Groups seek help to keep bicycle and pedestrian funding alive

Bicycle advocacy groups are beating the drums again for us to contact our U.S. senators and congressmen this week.

Lackluster transportation bills in the House and Senate that all but ignore bicycle and pedestrian funding are the issue again.

Groups such as League of American Bicyclists, Rails to Trails Conservancy, Adventure Cycling Association, Bike Virginia and Bicycle Alliance of Washington, among others, are putting out the call for help.

Senate bill

The Senate transportation bill, MAP-21, will be debated next week. According to advocates, the bill removes dedicated funding for bicycle projects and allows state transportation departments to opt-out of safe street programs, regardless of what local governments want.

Bicycle and pedestrians groups support a bi-partisan amendment by Senators Thad Cochran, R-Mississippi, and Ben Cardin, D-Maryland, that ensures local governments will have a voice in funding biking and walking projects.

They asking we contact our Senators to support that amendment, which will be voted on next week.

House bill

Meanwhile, the House transportation bill that made it through the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure last week without bicycle funding will be put up for a vote soon in the House.

In the words of Jim Sayer, executive director of Adventure Cycling:

“The House bill eliminates ALL dedicated funding for cycling and pedestrian facilities and strips out many long-standing policies that benefit biking and walking. It’s an awful bill and deserves defeat.”

The transportation bill is called the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act, but as we know, bicycle projects create more jobs per dollar than massive road projects. (See “Bicycle lane construction gets bigger bang for the buck.”)

If that bill gets defeated, we can look forward to restoration of bicycle and pedestrian funding in the bills.

How to

The League of American Bicycles has created a tool that sends an email to your Senators and Congressman. It contains a canned message, which you can edit to say anything you want.

Check the Action Alertand find the message tool at the bottom of the page. You'll have to use your name and address.