Elected officials and transportation organizations from 45 states have signed a letter from Transportation for America, urging Congress to revamp the federal transportation program in the upcoming reauthorization.
Last fall, T4America urged Congress not just to reauthorize spending for infrastructure, but also to make substantive changes to U.S. transportation policy. Since then, 293 elected officials and organizations nearly every state in the country have signed onto the letter, the organization announced on April 14.
The letter asks Congress to ensure any future reauthorization of transportation policy substantially improves American lives.
“Americans can’t afford another six years of the status quo,” said Beth Osborne, director of T4America. “Our transportation needs to better connect all people to jobs and services safely, affordably, and conveniently to get us through this current crisis and to aid our economic recovery. Congress needs to use the upcoming reauthorization to finally align transportation spending with today’s national goals—not as a vehicle to funnel more money into programs that fail to improve people’s lives.”
The letter asks Congress to focus on T4America’s three principles – prioritizing maintenance over expansion, designing for safety over speed, and connecting people to jobs and services – as it works toward infrastructure spending.
According to T4America, repair and maintenance projects create more jobs per dollar than building new roads and bridges does, generating 16 percent more jobs per dollar than expansion does. Maintenance projects, the organization said, are open to more workers, spend money faster, spend more money on wages than equipment, and spend less time getting plans and permits.
Designing roadway for safety, T4America said, would help make roads safer for commuters walking to transit stops easier and more convenient. The organization estimated 2.8 million essential workers rely on transit to get them to work, making safe access to reliable transit more important than ever.
The group said Congress should also prioritize getting people where they need to go, rather than getting people around more quickly. Focusing on helping Americans access jobs and important services like healthcare, education, public services, and transit stops would eliminate disconnected communities who would suffer more under the current designs to move people around faster.