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Ryan Russo on DOT’s “Mobility Report” and the Need for Better Bus Service
DOT's "New York City Mobility Report" [PDF], released earlier this week, is the agency's first overview of NYC transportation trends in three years. As the number of people and jobs in the city has grown prodigiously in the past five years, DOT reports, the subway system and, increasingly, the bike network have allowed more New Yorkers to get where they need to go. But there are signs of strain -- bus ridership is declining and bus speeds are slowing, and traffic congestion in the Manhattan core is rising.
June 10, 2016
DOT Mobility Report: As NYC Grows, So Are Transit and Bicycling
With New York City's population swelling to a record size, subways and bikes now account for about 700,000 more trips each day than 16 years ago, according to a new report from NYC DOT [PDF]. Car trips into the Manhattan core, meanwhile, are declining, but so is citywide bus ridership.
June 9, 2016
High Transportation Costs Make a Lot of HUD Housing Unaffordable
Rental assistance from HUD isn't enough to make the cost of living affordable when the subsidies go toward housing in car-dependent areas, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Texas and the University of Utah. The study evaluated transportation costs for more than 18,000 households that receive HUD rental subsidies, estimating that nearly half of recipients have to spend more than 15 percent of their household budgets on transportation.
February 29, 2016
Sober Non-Partisan Analysis: America Wastes a Ton of Money on Highways
A good deal of the $46 billion the federal government pours into highway spending each year is going to waste, according to a new Congressional Budget Office report [PDF].
February 23, 2016
Study: “Shared Space” Slows Drivers While Letting Traffic Move Efficiently
The idea behind "shared space" street design is that less can be more. By ditching signage, traffic lights, and the grade separation between sidewalk and roadbed, the shared space approach calms traffic and heightens communication between drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists. Instead of following traffic signals on auto-pilot or speeding up to beat the light, motorists have to pay attention to their surroundings.
February 8, 2016
Highway Boondoggles: Ohio DOT’s $1.2 Billion Portsmouth Bypass
In a new report, Highway Boondoggles 2, U.S. PIRG and the Frontier Group profile the most wasteful highway projects that state DOTs are building. Today we highlight Ohio DOT's $1.2 billion Portsmouth Bypass, the most expensive and, arguably, least-needed transportation project in the state's history.
February 3, 2016
TA: Quicker Action on Vision Zero Can Save Thousands of Lives
The de Blasio administration is making progress on street safety, but not fast enough to achieve the mayor's Vision Zero target of eliminating traffic deaths by 2024, Transportation Alternatives says in a new report. At the current rate of improvement, it will take nearly 40 years to reach that goal.
January 20, 2016
Highway Boondoggles: Widening I-95 Across Connecticut
Last year Congress passed a multi-year transportation bill. Like previous bills, it gives tens of billions of dollars to states every year to spend with almost no strings attached. How much of this federal funding will state DOTs devote to expensive, traffic-inducing highway projects that further entrench car dependence and sprawl?
January 19, 2016
Study: Sharrows Don’t Make Streets Safer for Cycling
Sharrows are the dregs of bike infrastructure -- the scraps cities hand out when they can't muster the will to implement exclusive space for bicycling. They may help with wayfinding, but do sharrows improve the safety of cycling at all? New research presented at the Transportation Review Board Annual Meeting suggests they don't.
January 14, 2016
Social Engineering! Cities That Build More Parking Get More Traffic
Build parking spaces and they will come -- in cars. New research presented this week at the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board finds a direct, causal relationship between the amount of parking in cities and car commuting rates.
January 13, 2016