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Louisiana 4-Corners Coalition for Transportation Planning Reform

Advocacy Issues…

Accept, recognize, and account for the harm to local communities (social, environmental, and economic) caused by current urban transportation policies and practices planning system

  • Induced demand, viewed by the current planning system as rationale for adding new road capacity… produces negative outcomes for every aspect of city operations.
  • The current system ignores negative externalities, incorrectly using untested flawed assumptions to justify urban freeways. Decision-makers are duped with misinformation.
  • The current planning system is about funding the highway industrial complex at the expense of the well-being of local citizens living in urban neighborhoods and cities.

Stop expanding capacity

  • Induced demand is considered the “Fundamental Law” for creating congestion.
  • All new added capacity expands the maintenance deficit, currently at $15 billion for federal and state roads (this does not count the poor condition of local streets). Eliminate the $15 billion list of unfunded capacity expanding projects…

Prioritize maintenance

  • Prioritize maintenance funding to reduce backlog (no capacity expansion)
  • Subsidize local street maintenance due to growth patterns induced by urban freeways (federal & state funding incentivized infrastructure growth cities cannot afford to maintain

Update / Reform assumptions, standards and funding incentives used to justify and design urban roads / highways and local streets… Citizens and decision-makers deserve comprehensive factual information…

  • Separate local from through traffic…Update traffic modeling (static to dynamic)…
  • Develop truthful transportation impact measures on cities and neighborhoods, not propaganda

Redesign public engagement processes… Prioritize citizen and community values over engineering values (comprehensively design for alternative modes of transportation as system priorities)

Stop the Threat… Reinvest neighborhoods that have unjustly declined due to the long-term threats (10 to 40+ years) imposed by planning to build an urban freeway (Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Shreveport)…

Undo the Harm… Tear down inner-city cut-through freeways and replace with business boulevards and neighborhood healing investment that grow local citizen capacities (Nola, Shreveport, and Monroe)

Policy & Practices Reform Trajectory…
  • Designing and Investing in a shift from unsustainable declining cities of driving more to vibrant well-being cities of driving less…
  • Reforming the role of urban transportation policies and practices to support place-making for local wealth creation
  • Reforming the role of transportation in the growth of cities and the relationship of cities to their surrounding regions (environmentally and economically).
  • Transit strategies to reduce auto dependence, reduce infrastructure maintenance deficits, improve community resilience, and increase equity within cities of Louisiana

Our Communications and Advocacy Work

FIX OUR PRIORITIES

Feb. 07, 2024

Several Allendale Strong members were able to share remarks with the road show (Louisiana Legislature’s Joint Highway Priority Construction Committee to Northwest Louisiana) this morning. Check out what Bill Robertson shared below, and submit your own input. We now have 45 days to mail in written comments to the following: JOINT TRANSPORTATION, HIGHWAYS AND PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE C/O LA DOTD
LETTER: Louisiana’s future demands 21st century approach to transportation

Jan. 24, 2024

This letter first appeared on thecurrentla.com, January 24, 2024. Click here to view original. Dear Governor Landry, On behalf of the Louisiana 4 Corners Coalition for Transportation Planning Reform, we would like to wish you a Happy New Year. It was great to hear you say that you value different opinions, respect different ideologies and invite new ideas during your inaugural
Dorothy Wiley to participate in the Vision Zero Cities 2023 Conference

Oct. 17, 2023

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER Vision Zero Cities brings together leading industry and policy experts, advocates, and elected officials from across the nation. Transportation Alternatives is excited to host the 10th Annual Vision Zero Cities conference from October 18 – 20, 2023 at New York University in partnership with the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at NYU Wagner. Kicking off this
Sample Letter for Comments

Oct. 16, 2023

Want to write in to NLCOG but aren’t sure what to say? We’ve got you covered. Here’s a sample letter that will work great to copy and paste… Right now we have three ways to communicate this: 1. COMMENT BY EMAIL: info@i49shreveport.com 2. COMMENT BY WRITTEN LETTER:  I-49 ICC Public Comment c/o NLCOG 625 Texas St. Suite 200 Shreveport, LA 71101
Allendale Strong continues to call for responsible transportation planning 11 years in a row

Sep. 25, 2023

Public Input Meeting Announcement and Position Statement Since February of 2012, Allendale Strong members have been working together to renew our community Relationally, Economically, and Environmentally. That includes politely and consistently advocating for separating through traffic from local business traffic. In the decade since the 3.5 mile I-49 Inner City Connector (ICC) “zombie” project has been revived by the Committee