Heading into Union Station yesterday evening, I was bombarded with beautiful, colorful wall-sized billboards and banners touting the benefits of public transportation:

Creating jobs. Helping America become energy independent. Protecting the environment. Reducing stress and congestion. You may not realize it, but public transportation has an answer for these and so many other challenges we face as a nation today.

The ads are part of the American Public Transportation Association’s “Public Transportation Takes Us There” campaign, which is “dedicated to increasing transit investment in the upcoming 2009 Congressional transit authorization bill.”

EMBARQ Director Nancy Kete contributed to discussions earlier this year calling for wholesale reform, not just reauthorization, of the bill, as part of the Bipartisan Policy Center‘s National Transportation Policy Project. The group of transport experts, transit users and political leader involved in drafting a set of recommendation issued a final report that said “U.S. transportation policy needs to be more performance-driven, more directly linked to a set of clearly articulated goals, and more accountable for results.”

Likewise, APTA is campaigning for a more holistic approach to surface transportation, pointing out the environmental, economic, security and social reasons to invest more in better public transportation.

To get involved as an advocate — from submitting a letter to the editor to starting your own localized ad campaign — click here.