End the Southern Maryland Transportation Crisis
The transportation system in Southern Maryland is a disgrace. As a working-class Waldorf resident, Mckayla is intimately familiar with the toll the D.C. commute takes on Southern Marylanders. Indeed, a Bloomberg analysis found that the average worker in Charles County spent nearly 400 hours a year traveling to work — the longest commute time in the entire country. A massive investment in public transportation is essential to end the Southern Maryland transportation crisis. But today, Southern Maryland's access to public transit is woefully insufficient: the 5th congressional district only includes two Metro stops.
When Southern Maryland workers spend more than two weeks a year in traffic, serious environmental costs follow. Mckayla believes that transportation policy is environmental policy, and that we can take on climate change while taking on traffic. A serious federal commitment to creating an environmentally sound transportation sector is a matter of social and environmental justice. What's more, building and maintaining green infrastructure will create thousands of jobs for Southern Marylanders. Let's leave the days of sluggish traffic in the past.
Mckayla supports:
Federal funding for the Southern Maryland Rapid Transit Project, a light rail system which would extend from the Branch Avenue metro station and travel through southern Prince George's County and into Waldorf.
Directing $350 billion in federal funds toward expanding public transit, with the goal of increasing public transit ridership 65 percent by 2030.
Creating a $1.5 trillion grant program to pay working and middle class Americans to exchange their cars for electric vehicles.
Providing states and municipalities $400 billion to replace school and city buses with electric buses.