Transportation Reform Quotes

Reducing the budget for Amtrak makes no sense unless the Administration is prepared to implement a reform strategy which can be supported by the budget request.

It is true that we need a consensus to go forward with restoring passenger rail in America, and often a consensus is formed by political action, via government. That is all true. But we have no such consensus, and no one in government or politics these days has the will or the force of personality or perhaps even the understanding of the situation to get on with job of forming a consensus supporting rail.

America is ready for livable communities. America is ready for high-speed rail.

Forget the damned motor car and build the cities for lovers and friends.

We write with the souls of thousands of lives saved, the lives of millions of jobs created, liberating multitudes of drivers from the shackles of servitude to iniquitous taxi cartels of corrupt cabals that choked cities with their pollution of air and morals.

I see a future where getting to work or to school or to the store does not have to cause pollution.

I'd be quite happy if cars were banned from central London. Why are we not using little tuk-tuks rather than big black cabs?

By rebuilding transportation so that you're not owning this thing that just sits there all the time, you get to rebuild cities in the process. If we do this right as a country, we have a chance to re-create our cities with the people, rather than cars, at the center. Our cities today have been built for the car. They've been built for car ownership. Imagine walking around in the city where you don't see any parking lots and you don't need that many roads.

We must start... rebuilding our cities around energy efficiency and human needs, rather than around the car and wasted energy.

...it ought to be possible to establish a coordinated global program to accomplish the strategic goal of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, a twenty-five-year period.

What America really needs is a long-term bill that makes significant investments in our transportation infrastructure and reforms the highway trust fund to ensure it remains solvent for years to come. This will require bold ideas and a bipartisan effort.

In 1975, Congress passed a law requiring fuel efficiency standards to double over 10 years, with incremental targets that auto manufacturers were required to meet. That was the responsible approach, and it worked. But since 1985, we've done nothing - even as technology has moved at light speed.