Tomorrow, Michigan proponents for rail, like myself, are being encouraged to pick up their phones and call Michigan Senate Majority Leader Michael Bishop, urging him to call a vote on the $35 million in matching funds necessary if we’re to claim the $161 million federal rail grant we recently became eligible for. Here, with the details, is a note from the folks at Transportation Riders United:
CALL-IN DAY FOR MICHIGAN RAIL!
Tomorrow 9:00 AM
A train from Chicago to Detroit in less than four hours? It could be coming, if the Michigan Senate votes for HB 6484! Help make sure it happens – call Senator Bishop on Tuesday, November 30. Details: Michigan will get at least $161 million from the feds to buy and fix the Detroit-Ann Arbor-Kalamazoo railroad track, if the state provides the required $35 million match. HB 6484 provides that match by allowing state bonds to be used for rail improvement. The House passed it, the Governor supports it. Now the Michigan Senate must pass it – this week! Can we get 500 people to call Senator Bishop on Tuesday, November 30, to make sure it is a top lame-duck priority?
If you want to sign up to make a call, you can do so on Facebook. You can also share the link with friends, asking them to do the same, as I have here.
And, remember, if this is going to happen, it has to happen now, as the Michigan Senate leaves for the year on December 2nd.
Oh, and don’t just call Bishop’s office. Call your Michigan Senator as well, asking him or her to press Bishop to bring the legislation to the floor for a vote. You can find your Senator’s contact information here.
I should also mention that, before sharing this campaign with you, I first ran it by my friend Richard Murphy, who studies transportation-related issues for the Michigan Suburbs Alliance. I wanted to make sure that encouraging calls to Bishop’s office tomorrow was in fact the best way to see this legislation pushed forward. Here, with is permission, is his response, which includes a great deal of useful background.
Michigan has been awarded $161m in Federal high-speed rail funding for the Chicago-Detroit corridor, IF AND ONLY IF we can come up with the matching funds for it. (About $35m.) The State House has passed HB 6484, which would provide for the match out of existing bonding capacity in the State Building Authority. The bill received statewide, bipartisan support in the House – Republican Wayne Schmidt of Traverse City was the lead sponsor.
The Michigan Senate only has 3 more days in session this year – Tuesday through Thursday of this week. If they don’t pass HB 6484 in that time, it gets harder for Michigan to tap this funding. Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop needs to be convinced to at least let the bill come onto the Senate floor for a vote, if not actually support it himself. Please call or e-mail him, as well as your own Senator (Sen. Liz Brater, for Ypsilantians), and pass the word along to friends and family across the State.
While the money is specific to the Chicago-Detroit high speed rail project, much of the work covered with this funding would also advance the Ann Arbor – Detroit commuter rail project, which would have a stop in Ypsi, meaning that making the match is especially important to Ypsilanti.
If you want to know more, check out some of the following sources:
* PIRG’s “Connecting the Midwest” explains how the midwest high-speed rail network will both support economic development (construction and job creation) all along the line, as well as saving money overall by preventing the need for costly highway and airport expansions.
* TEN’s “More Transit, More Jobs” talks about the job creation potential of transit projects (20% more jobs per dollar spent than highway construction).
* A recent survey by the Suburbs Alliance’s Millennial Mayors Congress found that poor access to transit was the #1 issue (even ahead of job availability) for young professionals in southeast Michigan, and therefore an important piece of combatting “brain drain”.
So, make those calls on Tuesday morning, OK?