Tanya Snyder
Tanya became Streetsblog's Capitol Hill editor in September 2010 after covering Congress for Pacifica Radios Washington bureau and for public radio stations around the country. She lives car-free in a transit-oriented and bike-friendly neighborhood of Washington, DC.
Recent Posts
Census: American Bike Commuting Up Nine Percent in 2012
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Congratulations, America. We’re biking to work more than ever before. We’ve known for a while that Americans are driving less than they used to, even as the economy grows. And just about every quarter, the American Public Transportation Association delivers more stats about increasing transit ridership. Now the Census brings another measure of Americans’ shifting […]
Alan Durning on Reasons to Be Optimistic About Parking Reform
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We hope you enjoyed part one of our Q&A with Alan Durning, which we published yesterday. Durning is publishing a series of articles on his blog at the Sightline Institute — where he serves as executive director — about the ways that underpriced parking drives up rents, eats up space, and makes no sense. A […]
The Long, Painful History of Terrible Parking Policy in One 71-Second Cartoon
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If you haven’t been keeping up with Sightline Institute’s excellent series on the scourge of parking minimums, you’ve been missing out. They’ve posted 11 readable and informative articles on the subject. From here, Sightline is pivoting from problems to solutions, and we’ll be sharing their next few posts on Streetsblog, as well as re-posting some […]
Lawmakers Push to Permanently Upgrade Transit’s Second-Class Tax Benefit
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While the rest of the Capitol prepared for President Obama’s visit to lobby members of Congress on Syria military strikes, three lawmakers gathered under the hot sun with transit advocates to push for a more bread-and-butter issue: tax benefits for transit riders. For years, car commuters could claim up to $240 per month in tax-free […]
TIGER V a Shot in the Arm for Livable Streets in Cities and Small Towns
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Out of 585 applications, U.S. DOT has chosen 52 transportation projects in 37 states to receive TIGER awards totaling $474 million. The Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery program was originally an element of President Obama’s 2009 stimulus package. Although it hasn’t been reauthorized and many Republicans claim to hate it, funding somehow keeps being appropriated […]
Nine Days in September: Congress’s Chance to Break the Gridlock
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I hope you all had a good Labor Day. Streetsblog is back to work today, and you probably are too. But Congress? Not until next week. Every time there’s a Monday holiday, Congress takes the whole week off, and they’re milking the last moments of their August recess. It’s no wonder lawmakers are procrastinating. They […]
Photo Contest: Send Us Your Pictures of Kids on City Streets
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Two weeks ago, I posted some thoughts on raising kids in cities and right away, the comments section and Twitter lit up with a fruitful discussion of urban and car-lite parenting. The staff at Streetsblog and our partners at the Alliance for Biking & Walking love to see kids riding red wagons to day care, […]
Crawlable Urbanism: Cities Are for Kids, Too
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All of a sudden, I feel like all anyone is talking about is whether it’s a good idea to raise kids in the city. I’m raising a kid in the city. I feel great about it when she has a blast on the back of the bike, or makes friends on the bus, or gets […]
U.S. DOT Launches “Everyone Is a Pedestrian” Campaign
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Yesterday, U.S. DOT launched a new campaign called “Everyone Is a Pedestrian,” including $2 million in grants that will be awarded to as many as six focus cities for pedestrian safety education and enforcement initiatives. While $2 million is peanuts in the grand scheme of the nation’s pedestrian safety needs, it’s notable that Transportation Secretary […]
Car Ownership May Be Down in the U.S., But It’s Soaring Globally
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Two weeks ago, transportation researcher Michael Sivak brought us the news that there are fewer cars per person in the U.S. now than there were a few years ago – and that the number isn’t expected to rise again. But globally, the trend is in the opposite direction, and it’s alarming. The world is producing more […]
LaHood Heads Home for a Break and to “Hope the Phone Rings”
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Outgoing U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said a few parting words yesterday at the National Press Club, just an hour before his successor, Anthony Foxx, was confirmed by the full Senate. The theme of LaHood’s prepared remarks was bipartisanship, but he admits he’s not seeing enough of it these days in Washington. That could doom […]
APTA Goes After Transit-Harassing Patent Troll
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For years, transit agencies and other companies have been harassed by a patent troll seeking to extort them for “settlements” when they use real-time vehicle tracking technologies. ArrivalStar and Melvino Technologies, offshore firms led by one Martin Kelly Jones, claim to hold the rights to those ideas. Jones has been picking off agencies one by […]