TRU has been very active on our Green Rides, Blue Skies campaign this summer! Here are a few recent updates:
Get Involved: Campaign Kickoff Sept 8
- Get involved helping enable people to drive less and stop the growing climate crisis with TRU’s Green Rides, Blue Skies campaign!
You can play a critical role in mobilizing supporters from across Michigan to speak out for transit. Join our campaign kickoff meeting on Wednesday September 8 at 6pm to help develop plans to boost this important issue and mobilize hundreds of people to take action to support it.
Media Attention: Free Press Op-Ed
- The Detroit Free Press recently published an op-ed authored by TRU Director Megan Owens linking recent devastating storms with the need for concrete action on climate change – including this campaign:
“When will these big storms stop?”
That’s what my 11-year-old wanted to know, as we dumped from the fridge food spoiled after three days without electricity. . . .
Here in Michigan, Governor Whitmer directed state agencies back in February of 2019 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26% by 2025 and appointed a Council on Climate Solutions to plan how Michigan will become carbon neutral by 2050. Yet the Michigan Department of Transportation is proposing a transportation plan through 2045 that largely ignores the climate crisis and the role of transportation as the single biggest source of climate pollution! Since we cannot slow down climate change without addressing how we move, Whitmer, MDOT, and the climate council need to stop with business-as-usual and instead make bold investments in making it easier for more Michiganders to walk, bike, and ride high-quality public transit.
Policy Analysis: Critique of MM2045
- TRU lead efforts to make the Michigan Department of Transportation fix their draft long-range transportation plan. Called Michigan Mobility 2045, it largely ignores the climate crisis and fails to provide concrete measurable action that would improve public transit.
- TRU lead 30 groups from across Michigan in calling on the Governor to make transit a centerpiece of the MI Healthy Climate Plan and to fix Michigan Mobility 2045.
- TRU also submitted 12-pages of detailed comments to MDOT explaining the strengths, weaknesses, and areas that need improved in their 160 page long-range transportation plan.
Policy Development: Drafting Transit Section of Climate Recommendations
- TRU’s hard work has been paying off. TRU Director Megan Owens worked throughout the summer to develop effective, well-reasoned recommendations for how improved public transit can decrease driving, thus cut climate pollution. The Transportation and Mobility Workgroup of the Council on Climate Solutions has been sufficiently impressed by this work to utilize it as the basis for the recommendations the Workgroup will put forward to the full Council. In close partnership with the Michigan Environmental Council, the Ecology Center, and Detroit Greenways Coalition, along with feedback from many others, these recommendations have been updated and modified throughout the summer.
- TRU’s initial recommendations from May
- Recommendations V.3 from July with numerous comments from the Workgroup
- Combined Recommendations v.4 from August
- Narrowed Transit Recommendations from September, with details requested by the Council
Group editing is never a pretty process, but its exciting to be part of creating critical policies to shape a more sustainable and equitable future for Michigan! The Transportation and Mobility Workgroup will finalize recommendations for the full Council in late September. Stay tuned!