For Immediate Release: June 20, 2008 Contact: Stewart Schwartz, CSG, 703-599-6437 (c) Trip Pollard, SELC, 434-977-4090 Lisa Guthrie, VALCV, 804-225-1902 Conservation and Smart Growth Groups Call for Fundamental Reevaluation of Virginia Transportation and Land Use Energy Challenge is an Opportunity to Design a Different Program Say Groups in Reaction to Transportation

Last night at a special reception in the revitalized U Street neighborhood, the Coalition for Smarter Growth recognized long-time business-leader Robert Peck with its fifth annual Livable Communities Leadership Award. Mr. Peck, former president of the Greater Washington Board of Trade, was introduced by Alex Orfinger, publisher of the Washington Business Journal.

At 10:30 this morning Montgomery County and State of Maryland officials unveiled new state road signs at the major entry points into the county’s nationally recognized Agricultural Reserve. Now drivers who experience the transition from surrounding suburbs into the 90,000 acre reserve will see “Welcome to Montgomery County’s Agricultural Reserve” signs to know that they are entering a special place in the Washington DC region.

We are encouraged by your initiatives over the past two years to address Virginia’s land use and transportation challenges. Public support for better growth management remains at high levels, making your efforts to better link land use and transportation critically important. Your collective initiatives have included increased support for transit and freight rail, traffic impact studies, urban development areas, land conservation, stronger access management policies and changes to subdivision street standards.

Joining the renewed debate over transportation funding, the Virginia conservation and smart growth community released an open letter today to Governor Kaine, Lieutenant Governor Bolling, Attorney General McDonnell and all 140 members of the General Assembly. “The energy crisis and climate change make it more important that ever that we buy the right transportation system for the next 50 to 100 years,” said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.