Advocacy Project: Letter to an Elected Official

December 8th, 2011

Pat Strachota
Room 324 East
P.O. Box 8953
Madison, WI 53703

VOTE YES ON EH-2 Increasing the Different Means of Transportation Act of 2011

The main purpose of this proposed act is to offer alternative means for transportation that are more environmentally friendly that will produce less air pollution from the standardizes buses, trains, and cab services. I am in favor of this idea to promote biking, walking, or even car pooling in some cases to help keep healthier air for everyone to breath, and to promote a healthier lifestyle by implementing exercise into our daily lives. This act will provide an all around healthier lifestyle for everyone.

This act will help us all become healthier. It is proven that since 1980 cases of asthma have increased 75% and this is due to the quality of air we are breathing. All of the different buses, bus routes, taxi, trains, excessive driving produces mass amounts of pollution, and fuel going into the air. We are all greatly affected, since we are all breathing this dirty air. It is shown that shopping trips to the store, or local businesses are less than 5 miles from home, which would be the perfect opportunity to either walk, or ride a bicycle. It is known that obesity is a problem in our country today due to the newly developed sedentairy lifestyle we have developed. If this act is passed we all will be breathing healthier air due to increased air pollution from automobiles, and become more active, and healthy in terms of our own respiratory and cardiac health. The benefit of our health out weigh the cons in both short and long term effects.

Opponents of this bill may say that by promoting alternatives means companies are going to lose business. However, the same companies can also offer bike, or roller blade rentals, and they would still be making a profit. They would also be saving large amounts of funds as they would not have to supply their vehicles with the expensive gas prices they are having to pay. If they increase their prices of their company it will discourage many from taking the bus, or a taxi, but for the ones who really want to they are going to pay the amount, so all of these companies are still going to be making a profit. I believe for my solution and support for promoting alternative modes of transportation in our daily lives is a great idea for everyone's health, and daily behaviors, as we will all be benefitting in the long run from this. We all breath the same air, so we should all work to keep it clean, and not be selfish.

We greatly appreciate the efforts you have made to finding a solution to this problem, and look forward to hearing from you soon. We hope that you vote "yes" on this proposed act to help all of our well being. If you have any further questions, or concerns please feel free to contact me at, 262-222-3333 or healthylife@d.umn.edu.

Sincerely,

Lindsay W.

Share & Voice Week 3

Through my web group I have found myself SO inspired by all of the work that Cole is doing! Every week I look forward to reading her blog, and to see all of the great environmentally friendly things she is. I was very intrigued by her photo essay actually. I have always wanted to be better to the environment, but I would definitely get lazy, or didn't really know how to go about doing things. However, after seeing all that she did with her garbage and how easy it was to recycle I found to be awesome! Now there really is no reason that I should not be able to do that. After living in my house with 5 girls and people always over there is a lot of garbage scattered throughout, and empty cans. If my roommates and I all made an effort to be more environmentally friendly and recycle we would be helping conserve so much, while producing less garbage, and making it easier for garbage centers to not have to sort through all of our trash. She was able to go through tons of garbage and boxes from garbages to not even one full sized garbage bag after a week just by all of the composting, and recycle. I am truly inspired by her efforts, and think it is awesome what she is able to do!
Great Job Cole!
Everyone should check out her projects and all of the work she is doing at How Does Cole's Garden Grow?  I know I am going to continue to do so! Not to mention her fruit bars were also delicious, which I am going to attempt to make, even though my cooking skills are not the greatest.