Endless highway expansions are pulling our country into an environmental, budgetary, and public health crisis. An overwhelming proportion of state and federal infrastructure dollars continue to flow to transportation projects that damage both communities and the environment.
That’s why we're calling on elected leaders to adopt a moratorium on expanding highways and a pause on existing projects until climate, equity, and maintenance goals are met.
Instead, we’re telling elected leaders to prioritize investments in infrastructure that put communities and people first. Investments in areas like maintenance, safety, transit, and reconnecting communities.
Now, you too can join this coalition. Sign the petition and tell your elected leaders to end the destructive, unsustainable practice of highway building and set a responsible course toward a cleaner and more equitable future.
Endless highway expansions are pulling our country into an environmental, budgetary, and public health crisis. It’s time to end this destructive, unsustainable practice and set a responsible course toward a cleaner and more equitable future.
Our government leaders should prioritize investments in infrastructure that puts communities and people first by divesting from both current and proposed highway expansion projects.
We call on our government leaders to champion a moratorium on expanding highways and a pause on existing projects until our state’s climate, equity, and maintenance needs are met. Our highway system is unsustainable, both financially and environmentally, and disproportionately harms low-income and Black and brown communities. We need to remedy these problems with a responsible approach to transportation that centers on community.
Community-first infrastructure means increasing frequent, reliable, and accessible public transportation. It means investing in policies that build homes close to jobs and amenities. It means providing clean air and water and making neighborhoods healthier, quieter, and safer. It means fostering small businesses and creating places for people to gather.
Investment in community-first infrastructure impacts more than transportation; it is a solution to improve affordable housing, public health, and the climate crisis while creating hundreds of thousands of well-paying jobs.
While this moratorium is in effect, our government should redirect funding for highway projects toward community-centered transportation priorities, including:
• Fix It First: maintain existing roads and bridges before building new, larger ones.
• Safety Over Speed: retrofit dangerous roads and streets to make them safer for people walking, biking, and driving.
• Make Transit Work: provide capital and operations funding for reliable, affordable public transportation that connects people to jobs, services, amenities, health care, and each other.
• Reconnect Communities: dismantle targeted highways and invest in the communities around them to increase opportunity and redress the harms these projects have inflicted.
Infrastructure funding must urgently be redirected into community-oriented infrastructure investments. A highway moratorium is the solution for improving public health and addressing climate, racial, and economic justice for our country.