Legislators are coming back to the state capitol after taking a summer recess and with your company’s help, the message will be clear: It’s time to fix our roads.

MTT has made it a goal that legislator offices will receive over 1,000 calls from the toll-free number by the end of September. It has taken almost two months for 372 calls to be made by the entire Michigan Transportation Team Coalition.

With this aggressive initiative, we are hopeful that coalition members will select a “call day” within their company. On that specific day, all employees from the receptionists to the field staff to the CEO are encouraged to spend five minutes to call the specially created MTT toll-free number and send a message to their legislators.

The message is simple: I live in your district, Michigan roads stink, we have a crisis in funding and after four years of waiting, it’s time for legislators to find a solution. (For a copy of a sample paycheck stuffer, click on the attached pdf.)

Callers to the toll-free number, 1-888-719-3087, are prompted to enter their home zip code. They will then be asked to select among the legislators who represent their area and they will be transferred to the office. It is very unlikely that callers will actually be connected directly to their elected official, but leaving a message with staff will have the same impact.

Once the caller leaves a message, they are asked to call the toll-free one more time. It is important that one phone call go to the representative and one phone call go to the senator.

Why now?

As this fall comes to a close, legislators become less and less likely to take action on road funding for an entire year because 2010 is an election year. Now is the time to do your part. Without a new funding stream, the MDOT Highway Program faces a 35 percent decline in 2010 and an over 60 percent decline in 2011 because of the state’s inability to match federal dollars.