Advocacy Alerts

Send an email message in support of these issues in as little as two minutes:

Advocacy:

Paseo Bridge Bike/Ped Access: MoDOT is building a new quarter billion dollar bridge in the heart of Kansas City. It could provide the first safe bicycle/pedestrian crossing of the Missouri River near downtown Kansas City. We've been working on this for years and now it's going to move or die forever in the next month or so.

Advocacy:

Hwy 45 Bike/Ped Access: MoDOT is building a new highway through Parkville, Missouri. Guess what--their plans for accommodating bicycling and walking are inadequate, plus they forgot to include any funding for them.

Advocacy:

Bicycling License Plate: Many other states have 'Share the Road with Bicycles' license plates. Why not Missouri, too? In 1 minute you can show your support.

The following Action Alert is from the Surface Transportation Policy Project-Alliance for a New Transportation Charter:

Call Your Representative Today and Urge "Stay the Course, Make TEA-3 Even Better."

BACKGROUND: 

Congress is now working on a number of fronts related to renewal of TEA-21, the nation's surface transportation law, scheduled to expire Sept. 30. THIS WEEK, baseline budget numbers for the new law and Members are presenting project requests and new policy initiatives for federal highway and transit programs at a series of hearings held by the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee. Nearly $300 billion is expected to be spent under the next law, which we refer to as TEA-3. These investments contain the potential to provide equitable transportation options for all citizens to have access to jobs and opportunities - or to leave communities struggling with design, policies and funding serving automobiles at the expense of other modes and perpetuating sprawl. In the current political climate, we must fight to preserve the environmental protections and landmark reforms established in ISTEA and preserved in TEA-21.

Today, STPP released a national poll which indicates that Americans are not only eager to walk more, they are willing to invest in making it possible. Given a choice between driving and walking, 55 percent of Americans choose walking more. A majority (68%) favor investing more federal dollars in walking and biking facilities. Most Americans (66%) thought the best long-term solution to traffic congestion was to "improve public transportation" and to "develop communities where people do not have to walk long distances to work and shop." Only 25% of Americans advocate building new roads. Currently, less than one percent of federal transportation dollars go toward protecting pedestrians, even though 12 percent of all traffic deaths are people killed while walking. The poll report and state fact sheets are available online at www.transact.org.

As Congress begins to focus more on renewal of the law, it is urgent that you check in with you Representatives and remind them of public opinion and the priorities of constituents using the transportation system. 

ACTION NEEDED:
Contact your Representatives TODAY and urge them to "stay the course" and build upon the ISTEA-TEA-21 framework in TEA-21 reauthorization. 

CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE AND DELIVER THIS MESSAGE, GIVING LOCAL EXAMPLES:

-Americans want and deserve better transportation choices
-TEA-21 is a good law that has served our community well
-We need to invest even more in transit, bicycling, and walking facilities
-Greater emphasis should be placed on "fix it first" policies
-Local communities should have more control of federal transportation dollars
-Environmental protections contained in NEPA and environmental programs like CMAQ should be preserved
-The public also needs stronger assurances that new infrastructure investments will go towards making our air cleaner, our communities more livable and healthier, our economies stronger and more equitable, and our nation more secure 

To reach your representative, call the Capitol Switchboard at 1-800-839-5276. Visit www.congress.org to generate a letter or personalized email message. 
permanent link to article: "TEA-3 Action Alert--U.S. House of Representatives"
posted by Brent Hugh at 4/01/2003 07:38:00 PM |comment on this article