Monday, December 1, 2008
Tell Obama and Congress Your Transportation Wishes
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) is asking for comments (both written or video) about what should be priorities for transportation funding. Go to itoldthepresident.org to submit your comments. AASHTO is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that represents state departments of transportation. They will be collecting comments through January and sharing them with Congress and the White House. According to Tony Dorsey, an AASHTO spokesman, they will "mine the information for patterns ... if we hear a lot of people talk about congestion (or say need for more transit), we'll tell Congress and the (Obama) administration that congestion was their top priority, and they want something done about it".
In the last few weeks, there has been much talk of an economic stimulus bill containing tens of billions of dollars for transportation projects. Obama and congress will also need to pass a new transportation bill before federally funded highway and transit programs expire in September 2009.
Why am I blogging about this? Because as most of you are probably well aware, transportation infrastructure planning and implementation has profound direct and indirect affects on the built environment. I will be commenting about the need for additional funding for MetroLink expansion and operation dollars as well as the need for the State of Missouri to start bucking up its fair share of the funding pie for transit. Please take a few moments and submit yours.
In no small way, our hope of a revived city is directly proportional to the breadth and ability of our transit system to serve the people who would populate our metro area. Infrastructural spending and investment seems to be a solid, if not old-fashioned way of kick-starting at least a part of our ailing national economy (and the states have balanced budget requirement), and we should be letting our newly elected progressive government know what we expect. Thanks Paul.
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ReplyDeleteWell we just have to rid ourselves of several alderman. Bosley told me to my face last winter that he would not allow a streetcar to run on Florissant and that public transportation belonged on North Broadway instead.
ReplyDeleteWith attitudes like those controlling the streets comission no wonder we're America's 52nd city (maybe 60th after the new census?)
Hopefully we can organize, lobby for funding from the Obama administration and run the retrogrades out.