Author Archive
Feds announce change to consider livability in funding transit projects
Following through on a policy change hinted at for much of 2009, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced this morning that federal transit officials would begin considering expanded criteria as they select which transit projects to fund, focusing on livability and sustainability.
Biking the freeze?
The Streetsblog Network is working on another slide show, this one seasonally appropriate. It’s time for another Streetsblog Network slide show. This time, in honor of the frosty weather enveloping much of the country (and the world), we’re looking for your pictures of cycling in inclement conditions. Snow, ice, extreme cold — we know that […]
Secretary Ray LaHood on the the Daily Show with Jon Stewart
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood was the guest on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night, and got an easy question right off the bat. When asked by Stewart about how a high-powered CEO could get from New York to D.C. “when it’s foggy out,” alluding to the three Wall Street CEOs who had their plane grounded in last week’s fog, missing a meeting with the President, Ray LaHood gave a simple answer. “Amtrak runs in the fog,” he said.
Walkscore innovators turn to improving public transportation
Front Seat, the civic software company responsible for the massively popular Walkscore service, launched a new project today aimed at encouraging public transportation ridership. The project makes transit agency schedule data available, accessible, and open to developers so they can create applications to make it easier to ride. CityGoRound.org is a new portal where you can find the many applications developers have have created to ease and increase the convenience of riding transit.
Secretary LaHood receives your message loud and clear, responds in kind
Just a week after the release of Dangerous by Design, Transportation for America and six of our key partners met with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood yesterday to deliver a petition with thousands of signatures urging him to make pedestrian safety and complete streets a priority at USDOT. He responded with resounding support, telling T4 America during a meeting yesterday, “the right of way doesn’t just belong to cars — it belongs to pedestrians and bicyclists as well.”
Help us send a message to Secretary LaHood and the USDOT
As our new Dangerous by Design report illustrates, pedestrian safety is a matter of life or death for thousands of Americans each year. With a loss of life equivalent to a jumbo jet going down roughly each month, it is a tragedy that does not get enough attention at nearly any level of government. These are preventable deaths, largely on roads that are not safe for walking or biking. Transportation for America is working to arrange a meeting with U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and to deliver the message from our hundreds of partner organizations and thousands of supporters across the country that safer streets must be a priority! Sign our petition today!
New York City sees biking go in one direction — up!
All of the videos from Streetfilms are certainly worth watching, but we wanted to call out special attention to this one, especially on the heels of the Dangerous by Design release yesterday morning. With nearly 5,000 people dying every year on our roads while walking or biking, some cities are working hard to bring those […]
Mayor John Robert Smith on urgency and the upcoming transport bill
Aaron Renn of the Urbanophile interviewed T4 America co-chair Mayor John Robert Smith at the Rail~Volution conference a few days ago in Boston, Mass., and shot this short video highly worth watching. Mayor Smith was the longtime mayor of his hometown of Meridian, Mississippi, where he worked tirelessly to open the state’s first multi-modal transportation […]
Dangerous by Design
Every year, nearly 5,000 Americans die preventable deaths on roads that fail to provide safe conditions for pedestrians. This decade alone, more than 43,000 Americans – including 3,906 children under 16 – have been killed while walking or crossing a street in our communities. A new report from Transportation for America and the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership, Dangerous by Design: Solving the Epidemic of Preventable Pedestrian Death (and Making Great Neighborhoods), ranks metropolitan areas based on the relative danger of walking. Read the report and view the full metro rankings.
Bay Area business leaders push the Senate for clean transportation
A top-flight organization (and T4 America partner) representing more than 300 elite Silicon Valley businesses from Apple to Yahoo! sent a letter last week to Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, urging her to make sure the Senate climate bill adequately invests in clean transportation alternatives to reduce emissions in their region while keeping it mobile and competitive.
It’s past time to elevate the national conversation about infrastructure beyond just the price tag. Learn more about T4America's three simple principles for federal transportation investment.
Read our new principles