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DOT 85-07
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Contact: Sarah Echols
Tel.: (202) 366-4570
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Names Five Communities to Receive Funding to
Help Fight Traffic Congestion
Miami, Minneapolis Area, New York City, San Francisco and Seattle Area
Selected
U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters today announced she has selected
five metropolitan areas across the country as the first communities to
participate in a new federal initiative to fight traffic gridlock.
Today’s announcement follows an eight-month nationwide competition to select a
handful of communities from among the 26 who applied to join the Department’s
Urban Partnership program, aimed to reduce traffic congestion using approaches
like congestion pricing, transit, tolling, and teleworking.
The Secretary said the communities, as winners of the competition, will receive
the following funding amounts to implement their traffic fighting plans: Miami,
$62.9 million; the Minneapolis area, $133.3 million; New York City, $354.5
million; San Francisco, $158.7 million; and the Seattle area (King County),
$138.7 million;
The Secretary said each of the Urban Partners has developed a total
transportation solution. “These communities have committed to fighting
congestion now. Our commitment was to allocate the federal contribution in a
lump sum, not in bits and pieces over several years – an approach meant to get
these projects off the drawing board and into action,” she said.
Secretary Peters said every Urban Partner proposed some form of congestion
pricing. These direct user fees have the advantage of both reducing the enormous
costs of congestion, and also of raising funds more effectively than the gas tax
does to help states and cities build and maintain critical transportation
infrastructure, she said.
“Many politicians treat tolls and congestion pricing as taboo, but leaders in
these communities understand that commuters want solutions that work,” Secretary
Peters said.
Additionally, improved and expanded bus and ferry service will make it easier
for commuters in Urban Partnership communities to leave their cars at home, the
Secretary said. The plans also take advantage of new technologies to keep
traffic moving, and flexible work schedules and telecommuting to ease
traditional rush hours, she said.
The Urban Partnership Program is part of the Bush Administration’s comprehensive
initiative launched in May 2006 to confront and address congestion throughout
the nation’s transportation system.
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