Clean Transportation
Transportation Position Statement
At Carrots & Sticks, our driving principle is to move America towards a 21st century-style model of sustainable prosperity. This more than anything means an America able to adapt to a changing world economically, culturally and environmentally. And few issues better fit into that model than scaling back our car culture with a much more robust national transportation policy.
The essence of our agenda is very simple: More Amtrak, Less Asphalt. It is long past time to redirect our federal dollars in a way that encourages development of alternative transportation infrastructure and the transit oriented growth policies that accompany such investment. Ideally, we would like to see the ratio of highway to transit funding drop to 2:1 from its current ratio of roughly 4:1. We wholeheartedly endorse Transportation for America’s Blueprint and the targets espoused therein. Likewise, we also strongly support the National Transportation Objectives legislation introduced in both the House (H.R. 2724) and Senate (S.1036).
In terms of specific programmatic goals, Carrots and Sticks supports three key initiatives:
1) A new national High Speed Rail network. Imagine getting from D.C. to Boston or L.A. to San Francisco in less than three hours, without the hassle of going through airport security, and in a comfortable environment with wireless internet access. Safe, dependable, cost-effective high speed trains can also improve on existing commuter rail networks to vastly decrease commute times from the suburbs to the central city of major metropolitan areas. The President has made high speed rail a high priority for his Administration, and the opportunity is ripe for America to become a world leader in this cutting-edge industry.
2) Roads that are better designed to accommodate Bikes, Pedestrians and Buses. This policy vision is championed by the Complete Streets Coalition, and we fully support that coalition’s efforts. Identical legislation has been introduced in the House (H.R. 1443) and Senate (S.584) bills with strong mandates for transportation planning agencies to adopt complete streets principles for all new projects. We urge all members to support this transformative measure that will directly improve the livability of America’s communities.
3) Funding for clean transportation initiatives in cap-and-trade legislation. Transportation accounts for approximately a third of all United States carbon emissions, yet this massive sector has been almost entirely omitted from consideration in the House ACES legislation. The Senate has the opportunity to fix that mistake as they take up their version of a landmark energy/climate bill. We ask that the Environment and Public Works committee adopt a “CLEAN TEA” provision (S. 575) that would allocate up to 10% of all carbon revenues to transportation projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
For more information, please contact Jeremy Koulish at 917-597-4397 or jeremy@carrotsandsticks.org.
What We've Done So Far
Despite the enormous potential of green transportation and infrastructure investment to help reduce our fossil fuel dependence, revitalize Main Streets across the nation and create American jobs, political calculations and institutional inertia have caused transportation priorities to suffer intractable delays and severe underfunding. Independently and with our ally Transportation for America, we've met with several offices in both congressional houses to push for clean transportation priorities. We've found many of the items in our agenda have been picking up momentum in both the House and Senate as the advantages of strategic investment become clearer, and we will continue to push along with our allies to get the nation's transportation policies back on the right "track".