A note from our friends at Smart Growth America:
$50 billion was allocated in President Obama’s stimulus package for transportation with virtually no criteria and accountability for what projects will get funded. Our state government — from the Governor and the State House to the Department of Transportation — will determine how much of that money gets spent.
Our feedback is important.
According to a poll released in January by the National Association of Realtors, 80 percent of Americans believe it is more important that the stimulus funding include efforts to repair existing highways and public transit rather than to build new highways. Repair projects have also been shown to create 16% more jobs, and to do so faster, than those that build new highway capacity.
Please, help out and ask the Govenor to make sure that this money gets spent on smarter projects that can put people back to work quickly and responsibly, while providing us with the world-class transportation infrastructure we need.