Clean Transportation For All

Photo: Eric Sehr, Flickr

Sierra Club believes that everyone deserves access to a transportation system that protects our climate, keeps us healthy, and connects us to the places where we live, work, and play.  

• Currently, the transportation sector is the largest and fastest-growing source of climate disrupting pollution in Maryland and the United States. In Maryland, the transportation sector-- which includes cars, buses, trucks, planes, trains, ships, and freight—produces approximately 38 percent of all climate damaging pollution in the state.

• Tailpipe emissions from gas and diesel-powered vehicles are the largest source of health damaging pollution which is responsible for 1 in 5 childhood asthma cases, and are also linked with various cancers, heart disease, emphysema and other respiratory diseases that may lead to premature death.  

• Our transportation system doesn’t work for everyone. Many Marylanders don’t have reliable transportation to access affordable housing, jobs, food, healthcare, and amenities. 

But this doesn’t have to be the case.

Together, we are fighting to:

• Reduce pollution from the cars and trucks we drive and the buses our children take to and from school.

• Strengthen and expand public transit.

• Promote transit oriented and walkable and bikeable communities.

• Promote electric cars, trucks and buses powered by renewable energy.

• Stop highway expansion because it attracts more drivers which leads to increased climate and health-damaging air pollution, more sprawl, more natural places destroyed, traffic congestion again in a short time, and it takes funding away from clean mobility alternatives.  

Join our campaigns to make clean transportation for all a reality in Maryland!

• Participate in our monthly Transportation Committee meetings and participate in planning campaign strategy 

• Organize and participate in townhalls, panel discussions, and webinars 

• Lobby and contact your elected officials and testify at hearings

• Write letters to the editor, op-eds, and blogs 

Email transportation@mdsierra.org if you’d like to join the committee. Check out our calendar of transportation events! 

Statewide Campaigns 

Electrify cars, trucks, and school buses 

Help support our campaign to push Maryland to adopt regulations requiring manufacturers to sell more zero-emission passenger cars, large trucks, delivery vans, and school buses. Click here to learn more. 

Fight for better public transit!

Join us to push for actions that will improve public transit across the state and support walkable, bikeable, pedestrian friendly communities.  Click here to learn more. 

Stop the Toll Lane Expansion of the Capital Beltway (I-495) and I-270

Help us work to halt Gov. Hogan’s proposed toll lane expansion of the Beltway and I-270 and replace it with a more equitable, sustainable solutions for reducing traffic congestion Click here to learn more.

Additional Issues and Local Efforts

• Stop the Baltimore Washington Superconducting Maglev Project

• Stop a Third Bay Bridge

• Montgomery County Transportation Initiatives 

• St Mary's County has launched a Transportation Work Group with an initial focus on making improvements to the existing bus system and promoting walkable and bikeable communities to make our communities more enjoyable, clean and accessible. To join or find out more, contact rosa.hance@mdsierra.org. 

Contact Information

Lindsey Mendelson, Clean Transportation Staffer, Email: Lindsey.Mendelson@mdsierra.org

Jane Lyons-Raeder, Transportation Chair