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"Above all, it means time returned to New Yorkers who don't have nearly enough of it."
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani touted progress on fulfilling one of his top campaign promises on Wednesday by highlighting a new plan to speed up the city's bus service.
During a press event, Mamdani talked about the improvements that commuters are projected to see from the new "Faster Buses, Better Service" plan, a joint initiative created by the mayor and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.
The plan's goal is to speed up buses by an average of six minutes per ride on priority routes, which Mamdani said would make a major long-term difference in New Yorkers' lives.
"Now if you take the bus to work, that adds up fast," he said. "But in six months, you will have spent 24 fewer hours on the bus. By the time a year rolls around, you will have saved more than two days of commuting time."
Mamdani: By the time a year rolls around, you will have saved more than two days of commuting time. That means breakfast with your family. That means getting home in time for bedtime. It means agreeing with your friends that Egypt was robbed yesterday. pic.twitter.com/DQtn5PqNwx
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 8, 2026
The mayor put this into perspective by listing other activities that New Yorkers can do when they don't have to spend as much time on the bus.
"That means breakfast with your family," he said. "It means having the time to argue balls and strikes at your kids' little league game. It means getting home for bedtime... Above all, it means time returned to New Yorkers who don't have nearly enough of it."
The 51-page Mamdani-Hochul plan envisions a number of changes to the bus system to speed up service.
Among other things, the plan includes building five "rapid bus corridors" in Brooklyn and Queens by 2030; adding 28 more priority bus lanes throughout the city by the end of the year; allowing "all-door boarding" on all buses to ease passenger bottlenecks by the end of 2027; and establishing dozens of "queue jump" traffic signals that give buses a head start over other vehicles.
"New York City sets a global standard for culture, innovation, and excellence," Mamdani said in a statement accompanying the plan. "Let us set the same standard for bus service—and prove that government can deliver real results for the people who call this city home."
The bus plan earned a thumbs up from Tahra Hoops, director of economic analysis at Chamber of Progress, who wrote in a Wednesday social media post that it could have a real positive impact on city life.
"A focus on faster, more reliable service is of more use to New Yorkers," Hoops wrote. "Nothing is more frustrating than after a long day at work to wait 30 minutes plus for the Q55 to come and then all of a sudden four show up at once."
In addition to speeding up buses, Mamdani vowed during his mayoral campaign to make them free to ride, which could be more difficult to deliver. The Metropolitan Transit Authority has estimated that delivering free bus service in the city would cost roughly $1 billion per year.
More than 7,148 pedestrians were killed by personal motor vehicles in 2024, just shy of a 40-year high. Meanwhile, travelers are much more likely to die in cars than on public transit.
The US Department of Transportation began earlier this month to rescind federal funding for local projects across the country to improve street safety and add pedestrian trails and bike lanes, because they were deemed "hostile" to cars.
A report Monday in Bloomberg cited several examples of multimillion-dollar grants being axed beginning on September 9, all with the same rationale:
A San Diego County road improvement project including bike lanes “appears to reduce lane capacity and a road diet that is hostile to motor vehicles,” a US Department of Transportation official wrote, rescinding a $1.2 million grant it awarded nearly a year ago.
In Fairfield, Alabama, converting street lanes to trail space on Vinesville Road was also deemed “hostile” to cars, and “counter to DOT’s priority of preserving or increasing roadway capacity for motor vehicles.”
Officials in Boston got a similar explanation, as the Trump administration pulled back a previously awarded grant to improve walking, biking, and transit in the city’s Mattapan Square neighborhood in a way that would change the “current auto-centric configuration.” Another grant to improve safety at intersections in the city was terminated, the DOT said, because it could “impede vehicle capacity and speed.”
These are just a few of the projects cancelled in recent weeks by the Trump administration. According to StreetsBlog, others included a 44-mile walking trail along the Naugatuck River in Connecticut, which the administration reportedly stripped funding from because it did not "promote vehicular travel," and new miles of rail trail in Albuquerque for which DOT said funding would be reallocated to "'car-focused' projects instead."
The cuts are part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to slash discretionary federal grants under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act signed by former President Joe Biden in 2021.
These include the RAISE infrastructure grant and Safe Streets and Roads for All programs, for which Congress has allocated a combined $2.5 billion annually to expand public transportation and address the US's worsening epidemic of pedestrian deaths.
Data published in July by the group Transportation for America revealed that the Trump administration has been implementing funds for safety grants at about 10% of the speed of the Biden administration.
According to a report published in July by the Governors Highway Safety Association, US drivers struck and killed 7,148 pedestrians in 2024, "enough to fill more than 30 Boeing 737 jets at maximum capacity." Though fatalities have decreased slightly from a 40-year peak in 2022, the number of fatalities last year was 20% higher than in 2016.
Research has overwhelmingly shown that adding bicycle and pedestrian lanes to streets can reduce these fatalities. Even the DOT's own Federal Highway Administration website recommends introducing "Road Diets" that reduce four-lane intersections to three lanes, making room for pedestrian refuge islands and bike lanes to serve as a "buffer" between automobile traffic and sidewalks.
According to the website, "studies indicate a 19 to 47% reduction in overall crashes when a Road Diet is installed on a previously four-lane undivided facility as well as a decrease in crashes involving drivers under 35 years of age and over 65 years of age."
Car crash fatalities are also up in general, according to preliminary data from the Department of Transportation: 39,345 were killed in motor accidents in 2024 compared with 32,744 a decade prior, a 20% increase.
Despite this, the Trump administration has made its preference for maximizing car travel abundantly clear. Trump has attempted to block California from constructing a massive new high-speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco and has tried to stymie New York's wildly successful congestion pricing program.
Citing isolated cases of subway and train crime, he and other members of the Republican Party often paint public transit as excessively dangerous.
In one interview on Fox News in May, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy ranted that, "if you're liberal, they want you to take public transportation." While stating that he was "OK with public transportation," he said, "the problem is that it's dirty. You have criminals. It's homeless shelters. It's insane asylums. It's a work ground for the criminal element of the city to prey upon the good people."
However, data show that between 2007 and 2023, deaths from automobile accidents were 100 times more likely than deaths on buses and 20 times more likely than on passenger trains.

That hostility extends toward efforts to expand bicycle usage. In March, Duffy announced that the department would "review" all grants related to green infrastructure, including bike lanes, which was characterized as an effort to combat the previous president's attempts to reduce US transportation's carbon footprint.
Grant criteria sent to communities for the Safe Streets and Roads for All program explicitly warned communities that if "the applicant included infrastructure [resulting in] reducing lane capacity for vehicles," the application would be "viewed less favorably by the department."
When asked about this decision at a panel the next month, StreetsBlog reported that Duffy "grimaced and grumbled the word 'bikes' like it was an expletive, before repeating a string of corrosive myths about bike lanes that are all too common among people who only get around by car," including that they supposedly increase traffic congestion.
Many of the communities that have lost funding for their projects say they are still going to move ahead with them in some capacity. However, they argue that the government providing funds to improve road safety should be common sense.
Rick Dunne, the executive director of the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments, stated that the effort to build a trail along the river will continue, even without the funding. But he expressed bewilderment at the administration's statement that investing in highway travel would better serve residents' "quality of life."
“Look, if your definition of improving quality of life is promoting vehicular travel, that's just, on its face, bad. Increase vehicle travel, increase pollution, increase safety risks,” Dunne told the CT Post. “Taking this money from this project, putting it into highway travel, is in no way going to increase economic efficiency. I don't see how you argue that it improves the quality of life of Americans, or the residents of this valley.”
After six months, the policy of tolling drivers has reduced traffic and raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the city's transit system. But the Trump administration is still trying to shut it down.
New York City's congestion pricing program has now been in place for six months as of Saturday, and according to state officials, it has already proven remarkably successful. It has survived despite efforts by the Trump administration to shut it down.
The program, which tolls drivers who drive through designated "congestion zones" below 60th Street in Manhattan has dramatically reduced traffic, which in turn has sped up commute times, reduced pollution, and raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the city's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).
"Six months in, it's clear: congestion pricing has been a huge success, making life in New York better," Governor Kathy Hochul (D) said Saturday. "In New York, we dare to do big things, and this program represents just that—traffic is down throughout the region, business is booming, transit ridership is up, and we are making historic upgrades to our transit system."
Since the program started, the number of vehicles driving through the congestion zone has decreased by 11%, with a total of 10 million fewer cars having entered compared to last year. In just the first three months of the program, traffic in the congestion zone sped up by 15%.
This has led to reduced wait times for commuters, not just in the congestion zone but in surrounding areas like the Bronx and Bergen County, New Jersey.
The number of crashes is down 14% in the congestion area, while traffic fatalities have reached "historic lows" citywide.
The data has also borne out the predictions from environmentalists and public transit activists who said the program would reduce pollution, both by capping the number of cars on the road and funding long-term investment in the public transit system.
The MTA is on track to raise $500 million from congestion pricing in 2025, as was projected when the policy went into effect. The agency also reports that subway and bus usage have gone up since congestion pricing began, while service speed has improved to "near record levels."
Beyond improving convenience, data shows the program is already improving quality of life in other ways. Early estimates from a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research show that within the first month of congestion pricing, CO₂ emissions from vehicles decreased by 2.5% with other forms of air pollution and soot levels also declining. These numbers will likely continue to rise as public transit usage expands.
Ben Furnas, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, a New York-based pro-transit group that supported congestion pricing, told The Guardian that the program exceeded his already-high expectations.
"It's been even more obviously beneficial than even the most fervent proponents had hoped, and there have been really tangible improvements that are really gratifying," he said. "Reducing pollution is often seen to involve a lot of sacrifices, but this has been different. People can see the improvements to their lives. There was this cynical assumption that this was a bullshit charge and life will stay the same, but that assumption has gone away now."
During the tumultuous year leading up to congestion pricing's implementation, business groups raised fears that charging drivers would bankrupt small business owners. Hochul even blocked the policy from going into effect for months last year, citing those concerns.
Trump's Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, has called the charge a "slap in the face to working class Americans and small business owners."
But the city reports more pedestrian traffic and faster commutes, increasing economic activity.
"Gridlock is bad for the economy," noted a statement from the state of New York. "Commuters are saving as much as 21 minutes each way. Time savings help businesses make deliveries and save costs."
The city also reports increased Broadway ticket sales, hotel occupancy, and commercial office leasing since the policy went into effect, as well as record employment figures.
Despite nearly immediate indicators of the congestion scheme's success, the Trump administration has been attempting to kill it since he returned to office in January.
"We've...fended off five months of unlawful attempts from the federal government to unwind this successful program and will keep fighting–and winning–in the courts," Hochul said.
In February, the White House infamously posted an artificially generated image of Trump wearing a crown. It quoted President Trump saying: "CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!"
That same month, U.S. Transportation Secretary Duffy withdrew federal approval for the congestion pricing pilot program, threatening to pull funding for other state transportation projects if it was not halted.
But a U.S. district judge issued a temporary restraining order in May that has, for the time being, halted the Trump administration's efforts.
Attempts to kill the program may prove more difficult in the future, as it has overcome initial skepticism to grow broadly popular with a majority of New Yorkers. Hochul herself was once among those skeptics, but she has grown to become one of its greatest champions.
"You are seeing in the governor… the zeal of the convert," said Daniel Pearlstein, a spokesperson for the pro-transit Riders Alliance.
"People who had their doubts, they saw it up close. They saw it working," he said. "They are saving New Yorkers and people from New Jersey valuable time every single day. Who would want to rip that away?"
I certainly do not agree with Harris and Walz on every issue, but since electing them is one step closer to climate progress, free school lunch, fast trains, and legal weed, I will be voting for them on November 5.
During my childhood, one consistent theme was bragging to family and friends out of state about Michigan’s lakes, great and small. I remember being horrified when I got to college in Chicago and met a Minnesotan who was equally proud of her lakes and believed they had more lakes and better hockey.
Eventually, I got over the lake contest to focus on protecting freshwater for everyone, but in 2023, I became green with envy for what Minnesota has anew.
Under Gov. Tim Walz, Minnesota passed one of the most impressive legislative packages in the United States, developed by a diverse coalition of climate experts, transit activists, union leaders, and racial justice organizers over years.
When I think of Minnesota today, I think of learning from them about the future we deserve.
I want to achieve what Minnesota signed into law with a one-seat Democratic majority in Michigan—and I believe it’s possible if we elect the Harris-Walz ticket on November 5.
Gov. Walz signed a renewable energy standard into law in Minnesota, even while supporting the best green bank law in the country, with strong labor and environmental justice standards, to implement and maximize the Inflation Reduction Act signed into law by U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. As our air is sullied by Canadian wildfires and our water is threatened by agricultural runoff, Michigan needs stronger standards too.
Thanks to Walz’s leadership, no kid in Minnesota is hungry at school, with free breakfast and lunch guaranteed to students. Some don’t need it and bring their own lunch, but guaranteeing full bellies will keep kids healthy and help them learn. No student in Michigan should be hungry during math class either, and Harris has already put forward policy proposals. That would be an excellent start at reducing food prices.
Minnesota has also passed arguably the best transportation policy in the country, pushed by legislators and advocates for safe streets and celebrated and signed by the governor. This bill would prioritize projects that protect clean air, expand freedom of movement, and reduce traffic too.
Imagine if Michiganders could take a reliable train home from the bar or have the option to take a speedy bus to work if a car was in the shop. We need policies like this that benefit people in Michigan and across the country. Harris was inspired by these efforts and picked Walz in part to invest in clean transportation and safe streets.
Minnesota also legalized marijuana, and under Gov. Walz’s leadership, they didn’t stop there. They created an office to expunge records of people impacted by over-criminalization of weed and provided incentives and benefits for impacted families to get a head start in the legal marijuana business. Our state incarcerates far too many of our neighbors, and many more would be supportive of recreational use and growing the tax base. Vice President Harris has echoed that she would support legalization, and creative public policy work like that in Minnesota is what will be needed to do so in an equitable way in states like ours.
I certainly do not agree with Harris and Walz on every issue, but since electing them is one step closer to climate progress, free school lunch, fast trains, and legal weed, I will be voting for them on November 5.
I still brag about Michigan and Detroit-style pizza to anyone who listens, and I still play pond hockey in February with my siblings when I can. I’m even still riding our Lions’ win over the Vikings to be first in the conference.
But we all deserve healthy kids and safe streets, so when I think of Minnesota today, I think of learning from them about the future we deserve—and I believe it is within reach.
Climate advocate Bill McKibben called the reversal "the most aggressively anti-environmental stand I can recall a major Democratic governor taking."
"Betrayal."
"A generational setback for climate policy."
"The kind of sabotage by a leader that warrants impeachment."
Those were just some of the ways New Yorkers and climate advocates described Gov. Kathy Hochul's decision to cancel a first-in-the-nation congestion pricing plan for New York City on Wednesday.
Although the move will directly impact a relatively small percentage of U.S. residents' daily lives, critics said the move will stymie progress that could ultimately have been seen across the country—instead dooming communities to continued reliance on vehicles and the planet-heating emissions they cause.
A year after signaling approval for the congestion pricing plan, which was years in the making, the Democratic governor stunned campaigners Wednesday when she released a pre-recorded message announcing that "circumstances have changed" and would not allow the policy to take effect on June 30 as planned.
Under the plan, drivers who entered certain parts of Manhattan would be charged $15, with the projected annual revenue of $1 billion accounting for 50% of the funds needed for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's (MTA) upgrades to its system.
The MTA's Capital Program is now on hold, according to 6sqft, jeopardizing 23,000 jobs and imperiling the city's ability to improve reliability for working New Yorkers—56% of whom do not own a car—and make subway stations more accessible.
Local groups Riders Alliance and Transportation Alternatives announced plans for an emergency lobby day in Albany on Friday, where they said they would tell Hochul and state lawmakers to say "no to defunding our transit system."
Hochul said she was considering a new tax on businesses to fill in the $1 billion funding gap caused by her decision, but that would require approval by the New York Legislature, whose session ends this week.
The Tri-State Transportation Campaign (TSTC) found in a recent analysis that more than 97% of people who commute from suburbs in New York and New Jersey would not be impacted financially by the congestion pricing plan. Looking at 217 legislative districts across the New York City metropolitan area, the percentage of commuters who would have to pay the $15 toll did not exceed 4%, and was 0-1% in most districts.
"Our members don't ride Escalades to Broadway shows. They use transit," said grassroots civil society group New York Communities for Change.
The TSTC noted that the state Legislature promised the congestion pricing plan to working families who rely on public transportation nearly five years ago.
"We urge the governor to stick to her guns and implement this transformative policy," said the group. "This is the pivotal moment. Please, Gov. Hochul, don't turn your back on the families counting on you to provide cleaner air and faster commutes for everyone."
Third Act founder and author Bill McKibben said Hochul's decision—reportedly encouraged by U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) in an effort to win a Democratic majority in Congress this year—amounts to "a real betrayal."
"This is stupid policy—it's the most aggressively anti-environmental stand I can recall a major Democratic governor taking," wrote McKibben in his newsletter, The Crucial Years. "This kind of system has been a huge success in the European cities that have tried it, like London and Milan; Manhattan (as advocates back to Jimmy Breslin and Norman Mailer have noted) would be an incredibly sweet place with many fewer cars."
Sunrise Movement NYC suggested Hochul's decision was the result of $100,000 in donations to her campaigns from the auto industry, which is hosting a fundraiser for the governor next week with tickets costing $5,000 and up.
"Congestion pricing would save countless lives through reduced traffic across the city, cleaner air, and faster response times by first responders," said the group. "Gov. Hochul cannot usurp congestion pricing unilaterally... We call on the Legislature and the MTA to remain steadfast in the implementation of congestion pricing."
A Dutch study published last year found that although congestion pricing was unpopular when it was first implemented in cities including London, Stockholm, Singapore, and Edinburgh, support grew after the policies went into effect.
"In terms of what's best for the largest number of people, congestion pricing is it, because it brings air quality benefits, it brings lower traffic benefits, and it brings transit improvements to the entire city," Kate Slevin, executive director of the Regional Plan Association in New York, told HuffPost.
Journalist Robinson Meyer said that in terms of the generational climate impact it will have, Hochul's reversal on congestion pricing would ultimately be "worse than the Mountain Valley pipeline, worse than Alaska's Willow project," because of the lost opportunity to bring similar policies to other U.S. cities.
"New York was bushwhacking a trail for everyone else to follow," wrote Meyer. "If congestion policy was a success there, then other American cities could experiment with it in some form... By shuttering the policy in New York, she has poisoned pro-climate urban policies everywhere."
We need to raise our voices together to demand our leaders fully fund transit, biking, and walking instead of expanding highways.
In cities and in rural areas, in red states and blue states, most residents want cleaner and more connected communities. Public transit—including trains, buses, and dial-a-ride services—and accessible walking and bike routes give us healthy, clean, and affordable ways for everyone to get where they need to go.
But for too long, policymakers have sold us the false choice that we must fund highways above all else. They continue to waste billions of our tax dollars on highway expansion projects that pollute our air and increase traffic, instead of funding sidewalks, safe biking routes, and robust public transportation options. This has resulted in a system where most people must drive for every trip to meet their daily needs.
The good news is that a shift in transportation funding priorities will not only clean our air, it will also improve our lives in nearly every dimension.
It doesn’t have to be this way. This spring’s Earth Day celebrations gave us the opportunity to step back, imagine our future, and commit to the changes that get us there. And to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stave off the worst effects of climate change, we must address the elephant in the room: transportation.
The transportation sector is the largest source of U.S. climate pollution—and 80% of transportation emissions come from the cars and trucks on our roads. It’s one of the only major sectors where emissions are still rising.
The good news is that a shift in transportation funding priorities will not only clean our air, it will also improve our lives in nearly every dimension. A new analysis from the Union of Concerned Scientists shows that by funding real transportation choices and reducing the amount we need to drive, we can create healthier, more connected communities while reducing harmful emissions.
If we expanded transportation options and reduced the miles that people need to drive by 30% by 2050, that would free up a lot of money in our wallets to spend on the things we need. On average, each household would save more than $3,000 a year from reduced fuel, maintenance, and depreciation costs for their vehicles. If better transportation choices allowed families to go from owning two cars to one, it would save them $12,000 per year!
And it would clean our air by reducing harmful emissions—by up to 3,100 megatons of greenhouse gasses. That’s the same as preventing emissions from almost 8,000 natural gas-fired plants.
The tide is starting to turn. Recently, federal legislation was introduced to provide more operational funds to transit. This would help many transit agencies across the country that are facing fiscal shortfalls invest in more services, run more routes, and increase the frequency of trains and buses. The bill, the “Stronger Communities Through Better Transit Act” introduced by Congressman Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), already has more than 100 co-sponsors.
And this momentum cannot come fast enough. The reality is the climate crisis isn’t coming—it’s here. We see it around us everyday. From record heat to stronger storms, it impacts everything from our economy to our national security.
And we need to act now.
We need to raise our voices together to demand our leaders fully fund transit, biking, and walking instead of expanding highways. This will connect and improve our neighborhoods, have a positive economic impact, and protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land we call home for generations to come.
When I learned about climate change for the first time in middle school, I was stunned; stunned that I hadn't found out before, that this wasn't something my parents talked about every day. The atmosphere might heat up to to the point that the earth would become uninhabitable? I could not comprehend why everyone in society wasn't running around scheming of ways to ensure our survival on this planet.
"As young people, we have the right and the power to create the world we would like to see -- a world which sustains life; a world which does not discriminate, commit violence, or value a life less based on race or class, nationality or immigrant status."
And what would this mean for my home on the outskirts of Austin, Texas? Already, our well water had run out one summer. We went for quite a while without being able to shower or flush the toilet until we had the money to get the well dug a little deeper to reach the aquifer below. I wondered what a hotter planet would mean for our water system: how many more times would we need to dig more? How could a summer even hotter than our already scorching days, hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, be habitable?
I tried to think about what I could do to minimize the harm I caused personally through my carbon footprint. I tried to save every page I was handed in school to write my notes on the backs. I recycled and composted obsessively, and wondered whether I could save water by hand washing clothes or energy by line drying. I would cringe every time we sat in traffic, imagining all the tiny particles of carbon our car was coughing out into the atmosphere, slowly eroding the chances of future generations to experience the lushness of a dewy, green spring.
Yet ultimately, the task at hand felt impossible. I lived thirty minutes outside Austin in an area where public transportation does not exist. My family did not have the money to live in the city, so this meant driving twenty minutes to school every day and that there was no way for me to reduce these emissions. The lack of public transportation in Texas simply does not allow most citizens to live in a way that could be considered "environmentally conscious."
Gradually I realized -- our highways and suburbs were never meant to be compatible with a sustainable future. The system was designed to necessitate fossil fuel dependence. It is no coincidence that Exxon has been cowering under climate denialism for decades for the sake of rogue profit. Exxon's thirty-year-long campaign to spread doubt about basic climate science has undermined efforts to prevent runaway climate change and has cost millions of lives. Those hit the hardest by climate disasters are communities of color, communities of low economic status, women, and young people. Fossil fuel companies stand to gain the most by stifling the stories of those in the Global South whose resources they exploit, whose water and air they poison, and whose lives the media outlets might fail to mourn when they are swept away by every-intensifying natural disasters. It will take all of us fighting together and demanding a just and sustainable transition to turn the tides on environmental racism and the devaluing of black, brown, and immigrant lives.
When I got to college, I joined Swarthmore Mountain Justice, the on-campus group campaigning for divestment. For the first time, I feel that I have power in my hands to effect change. For so long, I worried that the things I could do on my own to combat climate change were not enough, but I have seen incredible progress in the work we have done as a collective. Together we can leverage formidable power. Joining together with other students, we will demand the systemic and institutional changes from our leaders we need to ensure a sustainable future. We will demand a just transition away from environmental racism, and an end to the laws that tear families apart and reinforce the illusion that we are anything less than a global community.
As young people, we have the right and the power to create the world we would like to see -- a world which sustains life; a world which does not discriminate, commit violence, or value a life less based on race or class, nationality or immigrant status. The need to see these changes come about has never been so urgent, and I have never felt more excited to join with other students, to take to the streets and demand that politicians take real leadership on the critical issues of our generation.
If that's a vision you want to be part of, sign up to join the action on November 9th in Washington, D.C.
People noted when Ronald Reagan, a presidential candidate in 1980, asked, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" That question got people's attention and is still often quoted today. Some say it was this question that won Reagan the presidency.
With election season fast approaching, it may be time to consider some new questions. I raise this issue because I am concerned about Reagan's question and people's response. What bothers me about this question is its focus on "you" in the individual versus collective sense. Reagan could have asked, "Are we better off now than we were four years ago?" but he didn't.
Many people think and vote primarily based on how an issue, event, trend, or proposed policy impacts them individually. Reagan's version of the question aligns with this thinking and resonates with many people in the US.
Thinking based on self-interest is not new. I grew up in a farming community where discussions at election time focused on how positions taken by political parties and presidential candidates would impact farmers and their families. I knew there were other major issues facing our nation, but these seemed to have little or no impact on how the people in our community cast their vote. Their focus was on how the election outcomes would benefit them personally. There was little talk about the common good or even the good of the country.
We live in an individualistic society where the needs and interests of the individual are promoted over the needs of the group as a whole. A more cooperative, collaborative society, on the other hand, would focus more on what is good for the group. Suggesting that there is a need to choose between what is good for the individual and what is good for the larger society may be misleading. In fact, the belief that contributing to the common good will somehow take away from what is good for the individual is not supported by research. A number of studies - available through the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley-- indicate the opposite. They show that happiness and a sense of wellbeing are inextricably linked to behaviors that contribute to something bigger than oneself. In other words, working for the good of society as a whole can also benefit the individuals in that society.
John F. Kennedy, in his inaugural address in 1961, also proposed a question: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." This question differs dramatically from the one raised by Ronald Reagan.
It's now time to think about the kind of questions we'd like to ask the 2016 presidential candidates. If we're concerned about the commons and the common good, the following ten questions might appear on our list:
From now until November 2016, many questions will be asked of the presidential candidates during a multitude of interviews, debates, and town hall meetings. It may be enlightening to critique the questions -- and the candidates' answers -- in terms of how they relate to the common good. We may also wish to introduce some of these questions in our own discussions with friends and neighbors about who will best serve the country in the future. If we get this right, in four years after the inauguration of the new president, we can then ask "Are we better off now than we were four years ago?" and feel confident that the answer will be "yes."
The GOP-led U.S. House of Representatives late Tuesday voted to slash $242 million from the Amtrak budget.
"Amtrak currently receives $1.3 billion from the government, most of which goes toward capital improvements and debt service," AP reports. "The GOP-drafted measure cuts $242 million from capital accounts but fully funds the $289 million request for operating losses."
The vote was part of a GOP effort to weaken U.S. President Barack Obama's proposed infrastructure spending proposal, put forth under a joint transportation and housing budget.
A deadly Amtrak crash on the outskirts of Philadelphia last month put a spotlight on the need for increased funding and support for public transportation services.
Despite the significant losses, public transportation advocacy group the National Association of Railroad Passengers notes that it would have been much worse if seven "anti-train" measures weren't voted down.

Thousands of people hit the streets of Brazil's largest city of Sao Paulo on Wednesday following news of a public transportation price rigging cartel, adding fuel to a grassroots uprising that began in June.
On Tuesday the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo announced that it was suing Germany-based engineering behemoth Siemens to recover money lost during years of alleged price fixing of the city's public transportation construction and maintenance.
Agence France-Presse reports that
The daily Estado de Sao Paulo Wednesday alleged that Siemens paid $10.3 million to two Brazilian officials as part of a vast corruption scheme in public contracts with the CPTM [Sao Paulo Metropolitan Train Company].
Brazilian paper Folha de Sao Paulo reported that in addition to Siemens, the lawsuit alleges that CAF of Spain, Mitsui of Japan, Bombardier of Canada and Alstom of France were also involved in the cartel, according to the Associated Press.
Euronews has video of Wednesday's protests:
Brazil protesters back on streets of Sao Paulo over public transportThe movement at the origin of the recent wave of social unrest in Brazil has been back on the... euronews, the most watched news ...
Reuters adds this background:
Sao Paulo, Brazil's most populous and economically developed state, has been spending billions of dollars a year to expand overcrowded roads, transit links and other public infrastructure.
But rising subway and bus fares combined with poor service for the 20 million people of greater Sao Paulo city, the state's capital, sparked nationwide protests in June and July against political corruption and inadequate public services.
"This is not just about bus fares any more. We pay high taxes and we are a rich country, but we can't see this in our schools, hospitals and roads," charged Jamaime Schmitt, a Brazilian engineer, as the wave of protests was getting underway in June.
In her post "From Lower Bus Fares to a Fair Society," Laura Carlsen of the Americas Policy Program highlighted how the public transportation system is symbolic of the country's inequality:
Brazil has among the most expensive public transportation systems in the world, as well as being aggravatingly inefficient. Privatized years ago, the buses get stuck in traffic and take up inordinate amounts of people's time and money.
Demonstrations started in Sao Paulo, the financial center of the country. There the contrast between the majority of the population and the elite shows in their way of getting around. The rich fly in private helicopters that buzz through the airways over the congested streets below.
That sense of being stuck below, with the wealthy few above, has played a huge role in igniting protests. The PT government, beginning with former President Lula da Silva, initiated social programs that greatly reduced poverty and hunger throughout the nation. But Brazil's strict adherence to neoliberal growth places a priority on maintaining the privileges of the wealthy, and widely publicized corruption scandals have created an image of at least part of the political elite partaking of those privileges--all at the expense of the majority. Inequality continues to plague Brazil, and recent increases in the cost of living have gouged the middle class.