A pair of papers by reachers Ralph Buehler of Virgina Tech and John Pucher of Rutgers along a third article by Buehler have been added to the Best Practices in the Research Center.

Transportation for America has released a report focusing the deteriorating condition of bridges in the largest 102 metropolitan areas. "The Fix We’re In For: The State of Our Nation’s Busiest Bridges" continues its analysis of the  National Bridge Inventory, which found one in nine U.S. bridges has been rated “structurally deficient.”

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has announced the Fiscal Year 2011 award recipients for three of its discretionary grant programs: Alternatives Analysis, Bus Livability and State of Good Repair. A total of $928.5 million is being awarded for over 300 transit projects across the country. The FTA received 839 applications for these three funding programs, representing $4.9 billion in requests from transit providers. These grants include a combination of capital, operating and maintenance projects. The Alternatives Analysis grants are focused on studying options for future transit service; the Bus Livability grants will go toward the replacement or refurbishment of aging buses and bus-related facilities; and the State of Good Repair grants will fund improvements to existing transit fleets and facilities.

Transit Cooperative Research Program's Legal Research Digest article "Transit-Oriented And Joint Development: Case Studies And Legal" has been added to the best practices in the Research Articles.

Reconnecting America and its partners in the Center for Transit-Oriented Development are out at Rail~Volution in Washington, DC, Oct. 16-Oct. 19.  A list of their workshops and seminars is here.

Legislation that would maintain tax benefits for commuters who use transit is pending in Congress. If the legislation is not passed, the allowable pretax transit and vanpool benefit will drop from its current $230 a month to $120.

The U.S. PIRG Education Fund has released "Tax-Increment Financing: The Need for Increased Transparency and Accountability in Local Economic Development Subsidies," a research report exloring the pitfalls of tax-increment financing used by cities to fund community development.

The Denver region is currently embarking on one of the most ambitious and extensive fixed-guideway transit expansions in the country. Other regions are watching closely to see how the network gets built out and if development patterns reorient themselves around new transit stations, hoping to emulate our success. The region’s cities and counties have been busy preparing land use plans for new stations over the past few years, yet so far most remain long-term visions, lying in wait until stations open or developers line up to build. There are also concerns that transit-oriented development will not benefit the populations which need it most—low-income households and communities of color--which typically spend a greater percentage of income on housing and transportation.