What happens when your dreams are finally within reach? Can you help us take the final step and make them come true?

Last month Mayor Bloomberg unveiled a plan for a greener, greater New York City. The plan aims to increase bicycling, walking and transit while reducing driving and traffic. Sound familiar? It should. It's what we've been fighting for since Transportation Alternatives was founded in 1973. If successful, the Mayor's plan will curb carbon, yield cleaner air, tame traffic and make for a much greener more livable city.

But it's not a done deal yet. Today Transportation Alternatives is kicking off the "Green the Streets" campaign. Green the Streets is an all out effort to win cleaner air, livable streets and better mass transit by educating and mobilizing citizens and electeds in key city and state districts.

One of our generous donors has offered to match any contributions we receive in the next week 1:1 to fund the Green the Streets Campaign. That means if you give $50, your gift will be worth $100 to Transportation Alternatives. Please make a special donation today.

We've been fighting for over 30 years for these very same commonsense improvements to our streets. Now, in an instant, City Hall has shown the political will to make them happen. So what do we do now? We work like mad.

In Mayor Bloomberg's offices there is the famed countdown clock. A sign over the numbers exhorts: "Make Every Day Count." In order to ensure the promises made in the Mayor's sustainability plan are kept, we need to make sure they are institutionalized before the end of Bloomberg's term. We need your help to make every day count and take back our streets for New Yorkers once and for all. Your donation will provide us with the resources we need to hit the ground running, and sustain an effective advocacy campaign in the weeks and months ahead.

The cornerstone of the Mayor's 127-point plan's transportation component is a congestion charge which, if implemented in concert with other appropriate measures, would be a panacea to our city's traffic and transit troubles. The charge would not only fund much needed transit improvements (providing an estimated $400 million in revenue), but also improve air quality, reduce traffic and free up street space for better biking, walking and transit.

This charge is also the most controversial portion of the Mayor's plan. The automobile and parking lobbies are busy spreading misinformation about what the charge would mean. At the same time, these groups (and some hand-wringing politicians) don't have a better plan for how to accommodate one million new New Yorkers while ensuring our air doesn't wind up looking and smelling like Bangkok's, or that our traffic jams don't wind up rivaling Los Angeles or that our transit system doesn't fall back into the disrepair of the mid-1970s. We need your help to take the message to their districts and fight the big bucks of big auto with the smarts and savvy that has long made T.A. a leader on these issues.

From the beginning, we've been out in front on congestion pricing. With "Contested Streets," major media coverage, our own writing (PDF) and traditional grass roots organizing, Transportation Alternatives has advocated for the best tools to clean our air, improve transit, and create more space for pedestrians and cyclists.

In the coming weeks and months, we need you to help us take this effort to the next level. We need to raise $500,000 to fund this unprecedented campaign. We'll be orchestrating local advertising blitzes, deploying teams of organizers and providing the technical and strategic resources that sympathetic community groups and block associations need to win the hearts and minds of their neighbors and elected officials. We'll be educating community members and community leaders about how the Mayor's plan provides the tools we need to clean our air, reduce traffic congestion on our city streets and fund our transit system so it can remain the best in the world and meet the demands of the one-million new residents that will come to New York City in the next twenty years.

We will not rest until we reduce traffic, improve air quality and free up street space for better biking, walking and transit. So please, take advantage of this generous 1:1 matching gift offer and help us reclaim streets for New Yorkers once and for all. Make a special donation to T.A. today and make every moment count.

Sincerely,

Paul Steely White
Executive Director
Transportation Alternatives

P.S. It is tempting now to be complacent and sit back and watch our years of hard work pay off. But we've never been the complacent sort here at Transportation Alternatives. We know there is still an enormous amount of work ahead of us to ensure that the Mayor's sustainability plan is implemented in a way that benefits the majority of cyclists, pedestrians and transit takers in New York City. And we're just the group to make sure this happens. Won't you take a moment and help us make your dreams come true today?