Protected: Materials for 2011 SGA Coalition Meeting, Lobby Day and T4 Fly-In
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High oil costs squeeze already-tight budgets for families across the country
Last week the New America Foundation hosted a panel to discuss the rising cost of oil and different strategies for tackling the issue. Panelists touched on a variety of areas, from national security to “green jobs” to the growing need for transit-oriented development around employment centers. Most of the discussion focused on mid- to long-range changes and solutions, but one story in particular illustrated the pressing nature of our immediate oil crisis and the toll it takes on America’s families.
A couple in Maine both drive to their jobs, but the rising cost of gas has squeezed their budget so tightly that the gentleman has taken on a second job just to cover the cost of the gas he and his wife need to get to their primary jobs. The couple’s predicament paints a stark portrait of how long drives can impact families’ budgets. The couple is working more but they’re not getting ahead, at best they’re just treading water. If the husband couldn’t find a second job, would they have been forced to quit one of their jobs because they couldn’t afford the commute?
For Americans who can’t afford $3/gallon gas, public transportation options are becoming an essential way to reduce expenses. While the logical assumption would be that increased need for public transportation would lead to increased revenue and service, the opposite is happening. As many states face financial crises, local governments are cutting transportation services across the country. These service cuts lead to decreased ridership, which reduces revenue even further. Economic recovery in these areas is, in turn, slowed since cuts to public transportation often hamper workers’ ability to connect with employers.
Turner Foundation Seeks Information on Local Green Infrastructure Projects
From the EPA State and Local Climate and Energy Program:
Is your community investing in green infrastructure to improve air quality, lower summertime temperatures, or reduce energy costs? The Clean Water America Alliance (Alliance) is conducting a project for the Turner Foundation to engage utilities, cities, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and the private sector on green infrastructure policy. The resulting report will be used to help the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with its national rulemaking to establish a program to reduce stormwater discharges.
If you would like to participate in this project, complete the questionnaire at the link below to submit information on your current green infrastructure implementation efforts as well as the barriers you’ve encountered. The questionnaire is intended to seek quantitative and qualitative data on the technical, financial, legal, institutional, and cultural barriers to implementing green infrastructure practices at the local, state, and federal levels of government.
Your contribution will be compiled with others to develop a report highlighting the opportunities, barriers and recommendations. The Alliance will promote and distribute the report to participants in the water sector, conservation communities, and key policy-makers, as well as other interested parties.
Respond to the questionnaire yourself, or circulate the link below to others at your organization to complete some or all of the questions, as appropriate. The deadline for survey participation is April 15, 2011.
http://www.cleanwateramericaalliance.org/gisurvey_about.php
password: GREEN
For more information, please contact Lorraine Loken at the Alliance, (202) 533-1819, or email [email protected].
Call Congress TODAY to protect the Partnership for Sustainable Communities
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As debate over 2011’s federal budget continues to rage in Congress, funding for two major programs in the Partnership for Sustainable Communities are at risk of being completely eliminated. If you support the smart growth work being done by the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, please take a minute TODAY to call your Members of Congress to express your opposition to these cuts.
Here’s how to be an on-the-phone advocate to your Members of Congress:
- Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask for the office of your Senator or Representative. The switchboard will connect you directly. Not sure who you members of Congress are? Click here to find out.
- Once transferred, introduce yourself with your name, organization or business and location. Explain that you support the Partnership for Sustainable Communities in both the Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 Continuing Resolution and FY 2012 Appropriations, and that you oppose:
- Retraction of the Department of Transportation’s unspent TIGER grant funds;
- Policy riders that would prevent the Department of Housing and Urban Development from continuing its work with the Partnership for Sustainable Communities.
(Want to know more about these issues? You can find more information and talking points here.)
- Thank the staff member and end the call. Repeat steps one through three with your other Members of Congress.
- Share this alert with your friends and colleagues. Encourage them to tell their Congressional representatives about their support for the Partnership for Sustainable Communities.
This week is the time to act. Please call your Members of Congress today to express your support for these important federal programs.
Protected: SGA Coalition Update – 4/4/11
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Protected: SGA Monthly Coalition Call Notes – 3/31/11
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Call for entries: Pennsylvania's 2011 Commonwealth Awards
Crossposted from Smart Growth America’s coalition partner organization 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania.
10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania is now accepting submissions for the 2011 Commonwealth Awards. The Commonwealth Awards honor Pennsylvania projects that incorporate smart land use, smart design, and smart growth principles, as well as individuals who have contributed to smart growth. Through these awards, 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania aims to raise awareness of projects that successfully demonstrate sound land use principles around the Commonwealth – projects that are development or redevelopment; in settings from urban to suburban to rural. The 2011 winners will be announced at a program on September 20, 2011 at the Hilton Harrisburg Hotel in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Design award guidelines: for smart growth projects in Pennsylvania
Eligible projects must be located in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the project must have been built or been under construction after January 1, 2008. In addition to one grand Gold Award winner, Silver Awards, Bronze Awards and Commendations may also be granted to projects under construction or proposed after January 1, 2008. Multi-phase projects may be evaluated and awarded based upon achievements during a specific phase. The resubmission of projects is encouraged.
Project submissions may include, but are not limited to, these project types:
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Individual award guidelines: nominate a smart growth champion
Nominations are also invited to acknowledge Pennsylvanians who contribute to smart growth. Nominations are accepted in two categories: Contribution by a Citizen, and Contribution by a Public Official. Recipients will be cited for their direct contributions to smart growth and for their positive and valuable influence on their community, constituents, and peers.
How to enter
Visit 10000friends.org to read the full guidelines and to download the entry forms. Entries should be submitted to: Commonwealth Awards, 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, 200 N 3rd Street, 4th Floor, Harrisburg, PA 17101. Entries are due no later than June 15, 2011.
Livable Communities Coalition launches Fair Share for Transit campaign
At a rally yesterday in downtown Atlanta, the Livable Communities Coalition (LCC) launched its Fair Share for Transit campaign. Speaking at the rally, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed voiced his support for the initiative which is designed “to explain the benefits of and need for significantly increased investment in transit service for the metro Atlanta region.”
Atlanta is in the process of identifying major transportation projects for the region for the next decade, and Fair Share for Transit wants to make sure transit, bicycle and pedestrian projects are included. LCC Executive Director Ray Christman explained these transportation choices will help Atlanta economically: “We have to invest now in transportation alternatives that will boost the region’s economic competitiveness, help attract good jobs and improve the region’s quality of life.” Fair Share for Transit backers include private business groups and representatives of the health, disability, social equity, environmental, transit, bicycling and pedestrian communities. More than 20 businesses and groups have signed on to the campaign to date.
The Georgia General Assembly recently passed the Transportation Investment Act of 2010, and next summer residents of Atlanta’s 10-county region will vote whether to raise sales taxes one percent for 10 years in order to finance a number of much anticipated and much needed transportation projects. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, today “is the deadline for MARTA, the Atlanta region’s 10 counties and its cities and towns to get their desired projects to the state.” MARTA is not expected to set priorities until this summer, after the projects are initially reviewed by the state Department of Transportation’s director of planning and area elected officials. The campaign will continue until October 15th, when the final list of projects is announced.
Fair Share for Transit supporters include Atlanta Bicycle Coalition, Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership, Buckhead Community Improvement District, Cherokee Area Transportation System, Citizens for Progressive Transit, CHA, Coalition for the People’s Agenda, Atlanta Chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism, Georgia Chapter of the Sierra Club, Georgians for Passenger Rail, Georgia STAND-UP, Georgia Transit Association, Hedgewood Realty, Henry County Chamber of Commerce, Resources for Residents and Communities of Georgia, RouteMatch Software, Southern Environmental Law Center, and Sustainable Solutions Georgia.
Formed in 2005, the Livable Communities Coalition is the Atlanta region’s smart growth advocate and catalyst. It unites nearly 60 organizations working to change the way metro Atlanta grows by focusing on land use, transportation, housing, and conservation of open green space and natural resources. Member organizations include regional leaders in the areas of aging, building and development, business, urban and landscape design, government, housing, planning, sustainable development, the environment, and transit and transportation alternatives.
New report and interactive map shows the state of our nation's bridges
Crossposted from Transportation for America
69,223 bridges – representing more than 11 percent of all U.S. highway bridges – are classified as “structurally deficient,” requiring significant maintenance, rehabilitation or replacement, according to a new T4 America report released today, The Fix We’re In: The State of Our Nation’s Bridges.
Those are the facts, and 69,000 bridges sure sounds like a lot, but what does that look like in real terms? Where are these bridges? Does your city or state have a lot of deficient bridges, or does the state do a good job taking care of them? Those questions are going to be much easier to answer with our online tools accompanying the report, launching today at t4america.org/resources/bridges.
We’ve taken the whole federal bridge database and put it online in a map, so you can type your address, and see all the bridges within a ten-mile radius. Structurally deficient bridges will show up as red icons. Click any bridge and you’ll get more information about it, including its rating in a box on the right.
Curious about how your state stacks up? Click on “By State” and click your state to see a quick overview of their performance, including the best and worst five counties, as well as their rank nationally and total percentage of structurally deficient bridges.
The national report and all 51 state reports are being officially released today at noon with a national telebriefing, but you can go ahead and check out the map and data now on our site. (Media members? Contact david.goldberg [at] t4america [dot] org if you want information on the telebriefing.)
Check out the map today and please spread the word about it. We’ll be posting several times throughout the day with more information about the national report, which is available for download now — as well as reports for all 50 states and D.C.
SGA Asks: What can cities like Detroit do to rebuild their local economy?
Each week Smart Growth America poses a question to our readers to encourage discussion about smart growth ideas in neighborhoods across America. You can engage in the dialogue by commenting on our Facebook page or through Twitter with @SmartGrowthUSA. If you’re not already a fan or a follower, sign up to participate.
The 2010 US Census data released this week revealed that Detroit, among other cities, lost more residents than initially thought. This week, SGA asks: What can cities like Detroit do to rebuild their local economy?
The New York Times’ Room for Debate debates this issue in depth, with eight experts weighing in on revitalization opportunities presented by increasingly vacant cities across America. Among the points they raise:
- What if the government used a fraction of the billions it spends to subsidize home-building on ‘unbuilding’ projects instead?
- The record of top-down schemes to revive cities by remaking neighborhoods is littered with disastrous unintended consequences.
- The key to restoring a shrinking city’s health is to cut costs of doing business and ensure access to quality education.
- Build vegetable gardens and parks, but also consider tax incentives.
- We need to get over our tendency to throw out damaged goods; instead we need to retrofit them.
Which of the authors do you agree with? Disagree with? What role can abandoned property revitalization play in reviving a city?