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Just last month, we were shaming Tulsa, Oklahoma, with our “Golden Crater” award for the downtown most riddled with surface parking lots. But today, we applaud the city for taking steps to reverse the plague of excess parking.

Tulsa World reported Friday that our Parking Madness competition winner is moving forward with a ban on new surface parking lots. The Tulsa City Council has extended a temporary moratorium on new surface parking through September. Between now and then, Tulsa will be working to prepare permanent changes to the city’s zoning code that will help contain the tide of surface parking lots and, hopefully, set the stage for some redevelopment.

The legislation is being championed by City Councilman Blake Ewing, who gave a shout out to Streetsblog in his remarks to the newspaper.

“Ewing pointed to a recent online contest by a nonprofit transportation advocacy publication in which Tulsa was named the worst city in the country for ‘parking craters’ — areas of historic downtowns that have been bulldozed for surface parking,” wrote Tulsa World reporter Zack Stoykoff.

Tulsa is in the early stages of the same program the city of Denver took on to repair its woeful surface parking lot problem two decades ago.

We’re proud that, by shining a light on the damage caused by Tulsa’s excess parking, Streetsblog was able to help catalyze change. Whether by highlighting best practices or worst practices, we’re thrilled when we can inspire cities to re-think their priorities and plan for a more sustainable future.

If this kind of reporting makes you proud too, make a donation today. We rely on donations from our readers to make this kind of thing possible.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s signature issue has been distracted driving. He’s spent the last four years amplifying the heartbreaking voices of those who have suffered the consequences of this highly dangerous habit. The stories of the needless loss of so many people, especially children and teens, are tragic.

Clearly, it’s time to take decisive action to stop distracted driving.

But apparently it’s not clear to everyone. Automakers have only upped the distraction ante, putting touch screens in their cars with more and more features — GPS, fuel efficiency monitoring, audio and climate controls, limitless apps, and finally, social media. How did we ever live without making dinner reservations or updating our Facebook status while driving?

And how do our anti-distraction heroes at U.S. DOT respond? The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is issuing a short list of voluntary guidelines they’re asking carmakers to adopt, to discourage “the introduction of excessively distracting devices in vehicles.”

In LaHood’s words, they include:

• Limiting — to 2 seconds at a time and 12 seconds total — the time drivers must take their eyes off the road to operate in-car technology;
• Disabling texting, social media, and web browsing features unless a vehicle is stopped and in park; and
• Disabling video-based calling and conferencing unless a vehicle is stopped and in park.

According to Distraction.gov, a project of U.S. DOT, the 4.6 seconds it takes to send or read a text message is long enough to drive the length of entire football field at 55 mph, and looking at your phone is like driving that football field blindfolded. “It’s extraordinarily dangerous,” the website says. But NHTSA’s two second rule still accepts the idea of drivers speeding down almost half a football field blindfolded.

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When the buzz about a new, stimulus-funded, discretionary transportation grant program started to circulate in 2009, some environmentalists opposed it. They worried it would be a slush fund for the Federal Highway Administration, used to build unnecessary roads that would aggravate sprawl and pollution. But insiders knew that wasn’t how the new Obama administration would be handling things.

TIGER, the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery program, has been praised from the left, right, and center for rewarding innovation, leveraging scarce dollars, breaking down modal silos, and funding non-traditional projects that don’t fit well under formulas.

Though Republicans have sometimes grumbled that the program has merely replaced Congressional earmarks with “administration earmarks,” or that it’s rewarded Democratic districts, they’ve continued to approve funding for the program. Even as House members have zeroed out high-speed rail funding for each of the last three years, they’ve gone along with five separate appropriations for TIGER without too much fuss.

Yesterday, the Eno Center for Transportation released a paper [PDF] investigating what TIGER has done well, what challenges remain, and what could be improved.

How TIGER changed the way states think about project planning

TIGER blew open the traditional processes for funding transportation. Rather than just submitting a list of projects on the wish list and getting formula funds in return, grantees had to pick their best projects with the greatest benefits; after the first round of grants they also had to have at least a 20 percent match from state, local, or private interests. TIGER has transformed the way transportation officials think, even beyond the grantees – failed applicants have sometimes gone back and tweaked projects, brought in new partners, lowered costs, and improved plans. TIGER has helped transportation officials around the country see a new, more strategic way to plan and carry out projects – a method that is beginning to be expected at the federal level.

Plus, state DOTs aren’t the only entities eligible to apply for TIGER grants – MPOs, port authorities, and transit agencies can apply on their own, too.

The intermodalism of the program has encouraged U.S. DOT to hasten the process of breaking down its own “modal silos” as well, with people from different modal agencies working together to select projects. Intermodalism is also a challenge: It’s not easy to compare a bike trail to a freight rail project or a highway interchange – they are judged on completely different metrics – but DOT has sought to choose the best projects put before them. And, as U.S. DOT Undersecretary Polly Trottenberg said at Eno’s panel discussion yesterday, of all the criticism of the program, there’s been almost no criticism of the individual projects they’ve selected.

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The downward slide continues.

Driving activity in America, adjusted for population, has hit a new low since before the economic downturn began. Doug Short, an independent analyst who evaluated data recently released by FHWA, finds that when controlling for population growth, it’s been more than seven years, or 92 months, since American driving activity last ticked up — a major break from historical trends.

The current per-capita reduction in driving has continued much longer than the longest previous period of contraction on record. The oil crisis of the 1970s and the stagflation of the early 1980s produced a decline in driving that took 61 months to reverse itself, again controlling for population growth. The current dip in driving rates has already lasted 50 percent longer than that. The average American is now driving as much as they were in 1995.

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Last week, protesters gathered on the statehouse steps in Little Rock, Arkansas, to oppose a bill that would transfer money from the state’s general fund into its highway fund.

The 100 or so protesters — mainly from the education and social services sectors — warned that the legislation would transfer $2.3 billion in revenue over 10 years out of classrooms and clinics and into the state Department of Transportation, according to the Arkansas News.

Arkansas Advocates for Families and Children have dubbed the bill “highway robbery.”

It’s not just Arkansas. States unwilling to reexamine the way they fund and implement transportation projects are increasingly faced with trade-offs between transportation spending and other priorities. As the federal gas tax continues to stagnate, more and more states are considering extreme measures to shore up transportation budgets — including robbing funds from education and social services.

States are in a difficult position, says Eric Sundquist of the State Smart Transportation Initiative. “The road lobby is still pushing for more, more,” he said. ”It’s started to dawn on people that this money is being sucked out of state and local treasuries.”

Wisconsin has come under fire for much the same reason as Arkansas. During the 2011 budget cycle, Governor Scott Walker was pushing highway expansion projects totaling $400 million. In order to raise the money without raising the gas tax, Walker proposed transferring $140 million from the state’s general fund to highway spending.

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Pittsburgh was the newest city to announce its bike-share plans this week, when it confirmed the city would add a 500-bike system by the spring of next year.

But nearby Columbus, Ohio, will beat them to the punch. Ohio’s capital city is planning to add 300 bikes this summer. Meanwhile, Indianapolis is planning to roll out its system next month.

The truth is you would be hard-pressed to find a large Midwestern city that hasn’t taken formal steps toward adding a bike-share system.

Both Cleveland and Detroit are studying bike-share. Cincinnati completed a bike-share study late last year, and is now seeking proposals from contractors. Milwaukee is assembling money for a system. Chicago hopes to add 3,000 bikes this spring.

And of course there’s the grandaddy of them all: Minneapolis’ Nice Ride. Launched in 2010, this system currently boasts more than 1,200 bikes. Late last year, the system surpassed half a million trips.

Midwestern cities have been inspired by some of the more spectacular examples on the coasts, according to Eric Rogers, executive director of BikeWalkKC, the nonprofit organization that manages Kansas City’s bike-share system. Kansas City was a little ahead of the pack when it launched Kansas City B-Cycle, with 200 bikes at 12 stations, last summer.

“The last few years a lot of cities, especially in the Midwest, have seen good examples from places like Chicago and Portland and New York and D.C. of a lot of innovative facilities that are out there: cycle tracks, bike boxes, bike-sharing,” he said. “There’s so much more knowledge out there now that it’s easier to develop a solution and pursue it.”

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Why would a representative from AAA be the keynote speaker at the National Bike Summit?

“It may seem surprising,” admitted Bike League President Andy Clarke.  And even AAA PR Director Yolanda Cade acknowledged that the 750 bicyclists in the room may be asking themselves, “‘Why is AAA here today?’” After all, she said, “We do have ‘Automobile’ as our middle name.”

AAA and the Bike League have been working to find common ground, and offered this video as an indication that they found some.

Still, this is the same AAA that opposed congestion pricing, blamed the victims for pedestrian injuries, and urged Congress to dedicate all Highway Trust Fund monies to highways.

Time will tell if the new alliance with the Bike League is just a PR move, or if it reflects a shift in AAA’s attitudes toward bike/ped policy.

Everything you think you know about bicycling is wrong. At the National Women’s Bicycling Forum this morning, one message came through: the underrepresentation of women and people of color in cycling isn’t simply due to safety concerns and lack of protected infrastructure, as is often surmised. It’s more complicated than that.

Megan Odett, who founded Kidical Mass DC in April 2011 to encourage family cycling, conducted a survey of attitudes about biking with kids. She said she found men worry more about safety than women. In her survey, women ranked distance – and their own physical limitations — as a bigger barrier.

And an audience member who had worked in New York’s Chinatown found that a lack of bike lanes wasn’t what was keeping people from riding. It was the high cost of buying a bike, and the problem of where to park it.

Women represent only one out of four cyclists on the road. If you ask Odett why that might be — or why moms aren’t showing up in huge numbers to bike advocacy meetings — she’ll tell you it’s “because we’re at PTA meetings, or we’re cleaning up after supper.”

So how do you get more moms biking?

1. Identify the most likely prospects. The “low-hanging fruit” for family cycling are people who rode before they have kids, who live in a dense area, and who have moderate or high incomes (because there can be expensive equipment involved), said Odett. People with somewhat flexible schedules or work from home are also likely candidates for cycling. “I think that the core audience for family cycling and ‘mama-biking’ hasn’t really been saturated yet,” Odett said.
2. Saturate the core audience. “You want to looking at saturating this core audience first, and then letting this movement expand out to some of the higher hanging fruit,” Odett said. “That’s going to make it much more ‘normal’ to bike with kids. It’s also going to create a used equipment market, which will help lower the barrier to entry to cycling with children.” And that will expand the demographic base outward from that initial high-income set.
3. Model the benefits. Odett says women are barraged with advertising messages, as are parents – so moms learn to just tune it out. An organized PR campaign aimed at getting moms to bike might not work – but they’ll notice when their friend rides right up to the school’s front doors with a happy, smiling child on the back and everybody else has been stuck in traffic. “When I ride, I think of myself as PR for bicycling,” Odett said. “I’m on this bike because it’s an amazingly fun thing to do with my son.”

These three steps can be a good game plan to expand cycling in any demographic — not just moms.

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For years, the federal government has adopted roadway guidelines that fall far short of what’s needed — and what’s possible — to protect cyclists and pedestrians. By “playing it safe” and sticking with old-school engineering, U.S. DOT allowed streets to be unsafe for these vulnerable road users.

But that could be changing. The bike-friendliest transportation secretary the country has ever seen told state transportation officials yesterday at AASHTO’s annual Washington conference that U.S. DOT was getting into the business of issuing its own design standards, instead of simply accepting the AASHTO guidelines.

Normally, the Federal Highway Administration points people to AASHTO’s Green Book, the organization’s design guide for highways and streets — and indeed, the agency is still directing people to the 2001 edition of the Green Book. Cycling advocates have long criticized the AASHTO guide, and the FHWA’s adherence to it, since even the most recent version doesn’t incorporate the latest thinking in bicycle and pedestrian safety treatments.

In FHWA’s new round of rule-making, DOT will set its own bicycle and pedestrian safety standards for the first time. The agency will “highlight bicycle and pedestrian safety as a priority,” LaHood said. (You can watch his entire speech on AASHTO’s online TV channel.)

FHWA will rely heavily on input from AASHTO but also signaled that it would work with others to incorporate the full spectrum of bike/ped design best practices.

The National Association of City Transportation Officials publishes its own, much more cutting-edge, design guide for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. No one at U.S. DOT reached out to NACTO in advance of the AASHTO speech, but NACTO spokesperson Ron Thaniel said they have a “close working relationship with Secretary LaHood” and “look forward to working with him” on the new standards.

LaHood noted that he would be meeting with cyclists next week at the National Bike Summit here in Washington and that he would work with them on ways to improve infrastructure “to make biking and walking opportunities as safe as they possibly can be.”

But it was wise of him to make his announcement at AASHTO, not at the Bike Summit. He seems to be trying to bring AASHTO into the fold of a movement to embrace more innovative bikeway designs. “I’m asking [the cycling community] for their help but I’m asking you to be helpful also,” he told the state officials. “I know that most of you want to build the 21st century infrastructure that your communities need to be competitive. The problem is we don’t have modern-day roadway standards to help us bring these ideas to life.”

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What follows is the second installment of an exit interview I conducted with departing Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on Tuesday. In the first installment, he talked about what he’s proudest of, why he decided to leave, and why it’s important to fund bike/ped improvements with federal dollars. I also gave him one last chance to duck a question about how to increase revenues. We’ll run the third part tomorrow.

Tanya Snyder: Republicans believe that bicycle and pedestrian, and often transit, funding shouldn’t come out of the same protected fund as roads. Do you think that’s an ideological position or do you think that’s industry influence talking?

Ray LaHood: When it comes to transportation, we need to have people with a vision. People that understand that DOT is not just about roads and bridges anymore. It’s about a comprehensive view of transportation. It’s about many different alternatives. The people are way ahead of some of these politicians, and have been. It’ll be up to common, ordinary citizens to convince their leaders — whether it be mayors or governors or members of Congress — that a vision for transportation is not restricted to just roads and bridges. It has to be a wide, broad view of many alternatives.

Now, there are Republicans with a vision. [Gov.] Rick Snyder in Michigan accepted high-speed rail money to fix up the route between Detroit and Chicago. [California Gov. Arnold] Schwarzenegger was one of the first governors to accept high-speed rail money. So there are some Republicans that do have a vision about this. We’re going to find out whether any of them are in Congress or not.

But it’ll be up to the people to hold these elected officials’ feet to the fire when it comes to having a vision about transportation that’s more than just about roads and bridges.

TS: When you look at Congress, specifically the Republicans but really Congress in general, how is it different than 10 years ago, or 20 years ago when you started in Congress?

RL: For example, when I served on the Transportation Committee, we passed two [surface transportation] bills in a very bipartisan way. We passed two bills with 75 people on the committee, and everybody voted for it. And this was with a Republican majority! This was with Bud Shuster as the chair of the committee. This was a group of people that did have a vision about transportation.

Now, the resources were there also. We funded almost all of it out of the highway trust fund. It’s different now, because there are limited resources and people have a different view. But there’s still quite a bit of leadership, I think. Certainly there are people with a vision in the group that put together the transportation bill, plussing up the TIFIA program to allow for communities to do big projects was a big step forward.

TS: I wanted to ask about the story behind the TIGER program. How did it come together?

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