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The United States has long been a car culture. But with fewer young people buying cars than ever, an American automobile industry in decline, and rising fuel prices, this culture is facing something of a crisis. Taras Grescoe, author of "Straphanger," takes this as a unique opportunity to look at public transportation throughout the world, and to consider how trains, subways, and buses can be better integrated into our daily lives.

About a quarter of employees who work in area airports — including some who have jobs in security — make wages that are below the poverty line, according to a new study released Wednesday.

With the entire New York City transit system set to shut down at noon on Saturday, first responders are planning alternate ways to get to work.

Ahead of the busy summer travel season, inter-city bus ridership continues to climb despite the trio of recent crashes in the Northeast.

WNYC's Transportation Nation recently discovered that the U.S. Department of Transportation has proposed a new rule for long-distance truck drivers. It would require truckers to install a device to monitor the number of hours they drive per day. DOT regulations state that truckers cannot work more than fourteen hours per day — and they can only drive eleven of those fourteen hours. Advocates of the digital monitor worry that drivers violate these rules and simply lie in their handwritten logs. But most long-distance truckers aren't too happy with the new DOT proposition. Harley Helms, long-distance truck driver and Takeaway listener, has had a such a device installed by his employer. He joins us with his take on digital monitors.

Would you let someone you didn't know borrow your car? New car-sharing programs are letting people do just that. Companies like RelayRides.com let people in urban areas like San Francisco, Portland and Cambridge, Mass. rent out their own cars for an hourly fee.

We talk to one reporter who took car-sharing for a test drive: Casey Miner, at KALW 91.7FM in San Francisco and one of our partners in the Transportation Nation project.

The budget bus that crashed in the Bronx and resulted in the deaths of more than a dozen passengers was going up to 78 miles per hour when it flipped on its side, it was revealed Wednesday during a Senate committee meeting on motor coach safety in the wake of three crashes in recent weeks.

Police are cracking down on cyclists who run red lights in New York City. And in Central Park, the NYPD has issued 230 tickets to cyclists this year alone.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott has said thanks — but no thanks — to $2 billion in federal funds that were meant to create a high speed line between Orlando and Tampa. Joining us to talk about the implications of this setback for the Obama administration's rail plan is Andrea Bernstein, Director of Transportation Nation, a public radio project produced by our flagship station WNYC Radio says this was the marquee project for the Obama administration's plans for high speed rail.

Many pinpoint the start of the Civil Rights movement in the United States to Rosa Parks, refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger, back in 1955. Over half-a-century later, African-American and Latino communities are still struggling with unequal transit systems.

Traffic deaths are up slightly, but New York is still the safest big city in the country when it comes to traffic fatalities, according to 2010 data released Monday by the New York City Department of Transportation.

 

President Obama's State of the Union Address touched on several key and pressing issues facing the country, from transportation, to immigration and innovation. The Takeaway's Washington correspondent, Todd Zwillich, shares his thoughts on the speech and what it could mean for the coming year in the halls of Congress. The Takeaway partners with Transportation Nation, to examine the president's commitment to high speed rail in this country; Obama said he wanted to connect 80 percent of Americans via high-speed rail in coming years.  

If you think you’re seeing more people on scooters this summer, you’re probably right. The number of two-wheeled vehicles registered in New York State continues to increase each year, and this year it's at a higher rate than in most other big states, according to the states' Department of Motor Vehicles. Scooter users say it’s the easiest way to navigate the city, and that it burns far less gas than a car. But while the two-wheelers may turn heads on New York streets, riders say they don’t get much respect from the City.

With the federal mass transit tax break set to expire at the end of the year, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer is pushing to make the benefit permanent. The benefit covers up to $230 per month from a person’s gross income to pay for mass transit commutes, an increase from the ...

Found your dream home out in the suburbs at a fantastic price?  Well, it may not be as cheap as you think.  According to a new study released yesterday by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, when you factor in the costs of transportation, only 1/3 of America's neighborhoods are actually considered affordable. (You can look up your own neighborhood in the just-released Housing + Transportation Affordability Index.)

Minority communities have been hit hardest by the recession, but they are receiving fewer of the stimulus project contracts doled out by the government.  

In partnership with WNYC Radio in New York, The Takeaway's Transportation Nation looks at the changing shape of America's transit landscape.  

The federal government is on the verge of spending billions of dollars on highways and public transit projects, beginning in 2010.  Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood views this as a historic moment in American history, when federal money will back policy aimed at getting Americans off the highways, out of our cars and into public transit and high-speed rail.  LaHood steps through the many areas of American life in which he's now shaping policy. (click through for the full interview transcript)