Sacramento Transit Advocates and Riders has signed onto a letter to legislators and electeds, calling for Communities Over Highways Call for Action. Civic Thread, SABA, and Planning and Conservation League also signed on. The statement is available as a pdf, and you can be amazed along with us at the number of organizations that signed on, a total of 196!

Action Alert Link: https://bit.ly/4bqrBUa

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Communities Over Highways Call for Action

Endless highway expansions are pulling our country into an environmental, budgetary, and public health crisis. It’s time to end this destructive, unsustainable practice and set a responsible course toward a cleaner and more equitable future.

We, the undersigned 195 organizations, call on our elected leaders to prioritize investments in infrastructure that puts communities and people first by divesting from both current and proposed highway expansion projects across the country.

We call on our leaders in government to adopt a moratorium on expanding highways and a pause on existing projects until climate, equity, and maintenance goals are met. The highway system we have built in our country is unsustainable, both financially and environmentally, and disproportionately harms low-income and Black and brown communities. We need to remedy these problems with a responsible approach to transportation that centers on community.

Community-first infrastructure means increasing frequent, reliable, and accessible public transportation. It means investing in policies that build homes close to jobs and amenities. It means providing clean air and water and making neighborhoods healthier, quieter, and safer. It means fostering small businesses and creating places for people to gather.

Investment in community-first infrastructure impacts more than transportation; it is a solution to improve affordable housing, public health, and the climate crisis while creating hundreds of thousands of well-paying jobs.

While this moratorium is in effect, we call on our leaders in government to redirect funding for highway projects toward community-centered transportation priorities, including:

1. Fix It First: maintain existing roads and bridges before building new, larger ones.
2. Safety Over Speed: retrofit dangerous roads and streets to make them safer for people walking, biking, and driving.
3. Make Transit Work: provide capital and operations funding for reliable, affordable public transportation that connects people to jobs, services, amenities, health care, and each other.
4. Reconnect Communities: dismantle targeted highways and invest in the communities around them to increase opportunity and redress the harms these projects have inflicted.

Federal infrastructure funding must urgently be redirected into community-oriented infrastructure investments. A highway moratorium is the solution for improving public health and addressing climate, racial, and economic justice for our country.

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• STAR