A new opinion piece in the Washington Post from Transportation for America takes a contrarian view of all the talk about money during Infrastructure Week. In short, let’s skip a special infrastructure plan and focus on policy; without good policy more spending could actually do more harm than good.
It’s Infrastructure Week again and politicians are back at it, bemoaning our “crumbling roads and bridges” and insisting we must spend more to fix the problem. But we’ve got some cold water to throw on this pity party: Despite more transportation spending over the last decade, the percentage of the roads nationwide in “poor condition” increased from 14 to 20 percent.
The newly created Opportunity Zones program will likely go down as the largest and most significant federal community development initiative in U.S. history, with trillions of dollars in new private investment about to start flowing into pre-designated low-income communities around the country.
Since Transportation for America launched their Stuck in the Station resource, local leaders, journalists, editorial boards, and members of Congress have been loudly critical of USDOT’s failure to fund and advance transit projects. Here’s some of the most recent updates.
During a special week in September we called Rebuild America’s Communities Week, elected local leaders in the First & Main coalition from small and mid-sized towns and cities across the country carried a clear and unified message to their representatives who were at home for recess: “We need reliable federal partners to support our homegrown efforts to rebuild our downtowns, restore our economies, and improve opportunity for everyone.”
The National Complete Streets Coalition continues our webinar series on implementation and equity this month with local officials discussing their innovative approaches to implementing Complete Streets. Join us each month for a new topic related to creating safer, healthier, more equitable streets.
In our recent webinar, we were joined by three reporters for a discussion about pedestrian fatalities and how people can talk about the issue in a responsible and productive way. The recording of that webinar is now available along with answers to some of the questions we weren’t able to get to live.
The National Complete Streets Coalition continues our webinar series this month by investigating the increasing number of pedestrian deaths on our streets with two journalists who have reported on the topic. Join us next month for a new topic related to creating safer, healthier, more equitable streets.
Yesterday a group of more than 30 elected local leaders from across the country carried a clear and unified message up to Capitol Hill on behalf of the First & Main coalition of nearly 100 local elected officials from small and mid-sized towns and cities. Their message? “We need reliable federal partners to support our homegrown efforts to rebuild our downtowns, restore our economies, and improve opportunity for everyone.”
Why do all of us at SGA support smart growth? For so many reasons.
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