Fighting for clean transportation at @ucs.org. Author, BETTER BUSES, BETTER CITIES + JUSTICE AND THE INTERSTATES. Posts my own opinion.
Steven Higashide
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We at @ucs.org were privileged to support this work, which was done by @umanitoba.bsky.social Orly Linovski, @njklein.bsky.social, @amyelee.com, and @bloustein.rutgers.edu Kelcie Ralph.
The full paper is currently in preprint, available here osf.io/preprints/so... - and there's more to come.
When I first started bringing nondrivers to our state legislature transportation committees, I remember, it was a shock for legislators to hear from dozens of people outside the transportation consulting firm lobby
The research examined 8 groups - representing truckers, highway contractors, manufacturers, engineering firms, and others with vested interest in road projects.
Collectively, these groups employed hundreds of lobbyists and spent over $100 million on lobbying and campaign donations in 2024.
Beyond numbers, it's instructive to see the road lobby's tactics.
The American Trucking Association has a year-round presence in DC, sending a state chapter to lobby every week.
Contracting firms use "payroll stuffers" - messages that accompany workers' paychecks asking them to call Congress.
Then there's industry-funded research and direct intervention in electoral campaigns. In internal case study research, produced for member companies, trade groups boast about electing a Houston city councilmember and stress the importance of making allies out of state Departments of Transportation.
Don't look now, but the 90-day delinquency rate for auto loans is higher than at any point since at least 2004 (and probably earlier). Per www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomi...
One reason Congress writes checks for bigger highways despite the public demanding different choices? The influence game played by the road lobby.
New research summarized by @kevshen.bsky.social here (blog.ucs.org/kshen/the-hi...) scrutinizes the tactics of the DC groups pushing road construction.
1/ As the EPA continues to fall short, a solution to curb freight pollution at the source could improve air quality for millions and help transition away from fossil fuels use.
🚌 Transportation in the US has historically been a bipartisan issue, but not under the second Trump administration. Steven Higashide, director of our Clean Transportation program, explains how Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is weaponizing the department to advance Trump’s authoritarian agenda.
A. Zivarts
Steven Higashide
Steven Higashide
Steven Higashide
Steven Higashide
Our car-dependent transportation system is no accident.
Join us as we launch Science Rising, a new initiative encouraging scientists to speak out and take action against the Trump administration's anti-science actions:
Indirect Source Rules (ISRs) provide state and local governments a tool to address inequitable pollution impacts from the freight system.
