Environmental Defense Fund Lauds Gore Sprawl Initiative

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) today lauded Vice President Gore’s comprehensive Livability Agenda for its efforts aimed at halting sprawl. Key parts of the billion dollar initiative will provide communities with new funds to help preserve green space, ease traffic congestion, and pursue regional “smart growth” strategies, initiatives that EDF has been pushing for in communities around the country.

“For decades, federal policies fueled sprawl and traffic growth. This administration is giving communities vital resources targeted to reverse that tide,” said Michael Replogle, EDF Federal Transportation Director. “By leveraging billions for land conservation, urban parks, and cleaning up decayed industrial sites, Better America Bonds can help heal the ills caused by past policies, fostering a healthier environment and better communities with less traffic. The package is a winner.”

“Livable cities are an important part of the environment, particularly for communities of color and low income communities. People without cars and the working poor with limited access to cars need public transportation to reach jobs, homes, parks, food stores, doctors, loved ones, churches and temples, and other basic needs that many of us take for granted. To children in the inner city, parks are the environment. We need equitable, effective and environmentally sound national policies to promote livable cities,” said Robert Garcia, EDF senior attorney in Los Angeles and director of the environmental justice project there.

“Solving our transportation problems is a critically important goal of the Better America Bonds because it advances the health of the environment and improved quality of life,” said Meg Krehbiel, an EDF planner in Oakland California. “We’re 100% behind it.”

According to the Vice President’s plan, the proposed Department of Transportation budget for FY 2000 will include a record $6.1 billion for public transit and $2.2 billion — a total 16 percent increase over FY 1999 — to implement innovative community-based programs in the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century. Such programs provide flexible support to help communities create regional transportation strategies, improve existing roads and transit, and encourage broader use of alternative transportation. This includes $1.6 billion for the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program, which supports state and local projects that reduce congestion and improve air quality. To promote regional “smart growth” strategies and to complement the Administration’s other regional efforts, the Department of Housing and Urban Development will provide $50 million as matching funds for local partnerships to design and pursue smarter growth strategies across jurisdictional lines.