Studies & Reports

Even though 33 percent of its roads are in "poor" condition, West Virginia spends about 73 percent of its road budget building new roads and adding lanes. Mississippi spends 97 percent of its road money on expansion. Texas, 82 percent.

You would be lucky to get half as much information about a $5 million transportation project in your state as you can get from a toothpaste tube about how to brush.

American transportation policy has a woeful history of civil rights abuses. For a good part of the 1950s and '60s, using highways to level black neighborhoods was a matter of national policy. And the white flight and segregation that those highways engendered have left a legacy that continues to shape much of America in the present day.

A fact sheet [PDF] released by the city's health department today makes the case that New York City's walkability contributes to the health of residents -- but a deeper look into the research shows that not all New Yorkers are benefitting equally from walkable neighborhoods.

A lot of research has shown a link between living in a walkable community, active transportation habits, and better health outcomes.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison provides bike valet at its football games. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill supports free transit for everyone in the region. The University of California, Irvine launched a bike-share system in 2009, long before any major city in California had done so.

Bicycling in Manhattan has long been a male-dominated mode of transportation, but a new study says bike-share is helping improve the gender balance in the borough's bike lanes. Another change since the blue bikes hit the streets last summer: Manhattan bike riders are far more likely to follow the rules of the road.

Bike-share has exploded in the last decade -- and in North America, just in the last few years. What started as a shaky concept in Amsterdam in the 1960s has matured into a viable transit option worldwide, with 600 systems offering more than 600,000 bikes.

U.S. PIRG and the Frontier Group are on a mission to explore the downward trend in driving. In a series of reports, they point to evidence that it isn’t just a temporary blip, but a long-term shift in how Americans get around. Today, the two organizations released a new report, “Transportation in Transition: A Look at Changing Travel Patterns in America’s Biggest Cities,” which shows that these changes are happening in regions all over the country.