From Wisconsin

The Wisconsin Urban and Rural Transit Association's Legislative Representative, Gary Goyke, shares this list of Don'ts when working with elected officials:

DON'T
• Address legislators with first names unless you have have truly become close enough to do so.
• Express your partisan views with legislators present.
• Threaten a legislator with political reprisals. It won't work.
• Infer or demand that political contributions will buy a vote. It's illegal, stupid and will backfire.
• Call names, make accusations or denigrate legislators.
• Pile on lengthy data that needs interpretation.
• Fake an answer. Instead, offer to recontact legislators with more information. Credibility is everything. You must be the expert for legislators.
• Count on your lobbyist or organization to get the job done for you. Legislators like constituents.
• Embarrass legislators in a public forum. It is in bad taste and will make you an enemy.
• Burn your bridges — you will need legislators' support on other issues.
• Support or oppose a candidate without know all the candidates.
• Insist a legislator support or oppose a proposal. Request is the word.
• Misstate the group's position on an issue. Credibility is absolutely necessary for political influence.
• Mix other concerns with the group's interests. Save them for another time.
• Contact a legislator at odd hours or inappropriate locations.
• Alienate legislator's staff or friends. They have influence.
• Cry wolf -- exaggeration destroys your credibility.
• Not keep in contact with a legislator -- it will help when you have an issue.
• Forget to say THANK YOU in a letter after a meetings. This will be long remembered but doing it is most often forgotten.

Incidentally, Gary Goyke is a former Wisconsin State Senator.

Transit is Infrastructure

We Are Infrastructure

There was a time in the not-too-distant past when many in the community and public transportation field might have gasped at being called infrastructure. Infrastructure, after all, was a term of art reserved for public works programs, you know, sewers and streets and perhaps highways, roads and bridges. We -- community and public transit -- are in the people business, or at least the business of moving people.

Indeed, community and public transportation is a people industry. But a healthy dose of pragmatism, as well as an honest assessment of what's being said by elected officials around the country, leads me to believe that it is infrastructure that just might carry the day for surface transportation legislation here in Washington this fall — and thus is a key aspect in framing your discussions at the local level. It is impossible to ignore when several conservative members of the U.S. Senate are willing to publicly support surface transportation investment -- stating that this type of infrastructure investment is not the type of spending that needs to be targeted for cuts. It seems to be even the rare point upon which the Obama Administration and the House Republicans agree.

Strictly defined, infrastructure refers to foundational elements in an unspecified system. For surface transportation, such elements include the various modes that encompass our network: transit, streets, highways, bridges, rail, etc., -- the so-called built surface transportation environment. Yet there are unique aspects of transit's infrastructure. Unlike some of the other components in our nation's surface transportation network, community and public transit infrastructure is more than bricks and mortar, asphalt and concrete. Our infrastructure is our drivers and vehicles and routes, as well as the facilities, stations, stops and technology that make up community and public transit. We bring human capital into the infrastructure equation.

Community and public transit systems are an important ingredient in this surface transportation infrastructure mix. Transit systems reduce private automobile usage every day by millions of cars. Further, these systems -- whether rural or urban -- are often the mobility lifeline for seniors, people with disabilities, low-income individuals and others who either cannot or do not have access to an automobile. In a recent report, Transit Access and Zero-Vehicle Households, the Brookings Institute estimated that there are more than 10 million American households without a private automobile -- most of which are based around urban areas where access to effective community and public transit is available.

The American infrastructure debt is real and represents a serious impediment to economic stability and growth, to say nothing of the lost employment opportunities. The American Society of Civil Engineers, in a report entitled Failure to Act: The Economic Impact of Current Investment Trends in Surface Transportation Infrastructure, found that the failure to adequately invest in all forms of surface transportation infrastructure costs the American economy $130 billion and 800,000 jobs annually.

One reason the surface transportation infrastructure issue has gained so much traction in Washington with elected officials is its direct connection to jobs and the economy. From improving access to employment opportunities to actually stimulating job growth -- adequately building the nation's surface transportation infrastructure will have a clear, positive impact on the American economy. Some of the hardest hit sectors in the American workforce -- the construction trades -- are precisely those that benefit most from infrastructure investment.

As we move into a period where transit leaders and advocates are once again asked to tell the truth about transit and share the real benefits and impact of cost-effective and efficient community and public transportation, we must keep the infrastructure angle primary in our communications. As has always been the case, the most successful transit communications strategies are those carefully tailored to the audience. In today's political climate, that tailoring demands that community and public transit's vital role as infrastructure investment take a central role.

Remember: We are...infrastructure.