If your in GA! Important transportation bill

I just got a call today from someone at the Sierra Club. We have an important bill coming to the house on Thursday on Transportation funding. We need people to make this call. Don't like sitting in traffic, don't like gas going up and up and up? Make the call today. Ask your Rep. to support the bill.
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For the first time in GA, the proposed Macon-Atlanta-Athens commuter rail line has the potential to become a reality! This session, we are seeing for the first time in the history of our state, a real solution to fund better transit and a more efficient, balanced system. With our projected population growth and worsening air quality, transit is the only way we can get ourselves out of traffic and get on with our lives. RAIL-based transit provides permanent congestion relief and offers countless economic benefits. Please call your Representatives about this issue, and encourage them to vote YES on Thursday to S.R. 845, funding for transit. To find out who your reps are and to read a sample script, please look below. Then, please forward any responses from State Representatives you get so we can work on getting them on board and track votes!

· CALL YOUR REP TODAY TO SUPPORT SR 845 FOR BETTER TRANSIT! This is the first real opportunity we have seen in GA to change our outdated Constitutional definition of transportation as “roads and bridges” to something more effective and effeicient. SR 845, which allows for real funding for transit, has already passed the Senate. SR 845 would support projects like the proposed Macon to Atlanta to Athens commuter rail. We need it to pass the House.

· Link to find your Georgia State Representative: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/officials/congress/?district=05&lvl=C&azip=30309&state=GA

· SAMPLE SCRIPT:

o "Hi Representative (Jones), my name is (Nate) and I'm tired of this terrible traffic. It's killing our state's competitiveness and it's killing us. Atlanta has been ranked worse than Los Angeles as far as traffic-related air quality goes, and we now have the longest projected commute in the United States (http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/05/list_of_usas_lo.html). Asthma, directly linked to the pollution from cars, is now the number one reason for absenses in Atlanta Public Schools; over 50% of climate-change causing carbon emissions in GA come from vehicle trafffic. I support a better way. I support SR 845 and encourage you to PASS IT NOW. Include support for all forms of transportation, as well as operations expenses and incorporation of the remaining 1% of our current gas tax. Will you vote YES for SR 845 on Thursday? Yes or No. Thank you."

· Please send all contact information (did they say YES? No? Know nothing about it? Want more information?) to erin.glynn@sierraclub.org to we can guage support for this monumental transit funding bill.