There’s plenty of chatter about whether federal economic stimulus money should go for transit, for road-building, for repairs or building new. But there’s also a big push to target the about-to-be-written federal transportation bill. A coalition group called Transportation for America is warning: ”Now is not the time to squander money on projects or plans that do not help save Americans money, free us from oil dependence and create long-term jobs.” Here’s a link to a blog item on it from Smart Growth Online. It quotes an Associated Press article:
”Now is not the time to squander money on projects or plans that do not help save Americans money, free us from oil dependence and create long-term jobs,” warns a diverse Transportation for America coalition of environmental, urban design, housing and other groups, launching a campaign to make sure the 2009 federal transportation bill allocates a fair share for mass transit and infrastructure repair instead of funding mostly new roads, reports Associated Press writer Sarah Karush. The effort [has been] joined by Pennsylvania and Virginia Democratic Governors Ed Rendell and Timothy M. Kaine, and former Maryland Democratic Governor Parris N. Glendening, now the Smart Growth Leadership Institute president.
”That’s always difficult politically,” said Governor Rendell about his state’s fix-it-first approach, but recalling the deadly August 2007 collapse of the I-35W Mississippi River Bridge in Minneapolis, he asked, ”How many more Minnesotas do we have to have as a country?”
Governor Kaine cited a decline in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and an increase in transit demand, telling the writer, ”The key is to provide choices, so you invest in everything.” And Governor Glendening said, ”Make sure that infrastructure really builds for the future. That’s about transit, that’s about walkability, that’s about ‘fix it first.’ ”