San Francisco Bike Blog

Bay Area members of the Transportation for America Coalition (T4) yesterday launched a major legislation campaign that will focus on creating a modern rail and transit system for America (previous coverage). The event took place at the Caltrain Station in downtown San Francisco, on a typically-sunny California morning. San Francisco was one of six cities nationally to host a kick-off event.

Participants and attendees at the media event included representatives from the offices of Nancy Pelosi and Mark Leno, the Greenbelt Alliance, CALPIRG, Apollo Alliance, PolicyLink, and the SFBC.

The Coalition’s five-point plan of attack is called ‘Build for America (PDF)’:

1.	BUILD TO COMPETE
	We must catch and pass competitors in China and Europe, by modernizing and expanding our rail and transit networks to reduce oil dependence and connecting the metro regions that are the engines of the modern economy.
2.	INVEST FOR A CLEAN, GREEN RECOVERY
	Our nation’s clean-energy future will require cleaner vehicles and new fuels, but it also must include support for the cleanest forms of transportation, modern public transit, walking and biking, and for energy-efficient, sustainable development.
3.	FIX WHAT’S BROKEN
	Before building new roads, that will themselves have to be maintained, we must restore our crumbling highways, bridges and transit systems.
4.	STOP WASTEFUL SPENDING
	Re-evaluate projects currently in the pipeline to eliminate those with little economic return, that could deepen, rather than relieve, our oil dependence.
5.	SAVE AMERICANS MONEY
	Provide more travel and housing options that are affordable and efficient, while helping people to avoid high gas costs and traffic congestion. Save taxpayer dollars by asking the private developers who reap real estate rewards from new rail stations and transit lines to contribute toward that service.

T4 reprints an article from Roll Call (wiki) - the Washington, DC newspaper on politics - that does a very good job of setting the stage for the type of fight we’re in for:

It comes around every half-dozen or so years, but this time, when the gargantuan transportation bill is written, “smart growth” advocates are determined to play a prominent role — muscling aside the bill’s traditional highway heavy hitters.

…

Still, moving an entire Congress into the 21st century is a daunting legislative challenge. The 1998 Transportation Equity Act and the 2005 Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, which weighed in at $286 billion, have inviolate old-line constituencies that reach back into the years when building the nation’s interstate highways was the federal government’s most important land transportation priority.

These include the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials as well as the American Road and Transportation Builders Association — interest groups that urban planner and author Jeff Speck said “have a stranglehold on Congress that’s as strong the [National Rifle Association] and probably more dangerous.”

Fortunately, it seems T4 has taken about the only approach that could conceivably make an impact - a very inclusive one that should help to mobilize the mass support we’ll need:

T4 is consciously broad-based, because, they argue, it’s in everyone’s interest to promote the types of transportation policies that encourage people to live in denser communities that have a lower carbon footprint.

“The transportation bill has historically been fought within the confines of the Beltway and inside Congress,” [veteran strategist of M+R Strategic Services, Donald Ross] said. “But there has been the growth of organizations all over the country now concerned with transportation issues, directly or indirectly, there’s a much broader universe of people who will have concerns.

“People in the public health movement are worried about obesity because people aren’t walking,” Ross said. Real estate barons “who heretofore have not cared a tinker about transportation now do because they can do an infill building that can be very valuable,” Ross added, referring to the practice of building mixed-use structures in inner-city vacant lots.

For those of us who tend to participate in bicycle advocacy from a social justice standpoint, this ‘broad-based’ approach is very exciting news. This is a real opportunity for us advocates to make our case in concrete terms to a whole host of organizations and constituencies that might otherwise not have been quite so receptive to our message. It’s not that any organization couldn’t be made to understand our point of view, but they’re busy non-profits - just scraping by - raising funds so they can live to fight another day - things like that. Now, we can approach them with other members of our coalition and speak to them on their terms, using language and paradigms that make sense to them, and help answer that all-important question, “How can the Build for America campaign help our organization and constituents?”

This T4 advocacy effort is ostensibly about reforming funding initiatives at the federal level, but the nice aspect of any effort we make locally in this regard is that many more folks can be brought into the ‘Livable Streets’ fold. We’re aiming to build a mass popular movement where everyone can be helped to understand the importance of livable streets and smart growth initiatives.

Chatter amongst many of us participants included the Build for America plan (of course), the upcoming RailVolution conference, and the California High Speed Rail initiative.

[Editor's note: Apologies to everyone -- I accidentally destroyed all of our video footage from the press conference - technical snafu, not an 'accidental delete' if that makes a difference.  :)]

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