California will let agencies pay for housing to offset increased driving

A new California law gives transportation agencies the option to pay into an affordable housing fund to offset the increased travel demand associated with major road projects. The approach could achieve several goals at once: mitigating emissions from highway expansions, creating a new funding stream for affordable housing, and helping more people live in accessible neighborhoods, reducing their transportation costs. 

2025 Annual Meeting

October 13-14, 2025
SSTI’s 2025 Community of Practice meeting will be held October 13-14 in Sacramento, California. COP meetings focus on peer-to-peer interaction between CEOs of state departments of transportation. These meetings allow attendees to share ideas and learn from one another’s experiences leading state DOTs. The meetings are open to state DOT CEOs and are by-invitation to others.

More connected street networks are more resilient

As we have seen recently with the bridge and interstate collapses in Baltimore and Pennsylvania, disruptions to our street network severely impact travel. Natural disasters, like earthquakes and floods and targeted disasters, terrorist attacks, disrupt travel patterns, raising questions about why some cities are more vulnerable to these disasters than others. Especially in urban areas, when a central street is removed from the equation, people and goods still need to move to and from destinations. A new study looks at urban areas worldwide to determine what street network characteristics make them more resilient and vulnerable before and after disasters. Areas with disconnected street design like North America and Oceania are among the most vulnerable.