Smart Growth America, along with some of our programs, identified immediate executive actions and long-term policy changes that the incoming Biden administration can implement to eliminate structural inequities and address catastrophic global climate change.
With transportation accounting for the largest share of carbon emissions in the U.S., we’ll never achieve ambitious climate targets or create more livable and equitable communities if we don’t find ways to allow people to get around outside of a car—or provide more housing in places where that’s already an option. Our new report shows how we can reach those targets while building a more just and equitable society.
The House Select Committee on Climate Change released a new legislative blueprint this week for tackling the climate crisis that incorporates many of SGA’s recommendations across our programs, demonstrating how smart growth is at the very core of any potential plan to reduce emissions.
This week the House will consider the Moving Forward Act, a $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill that reflects many of Smart Growth America’s core priorities, including a new kind of transportation bill, billions to invest in new or rehabilitated affordable housing, and support for more inclusive and equitable development around transit to help give more Americans access to opportunity.
Right now there is an ambitious proposal to rewrite the rules for transportation spending in America currently moving in the U.S. House. We have been writing extensively about this new proposal and here’s where you can find the information you’re searching for…or perhaps didn’t even know you needed!
![](https://smartgrowthamerica.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Caressa-Givens-Milwaukee-Complete-Street.jpg")
As noted in Transportation for America’s scorecard, the House’s INVEST Act transportation bill takes important strides to make safety a priority, from the inclusion of new performance measures all the way down to making changes with how agencies set speed limits. Here are five things to know.
One of the amendments to the House’s transportation bill (INVEST Act) we are supporting would expand one of the federal government’s biggest infrastructure financing tools to include more economic development near public transportation stations—increasing private investment in transit and helping multiply the impact of the INVEST Act’s sizable increases in transit funding.
The INVEST Act could be a turning point for the federal transportation program, almost hitting the mark on our principles for transportation investment. But a few amendments could make—or break—the bill. Stay up to date here.
While there are enormous needs for relief and support all across the economy, the president and many congressional leaders have indicated that they want infrastructure to be a major part of a future stimulus bill. If Congress does intend to use infrastructure spending to create jobs and support recovery, their own effort in 2009 has some clear lessons they should learn from.
Lessons and recommendations for future infrastructure stimulus Between 2009 and 2010, the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA, commonly known as “the stimulus”) gave states $26 billion in flexible dollars to spend on virtually any surface transportation capital projects and $8.4 billion in funding for public transportation capital projects. With A COVID-19 recession all but … Continued