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
Got Transit Troubles? The Problem Could Be the Chain of Command
| | No Comments
If you still have to juggle multiple farecards for the various transit systems in your area — or if urgent maintenance issues in the city core are going unattended while the suburbs get a shiny new station — the problem might run deeper than the incompetence everyone is grumbling about. The root of it all […]
Schlepping By Bicycle: The Next Big Thing in Women’s Bike Advocacy?
| | No Comments
Why don’t women bike as much as men? It’s a question that’s been getting a lot of press for the last three years or so since the explosion of Women Bike onto the national advocacy scene. Only about 24 percent of bikes on the street have women’s butts on them. What’s going on? The conventional […]
Talking Headways Podcast: Zero Deaths, Zero Cars, Zero Tundra Voles
| | No Comments
Special guest Damien Newton of Streetsblog LA joins Jeff and me on this episode to tell us all about the Los Angeles DOT’s new strategic plan, which includes a Vision Zero goal: zero traffic deaths by 2025, a vision all of our cities should get behind. He walks us through the oddities of LA politics and […]
Livable Streets or Tall Buildings? Cities Can Have Both
| | No Comments
Kaid Benfield’s new blog post on density is getting a lot of buzz over at NRDC’s Switchboard blog. Benfield, a planner/lawyer/professor/writer who co-founded both LEED’s Neighborhood Development rating system and the Smart Growth America coalition, has some serious street cred when it comes to these matters. And on this one, he’s with Danish architect Jan Gehl, […]
Talking Headways Podcast: OMG Enough About Millennials Already
| | No Comments
Jeff is back from Rail~volution with all the highlights from the sessions he skipped because he was deep in conversation in the hallways. Isn’t that what conferences are for? We discuss what we do and don’t get out of these big meetings. We also get into CityLab‘s examination of the gap between public support for […]
Complete Freeways? Florida Tries Bike Lanes on Highway Bridges
| | No Comments
A few years ago, a person living in a working-class neighborhood of Miami and commuting to the tourism district in Miami Beach could pretty much forget about walking or biking there. Her choices were either to pay for the bus or buy a car, but healthy, active transportation was impossible — or at least, illegal. […]
Talking Headways Short: The Real News About America’s Driving Habits
| | No Comments
Consider this a bonus track. A deleted scene at the end of your DVD. Extra footage. Or, consider it what it is: A short podcast episode Jeff and I recorded two and a half weeks ago that never got edited because I went to Pro-Walk Pro-Bike and he went to Rail~Volution and we recorded (and […]
U.S. DOT to Publish Its Own Manual on Protected Bike Lanes
| | No Comments
Before the end of this year, the Federal Highway Administration will release its own guidance on designing protected bike lanes. The agency’s positions on bicycling infrastructure has matured in recent years. Until recently, U.S. DOT’s policy was simple adherence to outdated and stodgy manuals like AASHTO’s Green Book and FHWA’s own Manual on Uniform Traffic […]
Talking Headways: Pro-Walk Pro-Bike Redux
| | No Comments
After a week at the Pro-Walk Pro-Bike Pro-Place Conference in Pittsburgh, it was all I could talk about — and luckily, Jeff was an eager audience. In this podcast, Jeff and I talk about the relative utility of a character like Isabella, the new character People for Bikes created to make the case for safe, low-stress […]
Foxx: New U.S. DOT Bike/Ped Initiative “Critical to Future of the Country”
| | No Comments
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx just announced to the Pro-Walk Pro-Bike Pro-Place conference in Pittsburgh that the department is “putting together the most comprehensive, forward-leaning initiative U.S. DOT has ever put forward on bike/ped issues.” He said the initiative “is critical to the future of the country.” The top priority, he said, will be closing gaps […]
“Trick Out Your Trip” With ioby and TransitCenter
| | No Comments
How would you improve your transit experience? OK, maybe not with a Persian rug and a harpist. But shelter and a place to sit couldn’t hurt, right? And how about some better lighting and safer pedestrian features along your way to the stop? Those small, inexpensive improvements are the target of a new campaign by […]
Talking Headways: Jeff’s Milkshake
| | No Comments
Forgive us for the unacceptable two-week gap between podcast episodes but this one is totally worth the wait. Feast on our in-depth exploration of three transit lines (in order of fantasy to reality): Las Vegas, Minneapolis, and Salt Lake City. Despite having population density that rivals Manhattan, the Las Vegas strip doesn’t have high-quality transit […]