Charlotte Mayor McCrory Urges Increased Metropolitan Transit Investment In TEA-3
By Ron Thaniel
October 21, 2002
Charlotte Mayor Patrick McCrory, Chair of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Environment Committee, testified before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs on October 8 urging increase public transportation investment in the reauthorization of TEA-21. Speaking to the Senate Committee Chaired by Senator Paul S. Sarbanes (MD), Mayor McCrory testified about the need to increase transit funding to metropolitan areas, including Charlotte, to help ensure the metropolitan economies in this country function as engines of economic growth.
Noting that Charlotte was the second fastest growing city in the country during the 1990's, Mayor McCrory stated that "Investing in public transportation helps our cities and towns meet the mobility needs of all our citizens. This in turn helps us to improve the quality of life and sustain economic growth and development in our communities."
Connecting transportation to development, Mayor McCrory reported that Charlotte is not seeking to build the public transit system as an end to itself. He said that the city's efforts to develop this system is to support a fundamental change in how our community will grow in the years ahead and to provide our citizens with a real choice in how to get around."
The mayor further noted that by doing this, Charlotte will:
Cut down on the rate of growth in vehicle miles traveled which will help us deal with our air quality problems and reduce our local dependency on fossil fuels and imported oil;
Provide all our citizens with access to jobs, educational opportunity and the other things one needs to lead a quality; and
Allow our community to sustain its growth and economic development by protecting our tax base and the investments we-ve made in schools, public facilities, utilities and other urban infrastructure."
Highlighting the U.S. Conference of Mayors TEA-21 reauthorization position statement, Mayor McCrory testified that metropolitan economies function as engines of growth, job and income creation, and new industry for the region and nation and in the reauthorization of the law to preserve and grow the transit program from $7.5 billion to $14 billion and the highway program from $34 billion to $41 billion over the 6 years of the next reauthorization.
Joining Mayor McCrory was Federal Transit Administrator Jennifer Dorn, David Winstead of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Eric Rodriguez, Director of Economic Mobility Initiative, National Council of La Raza.
For more information on the U.S. Conference of Mayors TEA-21 reauthorization legislative agenda go to the Conference of Mayors homepage at http://www.usmayors.org.
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