Today’s Headlines

D.C. Metro crash casts a grim light on insufficient federal support for transit (Time)

LaHood: Looming highway trust fund bankruptcy will leave states in crisis … (WSJ)

… but the administration is proud of how quickly it’s allocated highway money (AP)

Rep. John Mica (R-FL) talks up the need for infrastructure investment (PBS)

DeFazio suggests paying for new transpo bill with a 0.02 percent tax on oil speculators (Infrastructurist)

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

Moving Beyond the Automobile: Highway Removal

By Elizabeth Press | Mar 29, 2011

In this week’s episode of “Moving Beyond the Automobile,” Streetfilms takes you on a guided tour of past, present and future highway removal projects with John Norquist of the Congress for the New Urbanism.Some of the most well-known highway removals in America — like New York City’s West Side Highway and San Francisco’s Embarcadero Freeway […]

Sober Non-Partisan Analysis: America Wastes a Ton of Money on Highways

By Angie Schmitt | Feb 23, 2016

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]. The conclusion won’t surprise regular Streetsblog readers, but it’s the source that’s interesting. The CBO is not an advocacy group or an ideologically-minded think tank. It’s a non-partisan budget watchdog charged […]

Scott Walker’s “Broke” Wisconsin Breaking the Bank for Highways

By Steve Hiniker | Apr 22, 2011

This article was written by Steve Hiniker, executive director of 1,000 Friends of Wisconsin, and was reprinted with permission of that organization. It originally appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Governor Scott Walker’s proposed budget has more than enough pain to go around. Schools get hit with more than $800 million in cuts over the […]

The Tragic History of Highways Demolishing Cities — It’s Not Over Yet

By Angie Schmitt | May 23, 2016

This video from Vox provides an excellent overview of how the Interstate Highway System wiped out whole city neighborhoods in the post-war era. It’s hard to believe that federal and local officials ever thought it was a good idea to uproot urban residents to clear paths for highways, but what’s even crazier is that we’re still doing the same thing today.

Night of the Living Highway Extension

By Ben Fried | Jul 20, 2010

Tacoma resident Evan Siroky got a rude reminder of what’s in Washington State DOT’s project pipeline yesterday, reading in the local paper that officials are looking to revive plans to extend state route 167 as a limited access highway. The new highway segment would reach the Port of Tacoma, and Siroky writes on member blog […]

Wisconsin Responds to Public, Dumps Absurdly Wasteful Highway Project

By Angie Schmitt | Apr 21, 2014

“It is difficult to find any merit in the project at all.” That’s what the Wisconsin Public Interest Group said about the proposed $125 million widening of Highway 38, outside Milwaukee, in a 2011 report [PDF]. The nine-mile rural road widening, from two lanes to four, was indeed a head scratcher. This area of the state […]