The upcoming reauthorization of the federal transportation bill offers an opportunity to win a more environmentally sound, financially sound, and socially just national transportation policy.  However, even if drastic changes are won in the federal bill, transportation spending decisions will almost certainly remain in the hands of governors, state legislators, and state and local transportation agencies.  States will remain the linchpin for any lasting reform.

In order to better inform and strengthen existing and future advocacy efforts, TSTC recently released a new report that highlights common challenges and key solutions to advancing transportation policy change at the state level.  State Transportation Reform: How Advocates Are Winning is a culmination of interviews with over 20 of the country’s leading transportation advocates, and features six case studies showing how state advocates have successfully tackled common roadblocks to transportation reform:

• Tracking how state DOTs spend federal transportation dollars in New Jersey and Connecticut (Tri-State Transportation Campaign).
• Passing state legislation that requires transportation spending criteria in South Carolina (Southern Environmental Law Center).
• Holding elected state leaders accountable for transportation in Virginia (Coalition for a Smarter Growth).
• Raising transit funding at the ballot box in Washington (Transportation Choices Coalition)
• Convincing state officials to dedicate money  for transit in Minnesota (Transit for Livable Communities).
• Creating new sources of transit revenue in California’s Bay Area (TransForm).

The states in which transportation reforms are taking place tend to have robust, well-organized advocates on the ground, pushing for more transit, safer roadways and smarter development patterns.  Without this type of sustained pressure originating from outside of transportation agencies — without advocates who provide public scrutiny and demand accountability — decisions about the flow of billions of dollars will likely be buried in technical documents or glossed over in short political sound bites.  We hope this report will help empower advocates across the nation, so that the success stories in this report are just the tip of the advocacy iceberg to come.