle-income New Yorkers.
February 11, 2015
10 Cities That Are Getting “Wired Transportation” Right
Which cities are making it easy to catch the next bus without a long wait, hail a ride with an app, or hop on bike-share? According to a new ranking from the Frontier Group and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Austin is leading the pack when it comes to embracing technological innovation that helps people get around without being tethered to a car.
February 4, 2015
States That Ban Traffic Safety Cams Put Their Own Residents’ Lives at Risk
In Ohio, lawmakers are now poised to outlaw traffic safety cameras, needlessly obstructing efforts to save lives. Similar bills were taken up this year in statehouses in Iowa, South Dakota and Missouri. According to the Governor's Highway Safety Association, 12 states have laws that forbid speed cameras under most circumstances.
November 25, 2014
The Parking Tax Benefit: A $7.3 Billion Subsidy for Traffic Congestion
The federal government spends billions of dollars a year on tax subsidies that make traffic congestion worse, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis by TransitCenter and the Frontier Group. The culprit is the parking commuter tax benefit, which costs taxpayers $7.3 billion in foregone revenue each year, all while adding more than 800,000 cars to rush-hour traffic on the nation's roads each workday, the authors estimate.
November 18, 2014
More Evidence That Adding Bike Infrastructure Boosts Biking
If you build it, they will bike. That's the upshot of a new study from researchers at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, examining the effect of bike infrastructure.
November 13, 2014
Confirmed: Sprawl and Bad Transit Increase Unemployment
Since the 1960s and the earliest days of job sprawl, the theory of "spatial mismatch" -- that low-income communities experience higher unemployment because they are isolated from employment centers -- has shaped the way people think about urban form and social equity.
October 30, 2014
Don’t Believe the Headlines: Bike Boom Has Been Fantastic for Bike Safety
The Governors Highway Safety Association released a report Monday that, the organization claimed, showed that the ongoing surge in American biking has increased bike fatalities.
October 28, 2014
Study: Safe Routes to School Programs Boost Walking and Biking 30%
In just two generations, the share of American kids who walk or bike to school has plummeted -- dropping from 50 percent in 1969 to 13 percent today. Can the trend be reversed? Yes, according to new research that shows the impact of street safety infrastructure and other programs implemented with federal Safe Routes to School (SRTS) funds.
October 22, 2014
Not Just a Phase: Young Americans Won’t Start Motoring Like Their Parents
A raft of recent research indicates that young adults just aren't as into driving as their parents were. Young people today are walking, biking, and riding transit more while driving less than previous generations did at the same age. But the vast majority of state DOTs have been loathe to respond by changing their highway-centric ways.
October 14, 2014
Got Transit Troubles? The Problem Could Be the Chain of Command
If you still have to juggle multiple farecards for the various transit systems in your area -- or if urgent maintenance issues in the city core are going unattended while the suburbs get a shiny new station -- the problem might run deeper than the incompetence everyone is grumbling about. The root of it all might be embedded in the very structure of the agencies that govern your transit system.
October 13, 2014