Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Yesterday, we started our year-end 2011 round-up. We lamented transit cuts in places where transit is more important than ever, cheered the successful ballot initiatives that will fund transportation lifelines, took a moment to explore the nuances of some difficult issues, and called out Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin for some hare-brained ideas about the best way to spend money.

Now we continue with the second installment: What cities shone a little brighter and what cities lost their luster?

Let’s start with the good.

Cities That Led the Way: Bike-share caught on in 2011 like never before. New York City announced a system to dwarf all others, complete with 10,000 bikes. Boston had a great first season. DC and Arlington expanded Capital Bikeshare. Chicago got a TIGER grant to go full-tilt on its system. And bike-share is popping up in places you wouldn’t necessarily expect it – most recently, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. All those cities deserve credit for investing in active transportation options for their residents.

Minneapolis took the Greenway to a more sustainable future. Photo: Micah Taylor / Flickr

Meanwhile, in the DC area, suburban retrofits in White Flint and Tysons Corner started transforming these into urban, transit-rich communities with vibrant daytime and nighttime populations.

And Salt Lake City showed the country how to solve some of the most vexing geographic, political, cultural, and ecological challenges of urbanism. The city got behind a set of growth principles that champion walkability, density, transit options, and land conservation. The city’s new, sustainable developments are wildly popular and incredibly successful at encouraging active transportation.

But it was Minneapolis that stole our hearts this year. The city rocketed to the top of the Bike-Friendliness charts with its Nice Ride bike-share system and its beloved Midtown Greenway, which transformed an old industrial railroad trench into a major cyclist thoroughfare connecting key parts of the city. And that’s not all – Minneapolis has gone through the whole complete streets shopping list, from road diets to bike parking to improved crossings to bike boulevards.

Perhaps even more significantly, the Twin Cities aren’t just tacking some nice cycling amenities onto an otherwise roads-heavy transportation program. They’re actually divesting from road infrastructure, tabling 14 planned highway expansions and improving transit options instead. They’re maximizing existing highways by adding bus lanes and priced shoulder lanes, and they’re investing in transit-oriented development. As one city transportation planner said, “We couldn’t keep going on acting as if we were going to get money to build our way out of congestion.”

Cities That Lagged Behind: We at Streetsblog aren’t shy about calling out state leaders who make bad decisions in favor of sprawl and against smart transportation options. We talked about some of those yesterday (we’re looking at you, Scott Walker). But sometimes it’s not the state but the cities themselves that have a special knack for making bad decisions. And this was a big year for it.

Read more…

Thanks for voting in the 2011 Streetsie award poll, where Streetsblog readers weigh in on the good, the bad, and the ugly of the year. Santa knows if you’ve been multimodal, and he knows if you’ve been using cost-effectiveness metrics and low-carbon forms of transportation, so price road use fairly for goodness’ sake! We start our round-up of the year with the low point. (It can only get better from there.)

Transit Saved the Day (But Who Will Save Transit?): There’s no two ways about it: 2011 was a rough year. And 59 percent of you said the roughest part was watching the tumult roiling our transit agencies.

The laws of supply and demand went haywire this year, when it came to transit. Photo: AP

In 2011, the low economy and high gas prices helped showcase the need for affordable transportation options, and people flocked to transit – only to find troubled systems facing budget cuts, fare hikes, and service reductions.

The American Public Transportation Association reported a bump of nearly 86 million transit trips over the first six months of the year. Did Congress respond by thanking transit agencies for doing yeoman’s work to keep American households above water during a time of economic hardship? Not on your life! Congress kept flailing and bickering over a transportation bill that keeps slipping further and further out of reach while hardworking transit agencies withered on the vine. According to APTA, more than half of U.S. transit agencies have raised fares or reduced service in the past year, and many more are planning to do so soon.

Somehow, increased ridership didn’t translate into more robust funding or even a little begrudging respect.

If the People Lead, the Leaders Will Follow: But we didn’t flee the country and the whole political / economic / cultural / transportation mess here, did we, Streetsblog readers? We may have wanted to hightail it to Copenhagen when times got tough, but we stayed because we were inspired by a few little beacons of hope.

We cheered on Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s quick work reforming Chicago’s transportation network, with his plans to add 100 miles of bike lanes, implement “congestion parking” fees, upgrade commuter rail and start the country’s most ambitious new bus rapid transit system. And we perked up considerably when a day without cars in Los Angeles turned out to be no disaster at all, and bicyclists beat an airplane to its destination.

But the real evidence that the tide was turning came from voters from Alpena, Michigan, to Clark County, Washington, agreed to pay more in taxes to support transit service. In those ballot initiatives, transit won 79 percent of the time, saving Dial-A-Ride service, bus routes, bus stop upgrades, operations, and more. For 46 percent of you, this was the most hopeful, most inspiring thing that happened this year.

Shades of Gray: The year wasn’t all black and white. There were some real double-edged swords — like the positive news of high transit ridership, offset with the dismal news of cutbacks.

Read more…

It’s been quite a year, Streetsblog readers. The transportation bill is still stalled in Congress, no one can agree on how to fund anything, bike-ped programs survived attack after attack only to get sucker-punched in the Senate bill, and we saw some states and cities make some pretty bad moves when it came to transportation policy.

But still, we saw bike-share popping up all over the country, we had more evidence that people were driving less and using transit more, and some visionary leaders led the way toward a better 2012.

Here’s where we cheer the bests and jeer the worsts of the year. Cast your vote for the 2011 Capitol Hill Streetsies by midnight Tuesday night. And don’t forget to donate to Streetsblog, so we can have more bests and fewer worsts next year.

 Loading ...

 Loading ...

 Loading ...

 Loading ...

 Loading ...

 Loading ...

 Loading ...

Happy Holidays, everybody! We hope that you have wonderful and exciting plans to celebrate however you celebrate. Before this week is over we’ll be posting our annual poll for the Streetsies, where you get to vote on the bests, the worsts, the most inspiring, and the most insipid of everything transportation in 2011. Once that’s up and the voting has begun, we’ll be signing off until the new year.

Meanwhile, I’d like to introduce you to Ben Goldman. You may have noticed his byline popping up over the past few weeks. Among his innumerable other achievements, Ben is allowing me to take off for a few months of baby time with the peace of mind that if big transportation news breaks, it’ll be ably covered on Streetsblog Capitol Hill.

Ben just finished a graduate program in urban planning, with a focus on sustainable transportation, at the University of Pennsylvania. Rail transportation, in particular, is sort of his thing, having worked with OnTrackAmerica, Inc. and co-authored a set of recommendations to federal officials on how high-speed rail should be implemented on the Northeast Corridor.

If you have questions, comments, warm welcomes, tips, breaking news, or holiday gifts for Ben, you can reach him at bgoldman@streetsblog.org.

You might not be hearing a whole lot more from me for a while, so Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, and have a great first few months of 2012! I wish you health, happiness, and robust performance measures in all federal transportation decisions.

- Tanya