Federal Transportation Crisis Continues

Things are not looking good, from MassBike.

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Things have gone from bad to worse. On the House side, there has been an all-out assault not only on bike funding, but also transit, environmental review, and basically anything other than highways and bridges. The House Bill (H.R. 7) is one of the most extreme examples of slash and burn politics, described as “uniquely terrible,” (NY Times) “disastrous,” (Rep. Nadler) and “The worst transportation bill I’ve ever seen.” (Sec. LaHood) Because the Petri Amendment failed, the consensus among a wide variety of groups is that the best hope for biking and walking is to kill the House Bill entirely and start over. Transportation for America, a national transportation advocacy group, notes,

“More than 75 national organizations signed the letter [of opposition to H.R. 7] – including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, AARP, the American Public Transportation Association, the National Rural Assembly, American Society of Civil Engineers, LOCUS (real estate developers), National Association of Counties- and a huge list of other individuals and state & local groups, including the governors of Oregon and Washington, several state DOTs, state and local Chambers of Commerce, and hundreds of state and local organizations nationwide.”

You may be seeing Action Alerts from national organizations asking you to contact your Representatives to ask them to vote against the bill. Here in Massachusetts, MassBike and our T4MA partners are contacting all our Representatives, who we expect will all strongly oppose the bill.

With an incredibly diverse array of groups (including the Tea Party!) aligned in opposition to the House Bill, MassBike and our partners are concentrating on what’s happening in the Senate. You may remember our post several weeks ago about MAP-21, the senate’s version of the transportation bill. Amendments are still possible in the Senate Bill, including one expected to be filed by Senator Cardin. There may be new amendments by tomorrow or Monday, and we want to have everything on the table before you spend time getting in touch with Senators Brown and Kerry.

We are working hard with our organizational partners to make sure that the votes are there to kill the House Bill and to improve the Senate Bill. (In fact, Executive Director David Watson is at a Rails to Trails Conservancy meeting in Philadelphia right now to coordinate the national campaign.) Because the Massachusetts delegation has consistently supported biking in this process so far, and we are contacting them on your behalf, we aren’t asking you to engage your Representative now. And the situation in the Senate is still very fluid, so we want to be sure that the time is right before we call on you to contact our Senators.

We are expecting to issue an Action Alert by Monday as things become more clear in the Senate, so stay tuned! When we do send out the Alert, we will need you to take action immediately.

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NPR Tackles Transportation Bill And Cycling

We have talked about this several times here before, but here is an awesome break down of the transportation bill and what it has to do with bicycling.

Part 1, Part 2.

Link to show here.

Thanks Rebecca for the tip.

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Situation For Biking Gets Worse In The House, Act Now!

From MassBike

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The situation in the House is even more dire than we reported last week. We’re alerting you again because your representative, Michael Capuano, is a leading member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. (If you do not live in his district, you do not need to take action yet.)

If you contacted Mr. Capuano last week, thank you! But if you have not yet contacted him, right now is the time!

Today, the House releases its transportation bill, the American Energy and Infrastructure Act. When we got in touch with you last week, we knew the bill would be bad news for biking and walking. But we didn’t think it would go so far as to completely cut bicycling and walking out of federal transportation policy.

We now know that the bill would do much more damage than initially thought, including:

• Destroys Transportation Enhancements by making the program optional
• Repeals the Safe Routes to School program, reversing years of progress in creating safe ways for kids to walk and ride bicycles to school
• Allows states to build bridges without safe access for pedestrians and bicycles
• Eliminates bicycle and pedestrian coordinators in state DOTs
• Eliminates language requiring that rumble strips “do not adversely affect the safety or mobility of bicyclists, pedestrians or the disabled”

But there is still hope. Representative Petri (R-WI) will stand up for bicycling and walking by offering an amendment that restores dedicated funding for Transportation Enhancements and Safe Routes to School, and hopefully goes even further to address the other problems. We need you to contact Representative Capuano TODAY and ask him to SUPPORT the Petri amendment!

This is as urgent as it gets. Even if we do win this amendment, there will be a long road ahead. But if we lose here, we risk losing decades of progress.

Let Mr. Capuano know what biking and walking mean to you. In his district alone:

• Nearly $2 million in Safe Routes to School funding has gone to making the streets safer for children trying to walk or bike to school;
• Transportation Enhancements has supported over $34 million in bike and pedestrian infrastructure, improving the experience for all users of the road;
• Nationally, biking and walking make up 12% of all trips, and 14% of traffic fatalities, but only receive 1.5% of federal funding.

Representative Capuano’s office phone number is (202) 225-5111, or you can email him by clicking here. Please take action today.

1. Call and/or email Representative Capuano TODAY, tell him why bicycling is important to you, and ask him to do two things:

• SUPPORT the Petri amendment to maintain funding for bicycle and pedestrian programs
• OPPOSE any move to eliminate funding for bicycle and pedestrian programs

2. Email [email protected] and let us know you contacted him.

If you don’t have time to call or email, then you can fill out an automated form here, though personalized messages are always preferable.

We know we are asking a lot of you and we thank you for all you’re doing to preserve biking and walking.

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House Tries To De-Fund Cycling, Don’t Let Them!

From MassBike

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Last Fall, you helped us defeat Senate attacks on biking and walking. But now the House of Representatives is launching its own attack. Next Thursday, February 2nd, we can expect the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to vote on its version of the surface transportation bill, called “The American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act.” Alarms went off when we learned that the two primary sources of federal bike funding, Transportation Enhancements and Safe Routes to School, will be eliminated.

The legislation will be open for amendments for only a short time in the T&I Committee. If you live in Representative Michael Capuano’s district, a high-ranking member of the committee, we need your help. During Thursday’s vote, he could be the key to making sure that a pro-biking amendment passes. Will you ask him today to vote to preserve funding for biking and walking in the transportation bill?

Let him know that in his district alone:

• Nearly $2 million in Safe Routes to School funding has gone to making the streets safer for children trying to walk or bike to school;
• Transportation Enhancements has supported over $34 million in bike and pedestrian infrastructure, improving the experience for all users of the road;
• Biking and walking make up 12 percent of all trips, but only 1.5 percent of federal funding.

Representative Capuano’s office phone number is (202) 225-5111, or you can email him by clicking here. Please take action today:

1. Call and/or email Representative Capuano TODAY, tell him why bicycling is important to you, and ask him to do two things:

• OPPOSE any move to eliminate the Transportation Enhancements or Safe Routes to School Program
• SUPPORT an amendment to maintain the funding to bike and pedestrian programs

2. Email [email protected] and let us know you contacted him!

If you don’t have time to call or email, then you can fill out an automated form here, though personalized messages are always preferable. Don’t know who your representative is?  Find out here.

Even if you don’t live in District 8, feel free to contact your representative. While he won’t be able to act on this legislation until it hits the floor in February, it can’t hurt to let him know that biking is important to you. Thanks for your support, and for helping us work toward a better state (and country) for biking.

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