Monday, February 02, 2009

How does our State want to Spend it's Stimulus Money?

According to a Friends of The Earth report (they advocate spending it on transit first, and of what is spent on roads, emphasizing repairs over new construction), we're not the best (Massachusetts) but not the stupidest (Florida--who'd a thunk!) either:

CALIFORNIA

The California DOTs request, while not as ideal as Massachusetts, shows that Californias government is thinking about investing smartly. Californias DOT wants 60 percent of stimulus transportation funding to go to roads, and only around 37 percent for public transportation. However, Californias roads and bridges are in great need of repair, and it is encouraging that Californias DOT request allocated nearly 70 percent of the funding for roads towards repair. Already, 13 percent of Californias bridges are considered to be structurally deficient and 18 percent of the states roads are in poor condition; these figures are among the highest of the 19 states analyzed. Californias transportation sector causes the largest percentage of global warming pollution out of all states, with 58 percent of global warming pollution in the state resulting from transportation. To combat this, further investment in public transportation should be considered, even though 10 percent of Californians already use alternative transportation modes in their daily commutes.

Now would be a good time, of course, to make noise and get these ratios improved (or at least, apply enough pressure to keep that 37% from mysteriously shrinking).

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