The Michigan Transportation & Land Use Coalition, representing 35 groups and their 250,000 members, has worked since 1999 to reform transportation policy and turn world-class public transportation into a statewide reality.

The Coalition supports:

• Fully funding transit. Increase the state funding of public transportation to its constitutional limit, thereby boosting that budget by $30-$50 million annually.
• Fix it first. The state transportation department spends 25 percent of its road budget on new and wider roads. The Coalition instead recommends a fix-it-first road repair policy.
• New diesel tax. By simplifying the diesel fuel tax and raising it to the same level as the state gasoline tax, the Legislature could boost Lansing¹s funding of public transportation by $9 million annually.
• Paratransit. Enforce state law that requires the transportation department to ensure that paratransit service for the elderly and people with disabilities is available statewide.
• Rail line preservation. Repeal 1998 legislation that allows the state to divest itself of 1,100 miles of publicly owned rail rights of way. This will eliminate the extremely difficult task of reassembling them later for "new" transit corridors.

What Leaders Are Saying About Public Transportation >>