Earlier today, Shea Charles (City Manager - Howell) and I testified in support of HB 4967 (Kandreavas) which will allow cities to establish TIFA zones around transit stations.  It’s very similiar to HB 6114 from last year - which Get Michigan Moving worked on.

It was good to sit next to one of members and help educate a number of legislators on the importance of everyone supporting transportation and transit projects.  We reminded folks that all taxing jurisdictions (cities, counties, school districts, libraries, et al) all benefit from th economic development projects that are created by transit projects and we all must be ready to work together to find a way to fund these projects.

This bill is just part of the overall Transportation Funding Task Force (TF2) legislation (HB 4961 - 4967) and the rest of the bills should be moving soon.  We still need your help to convince the Legislature to ACT NOW on transportation/transit funding.  Visit the Get Michigan Moving Action Center to help us do that.

Yesterday, there was a press conference at the Capitol in which Dan Gilmartin (MML CEO & Executive Director) called upon the Legislature to ACT NOW!  It is time for the Legislature to ACT NOW to adequately fund Michigan’s transportation and transit systems.  It is time to ACT NOW to enact necessary reforms and efficiencies so that all road and transit agencies will work together in a cooperative way.  It is time to ACT NOW to reverse the declining funding for our roads, bridges, airports, and transit systems (to the tune of over $600 million over the last two years).

It was one of the most attended press conferences I’ve seen in my time working in the Capitol and it was great to see that we are getting support from a number of Legislators.  We need to thank State Representatives Pam Byrnes (D-Saline), Wayne Schmidt (R-Traverse City), Lee Gonzales (D-Flint), Matthew Lori (R-Constantine). Marie Donigan (D-Royal Oak), Dick Ball (R-Laingsburg), and Andrew Kandrevas (D-Southgate) for being sponsors of some of the bills in this package.

More bills are expected to be introduced next week and we’ll keep you posted on those.  In the meantime, please contact your Legislator and ask them to ACT NOW for transportation funding!

Previously I touched upon the need for Michigan to get the “moxie” in order to make the best of high speed rail funding coming out of the Obama Administration.

This article (http://www.postbulletin.com/newsmanager/templates/localnews_story.asp?z=2&a=398494), from the Rochester, MN Post-Bulletin makes me wonder “Why does Minnesota have it and we don’t?”

To quote a friend of mine, “I never thought I’d agree with Michael Dukakis, but when he’s right he’s right!”

This article from Citiwire.net talks about President Obama’s high speed rail proposal and what’s preventing us from doing this right now:

http://citiwire.net/post/935/