Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Barack Obama

White House: Make Cities Affordable By Building for Walkability, Not Parking

By Angie Schmitt | Sep 26, 2016 | 2 Comments

The Obama administration is taking on the crisis of rising rents in American cities, releasing a series of recommendations today to spur the construction of more affordable housing. Among the many ideas the White House endorses: allowing more multi-family housing near transit and getting rid of parking minimums. Since 1960, the share of renters paying more […]

Obama’s Last Budget Lays Out a Smart Vision for American Transportation

By Angie Schmitt | Feb 9, 2016 | 2 Comments

The White House released its 2017 budget [PDF] this morning, which includes more detail about the exciting but politically doomed transportation proposal President Obama outlined last week. Obama’s plan doesn’t have a chance in the current Congress, but it shows what national transportation policy centered on reducing greenhouse gas emissions might look like. Last week’s release sketched out a $10 per barrel tax on […]

Obama’s Politically Impossible Transpo Plan Is Just What America Needs

By Angie Schmitt | Feb 5, 2016 | 35 Comments

It may be “seven years too late,” as tactical urbanist Mike Lydon put it, but President Obama has released a transportation proposal that calls for big shifts in the country’s spending priorities. Obama’s proposal would generate $30 billion annually from a $10-per-barrel surcharge assessed on oil companies. More importantly, the revenue is linked to a substantial shift in what transportation projects get […]

It’s “Transit Christmas” for These Bus and Train Projects in Obama’s Budget

By Angie Schmitt | Feb 3, 2015 | 10 Comments

In addition to the broad strokes of transportation policy outlined by the White House yesterday, the Obama administration also put out a much more specific proposal: the list of transit expansion projects recommended for funding in fiscal year 2016. Jeff Wood of The Overhead Wire and Talking Headways fame called it “Transit Christmas.” Though the […]

Obama’s New Transportation Budget: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

By Angie Schmitt | Feb 2, 2015 | 7 Comments

With federal transportation funding on track to run dry by May 31, Washington lawmakers are gearing up again to reset national transportation policy… or, if that doesn’t work out, to limp along indefinitely under the status quo. Today President Obama unveiled his opening bid in this process. The $478-billion, six-year plan from the White House includes many […]

With No Transport Funding Fix, USDOT to Cut Payments to States Next Month

By Angie Schmitt | Jul 2, 2014 | 17 Comments

State transportation departments could see the federal funding they receive pared back as early as a few weeks from now if Congress doesn’t come up with a transportation funding solution. A “cash management plan” to deal with the impending shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund — which actually pays for transit, biking, and walking projects […]

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