Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Pennsylvania

A driver struck and killed cyclist Dennis Flanagan on West Carson Street in Pittsburgh, which the state DOT had reconstructed without incorporating the safety features that local residents wanted. Photo: Bike PGH

What If State DOTs Listened to Cities Before Starting Urban Projects?

By Angie Schmitt | Feb 24, 2017 | 3 Comments

It's not uncommon for bitter disputes to develop when state DOTs come into urban neighborhoods and start making changes to state-controlled streets. Pennsylvania DOT has a different idea: Rather than just muscle everything through, the agency will incorporate local ideas before engineering and design work gets started.

Why a Struggling Industrial City Decided Bikes Are the Way Forward

By Angie Schmitt | Sep 23, 2016 | 6 Comments

Reading, Pennsylvania, isn’t your stereotypical biking mecca. It’s a low-income, largely Latino, post-industrial city of almost 90,000 people. But without much of anything in the way of bike infrastructure, Reading has the third-highest rate of bike commuting in Pennsylvania and is among the top 15 cities on the East Coast. Some civic leaders in Reading have seized on the […]

Highway Boondoggles: Pennsylvania’s Mon-Fayette Expressway Plan

By Jeff Inglis and John Olivieri | Feb 4, 2016 | 2 Comments

In a new report, Highway Boondoggles 2, U.S. PIRG and the Frontier Group profile the most wasteful highway projects that state DOTs are building. Today we highlight Pennsylvania’s $1.7 billion Mon-Fayette Expressway plan, a highway plan that has outlived its reason for being. The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and the state Department of Transportation have been trying to […]

Pennsylvania’s New Governor Is Awesome

By Angie Schmitt | Nov 6, 2014 | No Comments

Here’s another race for governor with big implications for transportation policy: In Pennsylvania, businessman Tom Wolf handily beat incumbent Tom Corbett. Though Pennsylvania made some important progress on transportation issues during Corbett’s tenure, Wolf wants to usher in much more meaningful reforms. In its election round-up, Philly-based This Old City points to a post the […]

Man Who Painted Speed Warning on Street Vows to Fight Charges

By Angie Schmitt | Oct 28, 2014 | No Comments

A Pennsylvania man faces charges of criminal mischief and disorderly conduct for painting a warning to speeding drivers on his street. John Cherok appealed to the city about drivers going dangerously fast in front of his bookstore in McDonald, Pennsylvania. The city, for its part, conducted a study and told him speeding wasn’t a problem. The […]

Driving Declines Spell Big Trouble for Turnpikes

By Angie Schmitt | Mar 12, 2014 | 27 Comments

What the New Jersey Turnpike Authority did in 2005 was no different than what almost every other state and regional transportation agency was doing at the time. It predicted that traffic volumes would rise at a healthy clip every year for about 30 years into the future. Then it estimated its revenues based on those […]

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