World Class Transportation for America!

Fund Public Transit &
Fix Old Roads/Bridges in 2010!
(Determine how 6-Years Worth of TAXPAYER MONEY will be spent by Congress in the upcoming 
"Transportation Funding Bill"!)

We need a NEW federal transportation policy that does the following:

1.) Prioritizes and encourages investment for:
(a) Efficient & Cost-Effective PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION in order to expand clean, efficient transportation choices for Americans.
(b) DYNAMIC and ACCESSIBLE Communities , where more Americans can walk, bike or take transit to get where they need to go.
(*SEE Evidence BELOW*)

2.) FIXES our CRUMBLING ROADS and Bridges: by investing more federal highway money in maintenance, not massive new highway projects. It’s time for the federal government to embrace an approach to highway spending that prioritizes maintaining and modernizing our existing highways over building more.

3.) SPENDS WISELY with appropriate OVERSIGHT of Taxpayers' Money: Accountability, Oversight & Long Term Planning & Evaluation are key for taxpayer-funded projects. For decades, the federal government has spent billions of dollars on highway projects with little evaluation and no accountability. That must change. Federal transportation money should be spent only on projects that produce real results over the long haul – for example, by reducing our dependence on oil, curbing global warming pollution, alleviating congestion, improving safety, and supporting healthy, sustainable communities.

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Why Fund Public Transit??
> Light Rails (cable cars) will soon have the CAPACITY of a 6-LANE FREEWAY in Phoenix, AZ (just started in 2008)!!
(http://www.valleymetro.org/commuting_options/light_rail/)
> Light Rails (cable cars) were UNDER-BUDGET to build ( $30 MILLION saved) and AHEAD of SCHEDULE in Salt Lake City, Utah!! (http://governor.utah.gov/dea/ERG/ERG2002/Trans.PDF)
> PROPERTY VALUES increased by 89% in low-income suburbs of Charlotte, NC and by 50% in just two years time AROUND cable car STATIONS in Dallas, TX !! ( http://reconnectingamerica.org/public/stories/396 )(Passenger Transport, 06 June 2005)
> RIDERSHIP SOARED: 40%-50% higher than predicted in Utah !! Similar figures in Arkansas, Texas, Arizona and North Carolina !!
(http://www.apta.com/research/stats/ridership/riderep/documents/07q4lr.pdf)
> Over $550 MILLION Generated by in-state and out-of-state development in Charlotte, NC !! $4.26 BILLION in Dallas, TX !! (Passenger Transport, 06 June 2005)(http://www.dart.org/about/WeinsteinClowerTODNov07.pdf)


Therefore, PUBLIC TRANSIT is an AFFORDABLE and EFFICIENT way to BOOST our ECONOMY by creating NEW JOBS and spurring NEW INDUSTRIAL development right here in the US of A!

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*** SPREAD this petition WIDELY ***: We will be presenting YOUR signatures to: the Tax Oversight Committee (TOC) for Measure M; OCTA (OC Transportation Authority); the City of Irvine & others. All signatures from citizens and elected officials from across California will then be presented to our Senators (Boxer and Feinstein), in time for the upcoming Transportation Funding Bill of 2010 !! 

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Complied by : CALPIRG Public Transit Campaign at the University of California, Irvine (UCI).
Contact : Aysha Rüya Cohen, Coordinator of the CALPIRG Public Transit Campaign; Email: arcohen@uci.edu. Thank you!
 
Acknowledgements : Many thanks to:
> Dr. Boarnet ( Journal of Regional Science, Editor)
> Sarah Catz (Director, Center for Urban Infrastructure)
> Dr. Clitheroe (Architecture Foundation of Orange County, Board Member)
> Erin Steva (CALPIRG, Transportation Associate)
> Sadegh Iranmanesh, Allen Lu, Seth Weiss, Felix Williams, Christine DuBois and others for all your hard work on this campaign!

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