The Administration’s desire to impose its own vision of how Americans should live and travel represents a stubborn and in the end futile gesture. The gesture is futile for, as generations of political appointees before them have discovered, policies that do not resonate with the majority of Americans seldom survive after their authors have left office.
View this complete post...Archive for the ‘Urban Planning’ Category
U.S. DOT’s Strategic Plan Creates Controversy With Its Emphasis on “Livability”
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010Funding the Transportation Needs of an Older Generation
Thursday, May 13th, 2010AMERICAN PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION ASSOCIATION
Rapid growth in the number of older people in the United States during the coming decades will lead to greatly increased needs for expanded and enhanced public transportation services. This report: a) identifies the range of actions that will be needed to expand mobility options for older people, including accessible public transportation services; b) quantifies the demand for these public transportation services; and c) estimates the funding that will be needed to provide them.
Pennywise, Pound Fuelish: New Measures of Housing + Transportation Affordability
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010CENTER FOR NEIGHBORHOOD TECHNOLOGY
The number of affordable communities in the U.S. shrinks by 30%, eliminating 48,000 communities, when both housing and transportation costs are considered.
Transportation Facts
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010CENTER FOR TRANSPORTATION EXCELLENCE
-314 jobs are created for each $10 million invested in transit capital funding and more than 570 jobs are created for each $10 million invested in shorter projects.
-American families spend 18% of their household budgets on transportation, making it the second largest household expenditure after housing.
-Building more roads isn’t always the answer to this growing problem. Each of the cities in the TTI study would require an average of 37 more lane miles to keep pace with just one year of increased traffic demand.
Guest on The Infra Blog: Thomas Murphy, Senior Resident Fellow, ULI/Klingbeil Family Chair for Urban Development, Urban Land Institute, and former Mayor of Pittsburgh
Thursday, May 6th, 2010Thomas Murphy is a senior resident fellow, ULI/Klingbeil Family Chair for urban development, Urban Land Institute. Since January 2006, Murphy had served as ULI’s Gulf Coast liaison, helping to coordinate with the leadership of New Orleans and the public to advance the implementation of rebuilding recommendations made by ULI’s advisory services panel last fall. Prior to his service as the ULI Gulf Coast liaison, Murphy served three terms as the mayor of Pittsburgh, from January 1994 through December 2005. From 1979 through 1993, Murphy served eight terms in the Pennsylvania State General Assembly House of Representatives. He is an honorary member of the American Society of Landscape Architects; a board member of the Pennsylvania League of Cities and Municipalities; and a board member of the National Rails to Trails Conservancy.
View this complete post...TxDOT’s Beaumont District
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010TxDOTBeaumont on YouTube: What is the future for highway construction and transportation in Southeast Texas? Texas faces many transportation funding challenges in the years to come. TxDOT, state lawmakers and industry leaders are working to come up with ways of keeping our highway system one of the best in the world. This video, produced by […]
View this complete post...Two Bold Predictions
Monday, May 3rd, 2010Two bold predictions concerning the future of the federal surface transportation program have caught our eye in recent days. Both have come from respected veterans of the transportation scene so they cannot be lightly dismissed as speculations of some anonymous bloggers.
View this complete post...The Road To Livability: How State Departments of Transportation are Using Road Investments to Improve Community Livability
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF STATE HIGHWAY AND TRANSPORTATION OFFICIALS
Soon, members of Congress will be asked to decide “What makes a ‘livable’ community?” Since the U.S. Department of Transportation is making livability a top priority for future transportation funding, this is an important concept to define. While some would suggest livability means a life without cars, this definition really doesn’t work for the millions of Americans who have chosen the lifestyle that an automobile affords…If enhancing livability is the objective of transportation legislation or regulation, then it must work for those who live in rural Montana just as much as it would for those in downtown Portland. Equating livability only to riding transit, walking and biking, limits its relevance and excludes a wide range of improvements and community needs.
Guest on The Infra Blog: Adolfo Carrión, Jr., Director, White House Office of Urban Affairs & Deputy Assistant to the President
Tuesday, April 20th, 2010“Anything that will stir up the conversation among the citizenry about the future of our country, both in its physical manifestation and in its social and economic manifestation, is a good thing, and I think what InfrastructureUSA.org is doing is laudable and should be applauded. We need more of this kind of civic engagement.”
Adolfo Carrión is the first Director of the White House Office of Urban Affairs and Deputy Assistant to the President. He was elected to the New York City Council in 1997, and served one term. He was then elected Borough President of the Bronx, where he served for 7 years. Under Carrión’s leadership, total investment in the borough increased from $361 million/year in 2002, to almost $1 billion/year in 2008. Unemployment dropped by five percent, due in large part to Carrion’s aggressive pursuit of employment assurances for members of the Bronx community as he implemented the largest infrastructure, residential and commercial redevelopment since the 1920’s.
View this complete post...Follow InfrastructureUSA
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Dear Friends,
It is encouraging to finally see clear signs of federal action to support a comprehensive US infrastructure investment plan.
Now more than ever, our advocacy is needed to keep stakeholders informed and connected, and to hold politicians to their promises to finally fix our nation’s ailing infrastructure.
We have already engaged nearly 280,000 users, and hoping to add many more as interest continues to grow.
We require your support in order to rise to this occasion, to make the most of this opportunity. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to InfrastructureUSA.org.
Steve Anderson
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SteveAnderson@InfrastructureUSA.org
917-940-7125