The terms chosen to describe upcoming road work often misrepresent the actual projects, ascribing a positive or negative bias that affects how political leaders interpret and underwrite them. The DOT Decoder is the perfect gift for decoding three common terms used by departments of transportation and their engineers.
Read MoreBuses are an important part of a city’s transportation system, but they’re considered a mode of last resort for many people. Here’s why it’s important to make bus systems more appealing — and a few ideas on to do so.
Read MoreChuck was recently challenged to come up with five things that the next president, whoever they end up being, should do once they’re in office. In today’s episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, he shares that list and explains why each item is important to building a stronger America.
Read MoreStrong Towns is dedicated to making meaningful progress in pursuing our mission, regardless of who wins elections. To that end, here are five things we want to see the next president do to support the prosperity of America’s cities, towns and neighborhoods.
Read MoreIn honor of the season, here’s a short adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” which illustrates the damage that zombie projects — large, ambitious projects that drag out for years or never get off the ground — can do to a place.
Read MoreFor decades, state and federal highway agencies have justified massive projects with traffic forecast models. But a closer look reveals a troubling pattern of exaggeration, manipulation and outright falsification in these models.
Read MoreThe Northern Beltline project has been haunting Alabama for over 50 years, draining money, time and energy from other more productive and desired projects. Here’s how it came about — and why it refuses to stay dead.
Read MoreOn this week’s episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck is joined by Beth Osborne, the director of Transportation for America, to discuss the Highway Trust Fund and how it affects federal and state transportation policies.
Read MoreFrom lying about survey results to misrepresenting traffic data, the impending expansion of Interstate 95 in Pennsylvania exemplifies so much of what is insidious and manipulative about highway expansion projects.
Read MoreThe reign of the yellow school bus is officially over, as the majority of students get to school by private vehicles and schools cut their bussing programs. How did this shift happen? And should we really mourn the bus?
Read MoreIn this episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck is joined by Eric Goldwyn, a leading urban scholar and transit expert, to discuss the benefits of high-speed rail and how it could brought to the U.S.
Read MoreThe Interstate Bridge Replacement project, which is tasked with replacing a bridge that connects Washington and Oregon, is facing alarming delays, cost escalations and seemingly deceptive behavior from officials. These problems are symptoms of broader issues in North American transportation spending.
Read MoreWashington's Department of Transportation recently reported that they’re weight restricting another bridge because it’s becoming dangerously old. This is a symptom of a problem that stretches across North America: grossly misplaced priorities. It's time for a serious reevaluation of transportation spending priorities.
Read MoreWinnipeg, Manitoba’s new transportation plan uses all the right words to seem like it’s prioritizing maintenance and multimodal transit, but its funding allocation tells a very different story.
Read MorePeople’s conversations about development, housing and transportation are often clouded by the words they use. So, here are some commonly used words and terms that advocates should avoid and what you can use instead.
Read MoreLocal governments that follow a “mindlessly pro-business” approach sacrifice community well-being in the name of commerce, but end up devastating their cities’ downtowns by misunderstanding what helps an area succeed economically. It’s time to realize that helping local businesses means helping the community, too.
Read MoreHighway expansion projects have a devastating impact of city finances while only providing minor benefits. This case study explores the financial details of a highway expansion project in Winnipeg, Canada, and discusses how people can take action to stop this kind of project.
Read MoreSusan Graham and Ally Smither have very different life experiences — one as a former nurse and the other as an opera singer — but they’ve come together to pursue the same goal: Stopping highway expansion in Houston.
Read MoreMegan Kimble, journalist and author of “City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and the Future of America's Highways,” joins us to talk about highway expansion in Texas and the groups fighting to stop it.
Read MoreWhen COVID-19 put her career on pause, opera singer Ally Smither found a new passion: fighting highway expansion.
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