How Seattle Is Accommodating Population Growth And Sustaining Economic Growth While Maintaining Quality Of Life

In cities, towns and suburbs like Seattle all across the country, local leaders are responding to new economic challenges with innovative plans for their transportation networks, including taxing themselves to make their visions a reality. But they can’t do it alone and need strong federal and state partners to make it work.

Set aside some time to read this long profile of what’s been happening in Seattle — which includes their enormous measure on November’s ballot, where voters will decide whether or not to bring the next phase of their regional transit expansion to life.

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Do Our Federal Transportation Priorities Match The Rhetoric We Use To Justify More Spending?

The President’s first budget will almost certainly propose big cuts to discretionary spending programs. While the bulk of annual federal transportation spending is sourced from the highway trust fund and should be more insulated from these cuts, discretionary cuts would fall disproportionately on funding for new transit construction (New and Small Starts) and multimodal and local priority projects (TIGER).

House and Senate appropriators will have two decisions to make: a) whether to appropriate the amounts prescribed by the current long-term transportation law (the FAST Act) for the core programs, which is uncertain as well, and, b) how much to allocate for these other discretionary transportation programs.

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One Of The Most Important Parts Of Bike Infrastructure Is Invisible

Since its founding 50 years ago, the top U.S. agency for investigating transportation injuries had been suprisingly quiet about a phenomenon that's behind 30 percent of U.S. traffic fatalities.

Like much of the country's transportation safety establishment, the National Transportation Safety Board had frequently avoided the subject of the speed of private cars. It did so even though the issue has been coming up since the very first collision the agency investigated, in Joliet, Illinois, in 1967.

Avoided the subject until this month, that is.

In a groundbreaking report released last week, the federal agency laid the foundations for a major rethinking of transportation safety practices. The big idea in short, as Kathleen Ferrier puts it: "speed kills."

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I-66-Route 15 Diverging Diamond Intersecton Complete In Northern Virginia

HAYMARKET – The Virginia Department of Transportation, Town of Haymarket and Prince William County celebrated the completion of Northern Virginia’s first diverging-diamond interchange (DDI) this morning at I-66 and Route 15 that will relieve congestion, enhance safety, operations and capacity, as well as accommodate forecasted traffic demand in the area.

The DDI’s innovative design shifts vehicles to the opposite side of the road and eliminates left turns that cross oncoming traffic. Traffic signals at each end of the interchange reduce time spent at red lights and move twice the number of vehicles as a traditional diamond interchange. VDOT has completed DDIs in Louisa and Roanoke, and has two more in the works in Stafford and Blacksburg. 

This project constructed two longer bridges to carry Route 15 over I-66 with two crossover intersections. It widened the bridges from two lanes to three, and also included:

• Ramp improvements, including a spur ramp to ease traffic flow from westbound I-66 to northbound Route 15 to westbound Heathcote Boulevard.
• Improvements on Route 15 from just north of the railroad tracks to just south of Heathcote Boulevard
• Wider intersections on Route 15 at Heathcote Boulevard and Route 55, adding turn lanes to both.
• A 10-foot-wide shared-use path on the east side of Route 15 for pedestrians and bicyclists.
• Aesthetic treatment of the bridge walls that pay homage to nearby Chapman Mill.

The $59 million project began in Sept. 2015 and was completed on-time and on-budget, under a design-build contract by Lane Construction Corporation of Chantilly.

Traffic on Route 15 averages 35,000 vehicles a day and 60,000 vehicles a day in this area of I-66.

Prioritizing Public Health To Build Prosperous Regions

A new package of case studies released today by T4America, in partnership with the American Public Health Association, showcases a range of strategies that metro area planning agencies can use to strengthen the local economy, improve public health outcomes for all of their residents, promote social equity and better protect the environment.

Today, we’re launching Measuring what we value: Prioritizing public health to build prosperous regions, four short case studies that extend our previous workon data-driven decision-making for choosing transportation projects.

Download the four case studies below.

A growing number of the metro leaders, elected officials and citizens we talk to are asking questions like: can the people in neighborhoods more likely to be unhealthy easily get out for a walk or bike ride without having to traverse dangerous streets? Do our regional planners effectively consider the impacts on regional air quality as we choose which projects to build? Is the area putting forward the most competitive possible projects to win limited state or federal funding for walking and biking?

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House & Senate Reject President’s Request To End All Federally Supported Transit Construction

Over the last week, House and Senate committees have both passed transportation budget bills for the upcoming year. While the House made a few cuts, the Senate flatly rejected President Trump’s requests to eliminate the TIGER grant program, halt all new federally supported transit construction, and slash passenger rail service.

After a budget deal was struck in May that avoided most cuts for the rest of this year, negotiations begun on the budget for the 2018 fiscal year which starts this October. This means appropriations committees in both the House and Senate setting funding levels for transportation programs for next year, including the discretionary programs that the Trump administration has targeted for cuts (i.e., those not funded by the Highway Trust Fund.)

In the span of the last week, House and Senate appropriations committees & subcommittees have finalized and voted to approve spending bills for the upcoming year. And while the House did make some cuts, the Senate appropriators unanimously repudiated many of the president’s budget requests for transportation and even made an interesting change when it comes to selecting the best TIGER grant applications.

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Cell Phones Are Not What’s Causing America’s Epidemic Of Pedestrian Fatalities

More people drove in 2016 than in 2015, according to new data released this week by the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA). Alongside that increase was a disproportionately high rise in pedestrian fatalities — a trend that the authors attribute to increases in distracted driving and distracted walking.

This analysis is wrongheaded, and blames individuals for what is a systemic problem. The way we design and build streets is a fundamental part of whether people can walk safely along a road or whether they are at risk for being struck and killed. Street design does not seem to be a priority for GHSA — but it should be.

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