Washington lawmakers receive your message on high-speed rail
October 20, 2009By Stephen Lee Davis
Four billion or about one billion for high-speed rail.
That’s the question that a group of representatives in the House and Senate will soon have to answer as they try to reconcile differences in the two chambers’ versions of the yearly transportation appropriations bill. A few weeks ago, the House passed a transportation budget with $4 billion for high-speed rail. Shortly afterward, the Senate passed their version of the yearly spending bill with only $1.2 billion for high-speed rail.
So a group of organizations, including Transportation for America, started rallying support for more funding for high-speed rail. Did you or your organization sign the petition at FourBillion.com urging Congress to keep the $4 billion in the bill?
A few members of the FourBillion.com campaign took that petition with more than 100 organizations and thousands of names to a few Congressional offices last week and hand-delivered the message that now is the time to make a historic investment in rail and kickstart a national investment in fast, clean rail travel that can connect our metro areas.
John Krieger from US PIRG and Danny Plaugher, executive director of Virginians for High Speed Rail visited with Rep. Tom Perriello (VA), Rep. John Olver (MA), Rep. Eric Cantor (VA), and Rep. Debbie Halvorson (IL) to deliver the signatures. The full set of photos are here on our Flickr stream.
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| FourBillion.com 6 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America |
| House Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (VA), right, meets with John Krieger, left, and Danny Plaugher of Virginians for High Speed Rail as they deliver petition signatures from FourBillion.com to Rep. Cantor supporting the $4 billion for high-speed rail in the House DOT appropriations bill. Photos courtesy of FourBillion.com and US PIRG. |
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| FourBillion.com 2 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America |
| Rep. John Olver (MA), right, with John Krieger of US PIRG, left, and Danny Plaugher of Virginians for High Speed Rail as they deliver petition signatures to Rep. Olver from FourBillion.com supporting the $4 billion for high-speed rail in the House DOT appropriations bill. Photos courtesy of FourBillion.com and US PIRG. |
Today’s briefing on Complete Streets — and the view from Decatur, Georgia
June 5, 2009By Stephen Lee Davis
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| Decatur Mayor Bill Floyd Originally uploaded by TimothyJ |
| Mayor Bill Floyd of Decatur, Georgia helped get complete streets policies adopted in his city, resulting in a safer, more livable enjoyable city. Tell your representatives to support the Complete Streets Act of 2009 in the House and Senate. |
With the Environmental and Energy Study Institute and a few of our key partners this morning, Transportation for America held a briefing on Capitol Hill about Complete Streets — and how putting complete streets into the next transportation bill will go a long way towards improving health, safety and livability for Americans.
Tell your representatives to support the Complete Streets Act of 2009 in the House and Senate.
Decatur, Georgia Mayor Bill Floyd, one of the panelists, told the story of how building complete streets in Decatur have made the city safer and more livable for its residents and visitors. Decatur, a city of about 18,000 just six miles east of downtown Atlanta, adopted ‘complete streets’ policies to ensure that their roadways get designed and improved for all users. But it wasn’t easy to do, and Mayor Floyd said they still face numerous hurdles from the state government.
Why do we need a federal law? Because current plans require variances from GDOT (Georgia Department of Transportation). For every project, it takes a variance. If we got a bike and sidewalk approved, and went back for another one, we’d have to get another variance. Federal laws are applied differently from state to state even.
Just like many Georgia cities, it has several state-maintained highways that pass through it. And those get treated the same way by the Georgia Department of Transportation whether they run through urban Decatur or rural south Georgia.
He pointed specifically to a mid-block crosswalk in downtown — where pedestrians come and go all day long from the MARTA transit hub, shops, and restaurants — with a raised crosswalk and a yield sign in the road between the lanes of traffic. He pointed to a photo of the crossing and noted “that mid-lane crossing sign is in violation of GDOT — they call it a vehicle impediment.” They succeeded in getting the road de-classified as a state highway — a long, difficult process, but one that resulted in them being able to control the design of the road.
One of the biggest reasons why Decatur wants streets safe for walking and biking has to do with their 3,000 children. The city, while only 4 square miles in size, has its own school system with pre-K all the way up to Decatur High School right off the city square. As a result many kids in the city should be within a mile of their school, and those children should be able to walk or bike to school. “Kids love to walk to school and ride those bikes,” Mayor Floyd said. But the streets just weren’t safe enough.
They utilized money in the Safe Routes to School Program (yes, the one proposed for cuts) to improve the safety of their streets, giving kids the chance to be outside and get some incidental exercise on their way to and from school.
Research shows that well-designed sidewalks, bike lanes, intersections, and other street features to accommodate all modes of travel can significantly reduce injuries, deaths, and automobile crashes. Communities adopting the complete streets approach are discovering additional benefits including higher rates of physical activity among residents—an important factor for improved health—and more vibrant business districts and neighborhoods.
Tell your representatives to support the Complete Streets Act of 2009 in the House and Senate.
Transportation For America officially launches campaign platform
February 26, 2009By Stephen Lee Davis
Today in Washington, D.C., Transportation for America held an event on Capitol Hill to formally announce our new coalition of more than 225 organizations and 17,000 individual members and to release the platform drafted with input from dozens of practitioners and stakeholders. In opening remarks, Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) called the coalition perhaps the “most formidable” such coalition assembled on behalf of transportation reform.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer addressed the guests and VIP’s gathered in the Capitol Caucus Room of the Cannon House Office Building
With events last night and this morning on Capitol Hill, we brought together leaders in the worlds of transportation, public health, business and social justice to launch the platform.
Our campaign platform calls on President Obama and Congress to launch a new federal transportation mission that breaks with the worn out ways of the status quo, helps put an end to America’s oil dependency, brings opportunity to all Americans and allows our country’s businesses to compete and thrive in the 21st Century.
Other panelists, including Dr. Georges Benjamin of the American Public Health Association, Judith Bell of PolicyLink, Richard Baron of McCormack Baron Salazar and Transportation for America campaign director James Corless, spoke on behalf of the public health benefits, implications for real estate development and the need for local areas to have greater latitude to address their mobility issues.
Mayor John Robert Smith of Meridian, Mississippi — a city that has worked hard to turn their rail connections into downtown reinvestment and vice versa — spoke at length about the need for the next phase of our transportation system to unite our country in the same way that Eisenhower envisioned the interstate system would help a collection of States be unified as a truly “United” States of America:
Few national issues offer a greater opportunity for imaginative change. And we need a Congress that will reach across the aisle that separates their parties, and reach across the geography that separate their states. These issues are complex and daunting, but we must act and act now. Our children and children’s children will hold us accountable. To fail would be to leave this nation as Eisenhower said, “As many separate parts.”
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| Dr. Georges Benjamin of the American Public Health Association shows off his copy of the Platform. |
The Platform is now available for you to download and read.
Also today, the National Association of Realtors released a poll done in conjunction with Transportation for America that shows strong support for investment in public transportation, walking and biking and a better-managed and maintained highway system. Read the details about the NAR/T4 poll.
Transportation for America also announced that the coalition will launch a series of town hall meetings and provide materials for self-organized house parties where engaged citizens can talk about what a renewed national vision for transportation investment could mean for their communities. Watch here for more to come on that over the next several days and weeks.
Mayor John Robert Smith of Meridian, Mississippi, left, and Rep. Earl Blumenauer take their respective turns at the mic this morning on Capitol Hill.
Photos licensed with Creative Commons by Steve Davis/Transportation for America
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- T4 America co-chair testifies before Senate on rural transportation
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