Transit

Only one of every five federal transportation dollars are set aside specifically for transit. So it’s infuriating when a local government plunders the small pool of transit funds and spends it on roads. Particularly when that place has some of the country’s most notoriously car-dominated and dangerous streets.

Jeff Wood and I are back with episode 8 of the Talking Headways podcast. We talk about Los Angeles Metro's decision not to extend light rail all the way to LAX (and what they're doing instead), plus some analysis of what rail can really do in a city as spread-out as LA. Then we head east to Princeton, New Jersey, where we debunk the thesis that low sales of luxury condos somehow equates to a rejection of walkability. And finally, back west to Seattle, which finds itself with a similar problem to LA: how to bring more density to settled single-family areas?

In addition to some recent high-profile spins through the revolving door, we now have a new example of ethically questionable influence peddling in Washington: A powerful Congressman’s brother working to bring down a transit line in Maryland.

Readers, rejoice! Perhaps you feared that you would never get to sit in on nearly an hour of transit talk between world-renowned brainiac straphangers Jeff Wood and Yonah Freemark. But ho! Fear no more.

One of MAP-21’s many mixed blessings was the New Starts Core Capacity program. It expanded eligibility for New Starts grants -- normally reserved as capital assistance for new transit lines -- to existing corridors. To qualify, the system just had to show that the improvements would expand the capacity of the line by at least 10 percent.

The U.S. military probably may not be the first institution that comes to mind when you think smart growth and sustainable planning, but it has embraced these practices wholeheartedly. Last year, the military adopted a whole new rulebook on master planning. And now, those rules are about to become law.

Greg Hughes is the majority whip of the Utah State Legislature and the chair of its conservative caucus. He got a 100 percent score last year by the conservative Sutherland Institute, a Utah think tank. He also chairs the board of the Utah Transit Authority.

The House of Representatives is preparing to vote on that rarest of Capitol Hill treasures -- a bipartisan budget deal. If both houses approve the deal, negotiated by Democratic Senator Patty Murray and Republican Congressman Paul Ryan, it will be the first time since 2010 that Congress has passed a budget.

Jeff Wood and I talk about the news of the week that most tickled us or burned us -- the BBC's exposé of anti-social urban design features intended to repel people, San Francisco's social tensions over the Google bus, and the decision by Cincinnati's new mayor and City Council to "pause" construction of the streetcar. (Update: The streetcar might be salvaged!)