Angie Schmitt
Recent Posts
Civil Rights Advocates Challenge Missouri DOT’s Discriminatory Spending
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For every dollar per capita that urban areas contribute to transportation funding in Missouri, the state returns 35 cents, while rural areas receive $4.31 for every dollar they contribute. Graphic: Missouri Coalition for Better Transit
Missouri, like many other states, shifts transportation funds from cities to rural areas — it collects most gas tax revenue from urban [...]
Engineers to U.S. DOT: Transportation Is About More Than Moving Cars
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A trade group representing the transportation engineering profession thinks it’s high time for American policy makers to stop focusing so much on moving single-occupancy vehicles.
Should roads like this be considered a success? ITE doesn’t think so. Photo: Smart Growth America
U.S. DOT is currently deciding how it will assess the performance of state DOTs. Will it [...]
State DOTs to Feds: We Don’t Want to Reveal Our Impact on Climate Change
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State DOTs don’t want to report on how their spending decisions affect greenhouse gas emissions. Photo: Andrew Boone
Every year state DOTs receive tens of billions of dollars in transportation funds from the federal government. By and large, they can do whatever they want with the money, which in most states means wasting enormous sums on [...]
Study: Even Drivers Prefer Protected Bike Lanes
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Protected bike lanes are welcomed by drivers as well. Photo: People for Bikes
When it comes to allocating street space, it is often taken for granted that anything that benefits people on bikes harms people who drive. Such assumptions are contradicted by data showing that cycling infrastructure makes streets safer for all users, and don’t mesh with a new [...]
5 Reasons No One Should Ever Take the Straddling Bus Seriously
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A Chinese firm built and tested a prototype of this on a short track, but that might be the end of the road for the straddling bus. Image via Popular Science
The taller the bus, the harder it falls. Since 2010, a Chinese firm’s “straddling bus” concept has captured the imagination of people around the globe who want to avoid the hassle [...]
A Better Bus Stop: Big Ideas From Transit Riders for a Better Wait
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Streetsblog has been calling attention to the dismal state of transit waiting areas with our Sorriest Bus Stop in America tournament. Transit riders have to put up with conditions that no one should stand for — bus stops with nothing to sit on and no shelter, bus stops by dangerous, high-speed roads with no sidewalks, even “secret” bus stops [...]
67 Congress Members Tell Feds: Measure the Movement of People, Not Cars
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If U.S. DOT doesn’t change its proposed congestion metric, 50 people riding in a bus will count as much as one person in an SUV. Image: Transportation for America
The federal government hands states about $40 billion a year for transportation, money they can basically spend however they want. The result in many places is a lot of expensive, traffic-inducing highways [...]
Report: Access to Car-Share and Bike-Share Is Worse in Communities of Color
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In many major American cities, communities of color have worse access to car-share and bike-share than majority white neighborhoods. Chart: Shared Use Mobility Center
Car-share and bike-share services are making it easier to go without owning a car in American cities, but access to “shared-use” systems remains limited in communities of color compared to majority-white neighborhoods, according to a new analysis [...]
America’s Sorriest Bus Stop: Kansas City vs. St. Louis County
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The second round of competition in the search for the Sorriest Bus Stop in America gets underway today. (The poll is still open until midnight in the Buffalo vs. Rochester match if you haven’t voted yet.)
Two bus stops in Missouri go toe-to-toe today. Kansas City’s entry overcame some tough competition from D.C. in the first round. Meanwhile, St. Louis County — also home [...]
Report: As Cities Add Bike Lanes, More People Bike and Biking Gets Safer
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Cities adding bike infrastructure are seeing a “safety in numbers” — more people on bikes plus lower risk of severe or fatal injury. Graphs: NACTO
The more people bike on the streets, the safer the streets are for everyone who bikes. This phenomenon, originally identified by researcher Peter Jacobsen, is known as “safety in numbers.” And that’s [...]
The “Choice” vs. “Captive” Transit Rider Dichotomy Is All Wrong
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The conventional wisdom about transit often divides riders into two neat categories: “choice” riders — higher-income people with cars — and “captive” riders — lower-income people who must use transit because they don’t own cars.
Transit riders are more conscious of time than they are of features like Wi-Fi. Graphic: TransitCenter
But this framework can undermine good transit, according to a new report from [...]
CDC: America Falling Behind Other Nations on Traffic Safety
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America is falling behind peer nations on traffic safety — any way you measure it. Source: CDC
How is the U.S. doing on traffic safety?
To hear a lot of people tell it, we’re making great strides. President Obama recently referred to the reduction in American traffic deaths as a success story of sorts, contrasting it with the [...]