Sustain Charlotte supports Reconnecting Communities as a USDOT principle

This week, we signed a letter headed by America Walks urging the U.S. Department of Transportation to fund only the portions of discretionary grant applications that align with the principle of Reconnecting Communities. Reconnecting Communities is an initiative focused on improving access to daily needs such as jobs, education, healthcare, food, nature, and recreation, and foster equitable development and restoration, and provide technical assistance to further these goals. In many cases, grant applicants are trying to leverage the Reconnecting Communities opportunity fund highway widening.

As the letter points out, “The harms of additional lanes of freeway in vulnerable communities are myriad and significant – increased air pollution, greater noise pollution, contributions to the urban heat island effect, loss of affordable housing, more impermeable surfaces increasing flood risk, and of course greater carbon emissions from induced driving – at a time in which communities across America are struggling to find answers to these overlapping challenges while adapting to a quickly changing climate.”