The North State Journal recently published this article spotlighting a new coalition the NC Chamber has been building that is putting the business community in the driver seat to determine our state’s transportation future. As NC Chamber Director of Government Affairs Mark Coggins explains in the article, Destination 2030: The Road to a Stronger Transportation Future will be a multi-year, future-focused effort aimed at moving our transportation funding formula away from outdated funding methods to create a truly modernized revenue stream for our state.

In many ways, Destination 2030 is the successor coalition to our NC Can’t Afford to Stop Coalition. Many of you have been involved in that effort, which helped the Chamber successfully lobby for several key pieces of legislation to address some of our short-term funding challenges during the 2019 – 2020 session. But unlike NC Can’t Afford to Stop, which focused more on our immediate funding needs, Destination 2030 will be focused on solving the long-term problems plaguing our transportation network. The biggest question we aim to answer is this: How do we secure a modernized, diversified transportation revenue formula for North Carolina that’s designed to grow and maintain our network at the pace of our fast-growing population?

On August 27^th, at the NC Chamber’s Transportation and Infrastructure Summit, the NC Chamber Foundation will provide some potential answers to this question with the release of a new study, Modernizing North Carolina’s Infrastructure Through Sustainable and Diversified Revenue Streams. The study, conducted on behalf of the Foundation by NC State’s Institute for Transportation Research and Education (ITRE), will identify four of the most viable funding options to modernize our state’s transportation revenue formula. These options will, in turn, help inform our legislative agenda in 2021 and beyond.

We need the support of companies like yours, however, if we hope to turn viable options into real solutions for North Carolina. If you have not already, we urge you to add your company’s name to the Destination 2030 Coalition today. By clicking here and signing up, you’ll be helping us build momentum behind this important vehicle that we’ll use to drive our transportation agenda forward in the years ahead. (Only your company’s name will be shared publicly, but by providing your contact information you’ll receive timely updates and get a chance to engage with our government affairs team as we use the Foundation study to flesh out our legislative priorities for 2021.)

All businesses, regardless of industry, need access to a well-funded transportation network in order to succeed. Destination 2030 is all about bringing those businesses together to ensure we find the funding we need to build a truly world-class transportation network here in our state. We thank you in advance for joining us as we embark on this new effort to give businesses a leading role in securing this important priority for North Carolina.