Tag: United States
Ford calls EVs the perfect second cars
Electric vehicles may be the perfect car… second car, that is. A major barrier to using EVs is inconvenience (or, at least, perceived inconvenience): drivers face the occasional dilemma of finding alternative transportation for longer trips than their EVs can make. Electric Vehicles in Multi-Vehicle Households, a recent study from Michael A. Tamor and Miloš […]
Ailing infrastructure: do we lack funding, or just leadership?
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx is hopeful that politicians can agree on long-term infrastructure funding. “I think there is a moment that is shaping up here for something good can happen,” Foxx said in a speech to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials in Washington. “It needs to be a long-term bill that […]
What will American transportation look like in 2030?
What does the America’s transportation future look like? A new study from the RAND Corporation, Exploring Future Transport Demand in the United States, envisions two different scenarios. The study’s research team imagines two sequences set in 2030, drawing on expert opinions as well as exploring the impact current transportation realities and choices will have on the transportation […]
U.S. car manufacturing set to surpass 2000 peak
Car production in North America is thriving, with U.S. car exports exceeding a staggering two million. As AutoBlog reports, 2014’s numbers are “just shy” of the record set in 2000. Last year, U.S. factories exported 2.1 million cars, the highest number in history, with around 50% of the exports going to Mexico and Canada, and […]
Hack attack: How vulnerable is your vehicle?
This week, news broke that two million people who use Progressive Snapshot (a small device that tracks a car’s path to help determine its car insurance rate) may be vulnerable to hacking. But Snapshot drivers aren’t the only ones who are open to a potential hacking attack: Two hackers who demonstrated in 2013 how they could hack […]
Annual traffic fatalities at historic low, but cyclist deaths up
Highway drivers received some good news last week: Overall highway fatalities have dropped by 25% since 2004, and by 3.1% since 2012, according to 2013 Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data reported by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Yet some of the most compelling data released shows a number […]
Americans’ taxes subsidize congestion, study finds
The federal government is working at cross purposes with itself and local and state governments. In a study released last week by TransitCenter and Frontier Group, researchers discovered that federal tax subsidies are undermining transportation goals established by multiple levels of government. This discovery came through a review of commuter tax benefits. Currently, employers can […]
Transportation spending doesn’t fit public’s needs, study finds
We may be on the cusp of 2015, but transportation policies of state and federal governments are stuck in 2005, says the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (USPIRG). In a study released by the organization in September, researchers discovered that Americans drive no more in total than they did in 2005 and no more on […]
10 months in: New York’s Vision Zero in comparison
Numbers released by the NYPD last week count 202 traffic fatalities in New York City between January and October 17, a decrease of roughly 10% from a similar period in 2013 (January through the end of October). Predictably, the press and public—products of the city’s hurry-up, get-‘er-done-yesterday culture—are expressing impatience with Vision Zero, Mayor de […]
Sen. Boxer (D-CA) speaks out on highway fund
Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, announced in a recent letter that salvaging the Highway Trust Fund is a major focus of her office, reports the blog Better Roads. Boxer, in a letter addressed to Congressman Dave Camp, Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, and Congressman Sander Levin, reads, “Although Congress passed […]
Should federal transport spending take job creation into account?
Even as the amount of federal funding awarded to contractors falls, there’s broad recognition that the country must invest in its transportation infrastructure. Earlier this week the Council on Foreign Relations released Transportation Infrastructure: Moving America, its report on America’s aging transportation network, while policy wonks such as former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and former […]