Time for those pesky New Year's resolutions.
Sure, things like quitting smoking or drinking, starting to work out, or giving up TV reality shows are easy. You do them every year (at least until February 1).
Or -- even as you continue to use Rhode Island streets and highways -- you promise you won't succumb to walking, biking, or driving road rage in 2011? Oh, pul-eeze.
But the Coalition for Transportation Choices has some resolutions a lot easier to stick to in 2011, and the benefits are much more than a few pounds shed or providing you with pride and dignity for repressing obscene gestures. Here are five important things you can do in the upcoming year that will make life easier and doing business better for all Rhode Islanders:
1) Resolve to help find an alternative to relying on the gas tax to fund the state's transit system. The gas tax is insufficient for bringing in the funding that is needed, and worst of all, it works backwards. Park the car and take more mass transit (a good thing!), and the income stream from the gas tax for individual vehicles decreases (a bad thing). There has got to be a better way, and you can help CTC promote alternatives such as the Transportation Trust Fund.
2) Hoof it whenever possible. Walking is as good to you as it is for you. It is a health benefit, and also gives you a chance to slowly take in your surroundings in the community. Walking also ties directly into the RI Safe Routes to School program, and which plays into the national Complete Streets initiative, which encourages planning that unites and connects communities socially, economically and safely. Step forward, citizens.
3) Resolve to take advantage of what is offered you for your commute. The 2008 State Employee Commuter Reduction Act created a task force to develop, publicize and implement a plan to provide incentives for state employees to reduce vehicle miles traveled, including the option to opt out of free parking in lieu of a public transit pass. Ask your employer to provide the EcoPass incentive for employees (including state employees) to utilize public transit, not commute alone.
4) Resolve to see and be seen biking and walking. CTC is encouraging the RI Department of Transportation to more aggressively implement existing public laws that support alternatives to the personal automobile, which direct the agency to provide accommodations to bike and pedestrian traffic when planning and constructing state projects. But seeing is believing, and if our sidewalks and bike paths and lanes are being utilized, it will drive that point home visually as planning for the future evolves. (Although piping up at town hall or the State House wouldn't hurt, either.)
5) Support the Coalition for Transportation Choices. The 45 member organizations of the Coalition have been and are working hard to improve Rhode Island's transit and transportation systems. And we will continue to do so. Our regular E-News blasts will keep you up to date on the best way to help advocate transportation improvements to your local, state and national officials. We hope you will find some time and energy to help us out.
Happy New Year from everyone involved in the Coalition for Transportation Choices. Rhode Islanders have a chance to make a big difference in 2011, and if everyone can stick to any or all of the resolutions above, the state will be a better place for it. We look forward to hearing your voices. |
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About the Coalition for Transportation Choices
The Coalition for Transportation Choices (CTC) calls for a 21st century transportation system that enhances our economy and provides all Rhode Islanders with healthy transportation choices.
Rhode Island's 21st century transportation system must provide all people - employees, tourists, youth, elderly, able and disabled - with safe and dependable access to their community's opportunities for work, education, services, and recreation. The system should be considerably less dependent on cars and fossil fuels as well as efficient, effective and easy to use. It should minimize impacts to land, water and air and improve the health and well-being of all Rhode Islanders. Such a system should be sustained with predictable and consistent funding for operation and future growth.
CTC's work is supported
by the Rhode Island Foundation, The Prospect Hill Foundation and Third
Sector New England's Capacity Building Fund
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Coalition for Transportation Choices
Member Groups
* AARP
* Amalgamated Transit Union
* American Lung Association in RI
* Apeiron Institute for Sustainable Living
* Aquidneck Island Planning Commission
* Audubon Society of Rhode Island
* Blueways Alliance
* Blackstone Valley Partnership
* Blackstone Valley Tourism Council
* Blueways Alliance
* Brown emPower
* Childhood Lead Action Project
* City-State, the Urban Design Lab at RISD
* Clean Water Action
* Conservation Law Foundation
* Cornish Associates
* DOT Watch
* East Coast Greenway Alliance
* Ecolect
* Environmental Justice League of RI
* Farm Fresh Rhode Island
* Goodwill Industries
* Grow Smart RI
* Head of the Bay Gateway
* LISC-RI
* Narragansett Bay Estuary Program
* Opportunities Unlimited, Inc.
* Pawtucket Foundation
* Providence Foundation
* Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau
* Recycle-A-Bike
* Rhode Island Bicycle Coalition
* RI Consulting Engineers (RICE)
* Rhode Island Student Climate Coalition
* RI Association of Railroad Passengers
* RI Interfaith Power and Light
* RI Land Trust Council
* RICOSH
* Save The Bay
* SEIU, District 1199
* Sierra Club
* The Providential Gardener
* U.S. Open Cycling
* Working Rhode Island
* Youth in Action
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