Last week, President Obama was in Fort Myers, Florida, a city that is largely devoid of transportation options and has been extremely hard hit by the recent economic downturn. At a town hall meeting there, President Obama offered a clear mandate: we need to rethink our land use planning and transportation systems to provide innovative and energy-efficient choices for how we get around.

You can watch the President's speech (the question of note starts about 55:15) or you can see the transcript below.

Question: "...How will we get our state going again on transportation?..."
 
President Obama's response: "Well the eh...we have target billions of dollar at infrastructure spending. And states all across the country are going through what Florida is going through.  There was a study done by.. eh.. the American Association of Engineers... that might not be the exact title, but engineers from all across the country .... we get a D in infrastructure all across the country.  We saw what happened in Minneapolis, where a bridge collapsed and resulted in tragedy. And not only do we need to rebuild our roads, bridges, ports, levees... our damns. But we also have to plan for the future. This the same example of turning crisis into opportunity. This should be a wake-up call for us."
 
"You go to Shanghai, China right now... and they've got high-speed rail that puts our railroads to shame. They've got ports that are state of the art. Their airports, are... compared to the airports that we...you go through Beijing airport and you compare that to Miami Airport?"
 
"Now... now...look the.. uh.. this is America. We always had the best infrastructure. We were always willing to invest in the future.  Y' know somebody... Governor Christ mentioned Abraham Lincoln. In the middle of the Civil War, in the midst of all this danger and peril, what did he do? He helped move the Intercontinental Railroad. He helped to start land grant colleges. He understood that even when you are in the middle of crisis, you got to keep your eye on the future.  So transportation, when it is not just fixing our old transportation systems, but it's also imagining new transportation systems.  That's why I'd like to see high speed rail where it can be constructed. I would like for us to... to invest in mass transit, because potentially that's energy efficient. And I think people a lot more people are open now to thinking regionally in terms of how we plan our transportation infrastructure.  The days where we're just building sprawl forever... those days are over.  I think that Republicans, Democrats... everybody recognizes that that's not a smart way to design communities. So we should be using this money to help spur this kind of innovative thinking when it comes to transportation. That'll make a big difference. Alright?"

Days after this speech, Congress worked out an agreement on the stimulus package that greatly increases the investment in high-speed rail! Click here to see what the stimulus means for transportation in Minnesota.

Closer to home, the Minnesota legislature is moving on a bill - Building Sensible Communities - that would provide people with more options in where they live and how they get around by beginning to connect land-use and transportation planning with global warming pollution. You can see how this bill is progressing  and help ensure that it passes by following it on our website.