It’s time to ask both chambers of Congress to save our streets.
The current Senate transportation bill dilutes walking and biking programs. To improve the bill, we’re asking senators to vote for the Cardin-Cochran amendment on the floor to guarantee local governments a voice in transportation decisions, allowing them to build sidewalks, crosswalks, and bikeways that keep people safe.
In the House, we are asking representatives to oppose the House transportation bill. Despite the fact that walking and bicycling infrastructure is a low-cost investment that creates more jobs per dollar than any other kind of highway spending, the House bill eliminates dedicated funding for walking and biking.
As written, the Senate’s transportation bill removes dedicated funding for walking and biking and allows state DOTs to opt-out of safe street programs. The Cardin-Cochran amendment would improve the bill by ensuring that local governments can apply directly for funds to build walking and biking infrastructure.
Tell your senators:
Local governments deserve a voice in transportation. The Cardin-Cochran amendment ensures that cities and counties have a voice in making transportation decisions for safer streets in their communities.
Safety matters. Bicycle and pedestrian deaths make up 14% of all traffic fatalities, but only 1.5% of federal funds go towards making walking and biking safer. These programs provide funding for sidewalks, crosswalks, and bikeways that make streets safe for all users.
Active transportation is a wise investment. Walking and biking infrastructure is low-cost, creates more jobs per dollar than any other kind of highway spending, and is critical to economic development for main street America.
On the other side of Congress, the House is considering a transportation bill (HR 7) that reverses 20 years of progress in making streets safer for people. Despite the fact that walking and biking make up 12% of trips but receive only 1.5% of federal funding, the House bill eliminates dedicated funding for walking and biking. It’s time to defeat this bill.
Tell your representative:
HR 7 takes us back to the 1950s. HR 7 takes us back to a 1950s system by eliminating dedicated funding for biking and walking AND kicking transit out of the highway trust fund. We need a transportation bill to meet 2012 needs, not 1950 needs.
HR 7 doesn’t invest wisely. Federal transportation laws should invest our finite resources in cost-effective, efficient infrastructure solutions that create jobs and keep the economy moving. The House bill eliminates walking and biking, despite the fact that walking and bicycling infrastructure is low-cost and creates more jobs per dollar than any other kind of highway funding.
HR 7 makes streets more dangerous for kids. By repealing the successful and effective Safe Routes to School program, the House bill makes the streets more dangerous for kids on their walks and bike rides to school.
On Thursday, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee narrowly voted against preserving the small amount of essential federal funds that make it safer for people who walk and bike across the country. During the contentious vote, 27 committee members supported the bipartisan Petri-Johnson-Lipinski amendment, coming just two votes shy of a victory.
The good news: Thanks to incredible efforts of many local advocacy leaders to engage grassroots members in action, we gained bipartisan support for the amendment and showed Congress that we mean business.
The amendment was introduced with support from both sides of the aisle: Representatives Tom Petri (R-WI), Tim Johnson (R-IL), and Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ) and all committee Democrats voted in favor of the bill. These three Republican Representatives deserve special commendation, because they chose to champion safety for all road users despite extreme pressure from their House leadership to essentially throw school children, pedestrians and cyclists off the bridge to the future.
And we definitely got the House leadership’s attention. The amendment sparked heated remarks from both sides, including an impassioned defense of Safe Routes to School by Representative DeFazio (D-OR).
But there is still a long climb ahead.
Elimination of funds for biking and walking isn’t the only reason the House bill is terrible policy. The House bill puts public transit in jeopardy by diverting transit funds, an issue that has raised the alarm at Transportation for America and the American Public Transportation Association. A coalition of environmental organizations strongly objects to the bill’s environmentally backwards provisions, as well.
The Alliance joins our partners at America Bikes in thanking the tens of thousands of bicycling and pedestrian advocates from across the country who contacted their representatives on the T&I Committee in support of the Transportation Enhancements and Safe Routes to School programs. The amendment also drew support from more than 60 national, state, and local organizations that recognize the importance of federal support for local infrastructure and safety projects. Several Alliance organizations engaged their membership on this effort, and we appreciate their leadership.
As the House bill moves through committee to the floor and the Senate makes progress on its transportation bill, the Alliance is working with America Bikes to engage our organizations in key states that will help ensure influential Representatives and Senators are on our side and can support needed action to protect funding for walking and biking. Please stay tuned for specific emails to engage your organization in this focused strategy and be sure to contact me at Jeff@PeoplePoweredMovement.org with any questions or concerns.
And be sure to register for two important events this Wednesday, February 8:
1 p.m. Eastern: Federal Policy Webinar, hosted by the Alliance and the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals. We’ll be joined by Caron Whitaker, Campaign Director for America Bikes, who will have up-to-the-minute information from Capitol Hill and insight on collective strategies to preserve dedicated funding for biking and walking in the next federal transportation bill. Register here.
2 p.m. Eastern: Working with Your Members of Congress Mutual Aid Call. Now, more than ever, building and cultivating relationships with your members of Congress is vital to protecting biking and walking funding at the federal level. Hear examples, strategies, tips and insight from Tyler Frisbee, legislative assistant to Congressman Earl Blumenauer; Ed Barsotti, Executive Director of the League of Illinois Bicyclists; and Gerik Kransky, Advocacy Director for the Bicycle Transportation Alliance. Register here.
Yesterday, the House released its transportation bill, the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act. We expected the bill to be bad news for biking and walking, but we didn’t think it would go so far as to reverse all progress we’ve made over the past 20 years. (Check out the Top 10 Reasons the House Bill is Bad for Bicycling and Walking from Andy Clarke, president of the League of American Bicyclists, on the right.)
If your member of Congress is on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, please take action TODAY. With a vote coming in the T&I committee TOMORROW, tell your Representative to preserve biking and walking. Click here to contact your Representative through the League’s Action Center.
House leadership is exerting pressure to completely cut bicycling and walking out of transportation. Lawmakers seem to have gone through the bill, line-by-line, to gut programs that make streets safer. The American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act:
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
Removes requirements for states to build bridges with safe access for pedestrians and bicycles
Eliminates bicycle and pedestrian coordinators in state DOTs
There’s still a chance to save biking and walking. Tomorrow, in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Representatives Tom Petri (R-WI) and Timothy Johnson (R-IL) plan to stand up to leadership by offering an amendment that restores dedicated funding for Transportation Enhancements and Safe Routes to School. Petri and Johnson can only be successful if everyone with a stake in safe sidewalks, crosswalks, and bikeways contacts his or her Representative today.
This is as urgent as it gets. Even if we win this amendment, there will be a long road ahead. But if we lose here, we risk losing decades of progress.
If members of the Transportation Committee are going to stand up to House leadership by supporting biking and walking, they need to know their constituents are behind them. Please contact Congress TODAY and ask your Representative to preserve dedicated funding for biking and walking.
If you have a Representative on the T&I committee, please forward this action alert to your members and supporters. Pass it along to all your local partners — particularly high-level contacts like mayors, school board members, and business leaders — and ask them to weigh in, too. And thank you for all you do to advance biking and walking!
A new report from the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy dispels the commonly held notion that only residents of big cities bike and walk. According to “Active Transportation Beyond the Urban Centers” folks in rural areas travel by bike and on foot as much — and in some cases, even more — than people in major population centers.
“It’s a widespread assumption in popular media and politics that people in small towns and rural areas do not walk or bike for transportation purposes,” says Tracy Hadden Loh, co-author of the report and research manager at RTC. “This report demonstrates that, in fact, rates for walking and bicycling in rural areas are close to, and sometimes higher than, the national average.”
Some key findings in the report include:
In terms of total trips, rural Americans bike at a rate of between 74 percent and 104 percent of the overall national rate, depending on the type of community in which they live.
The share of work trips made by bicycle in small towns is nearly double that of urban centers. Within small towns of 2,500 to 10,000 residents, people walk for work purposes at a rate similar to the urban core communities.
Federal investment in biking and walking benefits rural areas as much or more than urban centers. Rural areas receive almost twice as much funding per capita as urban areas from the federal Transportation Enhancements program
Among a list of travel priorities, rural Americans selected sidewalks more often than any other transportation need and nine out of 10 cited the importance of pedestrian friendly communities.
The report couldn’t come at a more pivotal moment. Congress is moving on the next federal transportation bill and the current House bill guts all funding for biking and walking projects and programs. This report proves that short-changing biking and walking by eliminating programs like Transportation Enhancements and Safe Routes to School affects all communities across the U.S.
“Small communities need safe and convenient walking and bicycling facilities just as much as big cities,” says Kevin Mills, report co-author and RTC’s VP of Policy and Trail Development. “To meet this need, Transportation Enhancements has provided twice the funding per capita in rural America than in big cities. This includes rehabilitating walkable main streets in small town that have been bypassed by interstates.”
According to RTC: “In coming years, active transportation can play an even bigger role in making small town America more attractive for young families and business investment — improving economic vitality, traffic safety and overall health in smaller communities in every region of the country.”
Read the full report and check out the interactive map here.
This month, the Mill Valley School District passed a new Safe Routes to School policy, initiated by the Marin County Bicycle Coalition (MCBC) that would encourage students in the district to walk, bike, or carpool to school each day. The policy gives support for safety education at school, as well as support for the Mill Valley Safe Routes to School Program.
The goal of the policy is to ensure that students in the district have access to safety education and support for walking and biking to school regardless of any changes in staff or elected officials. The foresighted advocates at MCBC recognized that, without that assurance in writing, progresses in programming could be walked back with a new superintendent or principal.
MCBC began the process by working with a city council member, a school board member, and the superintendent to draft the policy. They based their draft on the California School Board Association’s sample board policy and then adapted it to their specific needs. From there, they took the policy to the school board, where it passed unanimously.
Wendi Kallins, the program director for Safe Routes to School at the MCBC, credits the smooth passage of the new policy to the collaboration with school board members and the school district system. Now MCBC has a local example of how this policy (and the process to get there) can work — and take similar policies to other school districts.
“Don’t overreach but don’t compromise on your basic goal of institutionalizing Safe Routes to Schools,” Kallins says of crafting a similar policy for your community. “You might have to change the policy to say ‘may’ instead of ‘shall,’ but include the elements that are essential: education, encouragement, task force participation for engineering and enforcement, and evaluation.”
Click here to download the model policy from the Alliance Resource Library.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee published its proposal for the next federal transportation program late on November 4. The 600-page bill will be marked-up in committee on Wednesday, November 9. The proposed legislation makes significant changes to the core, dedicated funding programs for bicycling and walking activities, as this side-by-side analysis shows.
America Bikes coalition members and staff are analyzing the bill, working with committee staff and members to address specific issues, and preparing to brief the media and stakeholders on all aspects of the proposed legislation. Please visit the America Bikes website and stay tuned to the Alliance blog for updates today and in the days ahead.
In the first week of October, two students at Carnell Elementary in Philadelphia were struck by cars in separate accidents. While neither student was severely injured, the events left community members and school officials shaken.
In response to the accidents, the school’s principal approached Safe Routes Philly — a program of the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia — for support creating a school-wide focus on pedestrian safety. Within a few days, all 1,600 Carnell Elementary students had attended one of seven interactive assemblies conducted by Safe Routes Philly on various aspects of pedestrian safety. The assemblies included call-and-response songs and videos demonstrating safe walking and biking behavior.
According to Safe Routes Philly, “Carnell’s response to two accidents in its community will help prevent future accidents, and reflects the importance of a school administration which cares how students get to and from school.”
Biking and walking to school provides daily exercise to students and fosters a sense of school community. However, it’s important that students understand the safety measures necessary to protect against accidents and injuries.
Interested in Safe Routes Philly? Learn more from Diana Owens, the program’s Assistant Director of Education, on the recent Alliance Mutual Aid Call on “Winning Local Policies for Safe Routes to School.” Stay up-to-date by subscribing to the BCGP blog.
In 2007-2008, districts across the United States spent a staggering $21.5 billion busing students from their neighborhoods to the classroom. At an average of $854 per student, that accounted for more than 4 percent of the entire cost of the K-12 education system.
By helping to create the conditions that get more kids to bike and walk to school instead, the Safe Routes to School movement is reducing that massive price tag. And the advocates at the Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation have created a new tool that aims to puts a dollar value on those notable savings.
Of course, busing trumps private automobiles by a long shot, saving 347 million vehicle miles traveled each day. And busing certainly makes sense for students traveling longer distances. “We know that school bus transportation is cheaper, better for the environment, and often better for kids, than being driven in private automobiles,” the Missouri advocates point out. But they also know that: “Walking and bicycling, when feasible and safe, is cheaper, healthier, and generally better for most kids than either of the other options.”
So the federation did some number crunching. They found that a typical student who bicycles or walks to school receives the following amount of savings and benefits:
Bicycling: $2,749 per year ($1,129 in cost savings and health benefits; $1,620 in enjoyment benefit)
Walking: $1,856 per year ($596 in cost savings and health benefits; $1,260 in enjoyment benefit)
Want to calculate the benefits in your community? Download the federation’s calculator in the Alliance Resource Library. Click here to read more about the data sources.
This spring, we unveiled our Safe Routes to School Coloring and Activity Books and we’re delighted that several states and communities already are using this great new resource. Let’s Walk to School and Let’s Bike There, are a valuable addition to any local or state Safe Routes to School program.
Each activity book provides 16 pages of:
Fun and engaging drawings that outline the joy and benefits of biking and walking
Safety tips, like the “ABC Check” for bicycling and safe street crossing for pedestrians
Activities to apply that knowledge, like word finds and connect-the-dots pictures
Alliance member organizations are eligible for a great discount on these books and could even to make a profit, working with a city or state agency to place an order or resell these directly. For large orders, we can also customize activity books with an organization’s logo, name and website. It can also be a chance to recognize agency and business sponsors.
Place an order by Friday, September 2 and we may be able to offer you an additional discount — and make sure you get your books next month! We invite you to place your order soon to get these great publications in time for International Walk and Bike to School Month.
Click here for a price chart and sample pages. For questions or to order, contact Jeremy Grandstaff, Alliance Member Services Director, at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
The previous school limit of 25 miles per hour was reduced by 10 mph this past week, leading to safer streets for children and pedestrians. Starting with Peabody Elementary in San Francisco’s western Richmond District, the change will be in affect at all – more than 200 – city schools this fall.
“These safe speed zones have been a major goal for Walk SF and its members,” Elizabeth Stampe, Walk San Francisco’s Executive Director, said in the group’s press release. “They will help create a more safe and sustainable city, helping kids get to school safely and calming traffic in neighborhoods throughout the City. This is a big step forward for everyone who walks in San Francisco.”
As the first city to adopt the 15 mph zones, San Francisco residents can thank the members of Walk SF for their effective campaigning toward calming traffic throughout the city for all pedestrians.
Thanks to a two-year grant from the Federal Highway Administration, the Bicycle Alliance is launching Go By Bike — an initiative that targets adult bicycle education at community colleges and elementary schools. According to the latest issue of the Bicycle Alliance newsletter, The Advocate, the program will:
Add 10 to 20 hours of bike safety and maintenance curriculum to existing physical education and health courses taught at community colleges in Central Puget Sound
Offer parent-education course at elementary schools
And provide a Web-based forum to augment both curricula
“In one of the programs, I’ll work directly with parents of students at two elementary schools to teach them safe bicycling, encourage bicycling and encourage them to bicycle with their children,” Josh Miller, an urban planning specialist who was hired to lead the program, explained. “In the other program, I’ll be working with four colleges to help them develop safe cycling courses. This will include collaborative curriculum development, assisting with institutionalizing bicycle education programs at each college and mentoring the teachers who will teach the courses.”
The Bicycle Alliance hopes the initiative will add a new dimension to proven programming and impact multiple generations of potential active commuters.
“By incorporating an adult element, Go By Bike will take Safe Routes to School to the next level,” Miller added. “It will go a long way toward getting parents to buy into the concept and trust their kids to bike responsibly.”
Stay tuned to the Bicycle Alliance blog or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) to learn more.
Dedicated funding for biking and walking has been cut in the transportation proposal from the U.S. House of Representatives.
John Mica, chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, would eliminate critical Transportation Enhancements, Safe Routes to School and Recreational Trails programs — programs that Mica referred to as “not in the national interest.” Chairman Mica’s statement that these uses remain “eligible” for funding is worthless. Without dedicated funding for these three programs they are effectively eliminated.
Things on the Senate side are not much better. Senator James Inhofe, a lead negotiator in the Senate debate, declared that one of his TOP THREE priorities for the transportation bill is to eliminate ‘frivolous spending for bike trails.’ This is in direct conflict with Senator Barbara Boxer’s commitment to maintain dedicated funding for biking and walking. However, the Senate is working towards a bi-partisan solution – and Senator Inhofe’s comments mean funding for bicycling and pedestrian programs is at risk of total elimination.
We need every single person who simply wants safe options to walk or bicycle to contact their Senators and Representative TODAY! We ask all Alliance member organizations to engage your members to make these calls as well.
Thanks to our partners at the League of American Bicyclists, you can direct your members to use the LAB Action Center to send message to their members of Congress.
Not in the National Interest?
Biking and walking make up 12 percent of all trips in the US – even as funding for biking and walking projects only account for 1.5% of the federal transportation budget. That’s more than 4 billion bicycle trips and 40 billion walking trips per year, including trips to work, school, shopping and for recreation and tourism.
Frivolous?
Bicyclists and pedestrians are the victims of reckless highway design, accounting for 14% of all traffic-related deaths. Two-thirds of all pedestrian deaths are on federally funded highways. Bicycling and walking programs build sidewalks, crosswalks and bikeways, improving accessibility and saving lives.
The Facts
Biking and walking are important forms of transportation, and dedicated funding for bicycle and pedestrian improvements is a very efficient use of federal transportation dollars. Portland, Oregon built a 300-mile network of bike lanes, multi-use trails, and bike boulevards for the cost of one mile of highway.
These projects also create jobs, and build local economies. Building bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure creates 46% more jobs than building road-only projects per million dollars spent. Cities that invest in bicycle and pedestrian projects turn downtowns into destinations, and capitalize on increased business activity.
Finally, shifting 1.5% of transportation spending has no impact on the federal budget, but instead, decreases transportation options for American families in a time of rising gas prices and an uncertain economy.
Help Protect Transportation Enhancements, Safe Routes to School and Recreational Trails. Contact your Representative and Senators, and tell them to reach out to Senators Inhofe, Boxer, and Congressman Mica to urge them to continue dedicated funding for these important biking and walking programs. We need every Senator and every Representative to speak out for walking and biking.
Why Now?
Both the House and Senate long-term transportation bills are being written as we speak. We still have a chance of influencing the outcomes. Let’s make sure that dedicated funding for biking and walking programs don’t disappear for many years.
Your Next Steps
Use the LAB Action Center — and direct your members to use the LAB Action Center — to send a message to your members of Congress.
We appreciate your efforts to help all of us maintain these important programs. Please contact Jeremy Grandstaff, Alliance Member Services Director, at jeremy@PeoplePoweredMovement.org, if you have any questions.
Thanks to a recent grant from the Michael Lee Environmental Foundation, the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition is about to rev up its educational efforts with a new program set to roll out this October. In alignment with International Walk to School Day on October 5th, SVBC is planning a brand new effort aimed to get children active.
While the new program is still in the initial planning stages, the Alliance was lucky to get a sneak peak of what’s in store for children at one lucky elementary school. Kicking off with an initial bicycle education day, the month-long program will continue with once-a-week group commutes, via walking bus or bikepool. I’m new to the concept of group commutes, so I asked Colin Heyne, Deputy Director of the SVBC, what they’re all about.
“The group passes by houses and other designated pickup spots along the [route], and a student joins the group,” Heyne explained. “It’s like a musical where one person starts marching down the street, singing, and is eventually joined by the whole scrappy Brooklyn neighborhood, except less spontaneous.”
SVBC also plans to prepare environmental lessons to go along with each week’s commute, to be taught either by a SVBC employee or a regular classroom teacher.
SVBC is not new to youth bicycle education efforts. The organization has previously organized bike rodeos and, most recently, teamed with Specialized Bicycles to host a bicycle education day and rodeo at a local elementary school. For the new program, the candidate elementary school has yet to be selected. Past experience has shown that this process could prove difficult without the support of the principal and parents. SVBC is currently reaching out to the elementary school where the organization has previously worked.
“We feel if we can establish a replicable model there, it will be easier to spread the project to other schools,” Heyne said.
In addition to promoting activity amongst children, SVBC believes the program will achieve several objectives, including supporting Safe Routes to School, increasing parent participation in children’s health, encouraging good behaviors that can continue into adulthood, and connected the dots between active transportation and environmental stewardship.
Heyne promises updates about the program in SVBC’s weekly e-bulletin, so be sure to check out SVBC’s website and subscribe to the organization e-bulletin here.
On April 1st, the Los Angeles City Council considered – and passed – an allocation of $1.2 million in funding for a citywide Safe Routes to School Plan.
Safe Routes to School programs are state and federal funding programs aimed to improve bicycle infrastructure within a two-mile radius of schools, including funding for education and encouragement programs. According to the Safe Routes to School National Partnership, 25 percent of school-aged children living in the City of Los Angeles are overweight, and parents driving their children to school accounts for 15 – 25 percent of the city’s morning traffic congestion. According to Jennifer Klausner, the Executive Director of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, “Approving the funding for this plan is a progressive step toward making the streets around our schools safer and more inviting for children and families bicycling and walking to school.”
The plan will fund the first year of a two-year study that will use collision data to prioritize the city’s efforts and develop a meaningful approach to make communities more walkable and bikeable by pushing funding to the areas that need it most. The current approach has 15 city districts competing to submit projects to LADOT for each round of state DOT funding, and the areas in need of SRTS dollars don’t always win funding. According to Jessica Meaney, the California policy manager of Safe Routes to School National Partnership, the passage of this plan will create a more efficient strategy. “The city of LA is huge,” Meaney said. “It takes a lot of effort to prioritize areas of highest need. This strategy is looking to the long term.”
Included as part of the City of Los Angeles Bicycle Plan, a $5.47 million plan that will also fund new bike lanes, bike racks, and bicycle-friendly pavement markings, the SRTS plan will be financed with the Measure R local return dollars that LACBC and allies fought for last year. The passage of this plan will make the city more competitive, ensuring that it will receive future state and federal SRTS funds.
Members of Congress are in the thick of making important decisions that will affect billions of dollars in federal funding for biking and walking projects. The Alliance keeps you up-to-date on these critical developments through our monthly Federal Policy and Legislation Call. If you missed today’s session, with guests from America Bikes and NACTO, member services fellow Mike Samuelson has you covered with the following, detailed notes…
National Bike Summit Follow-up
Great job to everyone who came! We held lots of productive meetings, including some with new members and with offices that we have not had access to in the past. We have been following up on Summit meetings, so it is very helpful when you complete your reports, which can be done on the League of American Bicyclists’ website. If you have not followed up to thank the Representative or staffers you met with, please do so ASAP. This is also a great time to invite them to an event in-district, like a large ride or ribbon cutting for a new facility. Representatives will be in-district during Bike to Work Day, so if you are participating in an event, invite your local Representative.
America Bikes: Report from Capitol Hill We’re still waiting for Congress to pass a 2011 budget — that was the bill we saw a vote on in early February. We have already seen two short-term extensions and the current extension of the continuing resolution runs out on April 8. Many members on both sides of the aisle say this will be the last extension. The bill will go back to both the House and Senate and rumor has it that transportation won’t be protected like it was previously, so we may see an amendment that goes after some of our programs. The fight is ongoing, but should be concluded by April 8. If there are attacks on bike/ped funding, we will let you know.
The House is also working on reauthorization of the transportation bill. Mica is planning to write the bill in April and release it in late May or early June. It could look different from what we have seen before because the funding is so low: Mica is looking at each program to determine if it should stay, be cut or be consolidated. There’s a possibility that Transportation Enhancement could be moved out of the Highway Trust Fund, which would mean it would have guaranteed funding through the five- to six-year cycle of the transportation bill. What we saw in February is that the programs that were not in the Highway Trust Fund were cut, so this is not a place we want TE to be. This would also make it tougher to have votes strictly on funding bike/ped, because it would require coming up with a funding source for the program, which, in turn, makes getting GOP support more difficult, because funding would come from the general fund.
In the Senate, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has been a supporter of biking before but is working with Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) who is not a supporter. The Senate is about a month behind the House in terms of when they introduce legislation. The chambers haven’t talked to each other about funding, so it will be very hard to pass a bill this year. But each battle is important in the grand scheme, so losing this year will make it tougher next year.
As for marker bills: We’re working to reintroduce the Complete Streets bill and trying to get more Republicans to co-sponsor the bill. Hopefully, Complete Streets will be introduced by April. Safe Routes to School will likely be the next bill to be introduced, and we should expect to see that introduced before the transportation bill. Next is the ACT (Active Community Transportation) Act, which will also likely happen in the next couple of months.
The current extension on SAFETEA-LU runs until September 30 and Rep. John Mica (R-FL), chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is claiming that it is the last extension he’ll do. He is pushing to do a 6 year bill. However, he has an uphill battle given that the House and Senate will have to agree on funding for the bill.
Categorical Exclusions
The Obama administration, including the US Department of Transportation, is looking at regulations and how to make them more efficient. We are collecting examples of where categorical exclusions are being used well or poorly. If you have an example, please contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Equity Caucus
The Equity Caucus — an initiative within Transportation for America — is proposing a National Conversation on Transportation Equity, with a series of local events to be held around the country in late April and May 2011. Any groups interested in participating in one of these events should contact Erica Swanson: swanson@civilrights.org; (202) 263-2859.
NACTO Urban Bikeways Design Guide
This guide came from discussion among advocates, engineers and planners regarding what is needed to advance bicycling at the design level — given constraints posed by current design guides like the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). This NACTO guide takes the most innovative practices from the US and the world and puts them in one place. Currently it is only online, which allows people to post their projects and discuss the different techniques in the guide. NACTO is currently working on a print edition, which will allow engineers to use them in court, if needed. They hope to have that out this summer.
NACTO also worked closely with the Federal Highway Administration to try to get various designs accepted in the MUTCD. This can be a very long process, but since many of these techniques are already in use, we are hoping they can be expedited. FHA went ahead and commented on most of these treatments to show that they can already be done.
How can advocates use this resource? This is a great resource to show local officials that these designs can be done and are being done legally in the US. With these tools, advocates can hopefully avoid applying for an exemption. This will be a resource for people in local DOTs, but will also help advocates push for separated cycle facilities. If people are claiming they can’t build a facility because it’s not in the AASHTO or MUTCD guides, this is something you can point them to. It is important to highlight that many of these items are not expensive and can be done in a very cost effective way.
Cities for Cycling, a NACTO program for politicians and officials to lend their expertise and also learn from others across the country, will be doing “road shows” in the coming months. Check out http://www.nacto.org for more information.
We’ve been telling you for weeks that our movement is facing a critical moment in the U.S. Congress. The time to act is now just days away.
We expect that early next week the U.S. House will be voting on the 2011 budget. It’s very possible amendments to that bill could devastate or eliminate programs and funding for biking and walking. We hope the efforts of America Bikes, and groups like yours, will prevent the inclusion of such shortsighted amendments, but we need you to be prepared to mobilize your organization, members and supporters. It’s almost certain that we will have less than 24 hours to act!
It’s going to be an incredibly tight window, but the stakes are high. This first vote will inform and influence all the others, so it’s critically important we present a strong, unified voice for biking and walking. Please keep your lines of communication open and ready to blast this crucial action alert as quickly as possible.
We’ve got a parade of new, but familiar, faces taking the helm of Alliance organizations in 2011. Many of you know Dave Snyder from his frequent role as the expert facilitator of our Winning Campaigns Trainings. But now that he’s the executive director of the revitalized California Bicycle Coalition, we wondered what he’s been up to in recent years and what winning ideas he has planned for the Golden State.
When and how did you first get involved in bike-ped issues way back in the day?
I got involved on Earth Day 1990, when I decided that bicycling promotion was a good way to channel my activism. I published a newsletter (this was pre-world wide web) to facilitate communication among the various flavors of bicycle activists and coordinated them under the name of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, an organization that had gone legally defunct after its 1971 founding but was being maintained in name, at least, by one stalwart dedicated activist.
Anyone who’s been to an Alliance Winning Campaigns Training knows you’ve had many and varied successes in your long career; what was the very first campaign you worked on?
It was one I wouldn’t have worked on if I had had the training! Highway One between Stinson Beach and Mill Valley had closed due to mudslides. It became a beautiful bike ride: We fought to keep it closed to cars forever. It would have been amazing but utterly un-winnable and not exactly on message or mission in any case. We had fun, though!
You grew the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition into a powerhouse organization; what’s one of your best memories or biggest lessons learned from those years?
Turning out about 150 people to a hearing on the citywide bicycle network, and coordinating the testimony to make an incredibly strong statement about the need for the network.
I’m assuming you left SFBC to start Livable City? Why? What else have you been up to since SFBC?
Creating bicycle habitat by changing land use is equally, if not more, important than adding bike facilities to streets, as it also can make housing more affordable and therefore especially improve the lives of lower income people. After I passed Livable City on to another great leader I decided to work for the Alliance for Biking & Walking (then the Thunderhead Alliance) as the Director of Program Development. After that I served a stint as the Transportation Policy Director of a local think tank called San Francisco Planning & Urban Research, and most recently as the project director of yet another startup organization: the San Francisco Transit Riders Union.
What are some of the successes of the California Bicycle Coalition that you’ll be building on in 2011?
California started the Safe Routes to School movement and was the first large state to adopt a complete streets policy. We’ll build on that by working to ensure the complete streets policy is implemented, and that the California delegation to Congress voices strong support for the federal safe routes to school program.
California often pushes the envelope for the rest of the country on progressive issues like transportation and energy. Do you see CBC helping to advance that reputation on the bike-ped front?
I think that we can work with our new governor, Jerry Brown, to create a transportation policy for the state that can be a model for reauthorization of the federal bill. Brown is known as a frugal, practical leader, and California’s challenges in transportation policy — huge deficits coupled with extreme difficulty in raising taxes — call for creative solutions that the rest of the country can learn from.
You took the helm of the SFBC back in 1991; now you’re taking over the CBC in 2010. How has the national/state/local atmosphere change? How does this gig feel different?
I think that state level advocacy is so different from local advocacy that it’s hard to say what’s different. There are communities in California that are no more advanced than San Francisco was in 1991, so for those communities, there’s little difference. Except for this: There’s a general acceptance at all levels of government and among a majority of the population that bicycling is a realistic transportation option for some people. It used to never occur to policy makers that bicycling mattered. The implications of this are huge, because a supportive context can allow a community to become more bicycle-friendly in much less time than it took us in the early ‘90s. Fresno, California, has made as much progress in the past two years as San Francisco has made in a whole decade. Also, the example of New York City shows that supportive policy makers can utterly transform a city and do it quickly.
I look at this job from two perspectives. One, I’m going to simply try to do my job well and make sure the CBC plays its part as a player on the larger team: the federal effort, state efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and reform transportation policy, and strengthen local efforts. Second, I’m looking for the big win, but I’m not sure what that is, yet. Age has not made me more patient. If anything, it’s done the opposite, because I’ve seen 20 years of bicycle activism increase bike to work rates from about 1 percent to about 4 percent. I want to see 10 percent or 20 percent and I don’t want it to take another 20 years!
Like everyone else in Washington, D.C., bicycle and pedestrian advocates expected a Republican surge in last week’s midterm elections. We knew a conservative Congress would have major implications for the next federal transportation bill. We were bracing ourselves for new faces and fresh challenges on Capitol Hill.
Oberstar was elected to Congress in 1974, and, since his very first term, served on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. For three decades, the Minnesota Democrat pushed to get bicyclists and pedestrians recognized and treated as “intended users” of our public roads. In the last wave election in 2006, when Democrats took control of the House, Oberstar was elected chairman of the transportation committee. A few months after he claimed leadership, he told a crowd at the National Bike Summit: “We’re going to convert America from the hydrocarbon economy to the carbohydrate economy.”
Well, now we’ll have to do it without him. In a race decided by a mere 4,000 votes, Oberstar lost his reelection bid to Republican Chip Cravaak.
Jonathan Maus, reporter and editor of BikePortland.org, might have summed it up best. “Oberstar’s loss signals the end of an era for America’s bicycle movement,” he wrote. “[He] was a titan of non-motorized transportation.”
Andy Clarke, over at the League of American Bicyclists, outlined the Congressman’s key role in a variety of bike-ped victories. “Over the past 20 years, you can trace many of the gains we’ve made straight back to the desk of Jim Oberstar,” Clarke wrote. “Broad eligibility for transportation funds, the Safe Routes to School Program, state bicycle coordinator positions, the requirement to plan for bicyclists at the state and regional level, the non-motorized pilot projects — all started with him.”
Oberstar wasn’t out of bold, new ideas, either.
Last year, the Minnesota Democrat released the House transportation committee’s first stab at our nation’s next — and already overdue — federal transportation bill. The bill roundly criticized our over-reliance on automobiles. It established an Office of Livability, which would study cyclists’ rights and dramatically expand research on biking and walking. The bill also gave significant support to the creation of a U.S. Bicycle Route System.
Unfortunately, we won’t have Oberstar advancing such progressive and needed ideas when Congress tackles transportation reauthorization next year.
In his concession speech, the 18-term Congressman spoke at length about his transportation legacy, giving equal attention and pride to improvements and projects for cyclists and pedestrians as he did major bridge and highway projects.
“The Lake Walk in Duluth will survive long after my service,” Oberstar said. “People will be walking and biking and enjoying a better quality of life… The extension of the Sunrise Prairie Trail will link Canada and the Twin Cities with a continuous bicycle facility that will be the envy of the nation… The Paul Bunyan Trail, for which I have great affection, when we first started promoting it had 40,000 users. Last year, it had 650,000 users and was an engine of economic growth and stability.”
His legacy extends far beyond the borders of Minnesota. It’s not just the hundreds of thousands of people who bike and walk the Paul Bunyan who are flooding his inbox with their gratitude. Oberstar is — and should be — getting thank-you notes from every corner of the country.
Deb Hubsmith, the executive director of the Safe Routes to School National Partnership, was among the first to write an open letter to Oberstar last week. “Through your 36 years of inspired leadership as a Congressman, you reformed the transportation system to make it multi-modal, institutionalized walking and bicycling within state Departments of Transportation, and ensured that the safety of children on the trip to and from school is a priority for transportation planning and construction,” Hubsmith wrote. “Thanks to your leadership, foresight and hard work, many thousands of schools and communities across the country are now making it safer for children to walk and bicycle to and from school, and in everyday life.”
Caron Whitaker, at America Bikes, hopes many bicycle and pedestrian organizations follow Hubsmith’s lead. “[Oberstar] was a bulldog on our issues and in a position to push for us with leadership,” she wrote last week. “We should consider how to thank him.”
Please take a moment this week to send the Congressman a note on behalf of you or your organization — jim.oberstar@mail.house.gov.
Another, and perhaps even more important, way to thank Oberstar, though, is to start building on his legacy. To do that in a difficult and divided political climate, we need to start mobilizing at the local and state level to educate our newly elected U.S. Senators and Representatives. “We want to make sure these new members of Congress are aware that there is a well-organized constituency for bicycling and walking in their district/state,” Whitaker suggested. “They may not have formed their positions on transportation yet; now is a good time to introduce them to our issues.” So, reach out to your Congress member and set up a meeting before they head to Washington.
At his press conference, Oberstar said he’ll find a way to continue his service to the American people, though it won’t be from Capitol Hill. “There will be opportunities for public service,” he said. “I’ll reflect for awhile and look for something in the public arena.”
Clarke, for one, hopes the Congressman saves room in his schedule to take advantage of the fruit of his labors; set aside some time to cruise the Prairie Sunrise or Paul Bunyan trails he worked so hard to fund and promote. “If anyone deserves to enjoy the simple pleasure of a bike ride,” Clarke wrote, “it’s Jim Oberstar.”
With more than 160 member organizations, the Alliance is propelled by creative and visionary leaders in communities across North America. In the past few weeks, a handful of new faces have joined our ranks and we know you’d like to learn a little more about them. This week, meet Elizabeth Stampe, the first executive director of Walk San Francisco.
Where are you from and how did you end up in San Francisco?
I’m originally from Hawai’i, but I moved to San Francisco after college in Santa Cruz. I’ve lived here, on and off, for almost 15 years.
Previous to WalkSF you worked for the Greenbelt Alliance. What inspired your interest in environmental conservation and how does walkability tie into that ethic?
I’ve worked on environmental conservation for my entire career. I actually have a master’s degree in plant ecology. Before getting that degree, I did environmental and political advocacy, and afterwards, I just had to plunge back into advocacy because I was impatient to make change. At Greenbelt Alliance, which advocates for smart growth, I found that cities and environmentalism can go together. City living offers a very green way to live, consuming less and sharing more. And walking, of course, is the most sustainable form of transportation!
An article in the Bay Guardian cited your having traveled the world; where did you go and did that give you any inspiration for ways to improve walkability in SF?
I didn’t go to the usual places! (Copenhagen, Amsterdam…) I was in India, Southeast Asia, and South America. And I noticed that, even though the streets in many big cities in Asia and South America might seem a lot more frenetic, people are paying much closer attention there. As a driver, you’re dealing with ditches, rickshaws, scooters, bikes, dogs, maybe cows, and, of course, lots of pedestrians. It can seem scary for a visitor, but you realize it works — it works because people are paying attention, and often driving more slowly than they are here. There aren’t many places we visited where drivers can assume that they can just floor it and go for miles like on our freeways, and unfortunately, like on many of our local roads. Another thing I noticed was the feeling of life. In places like Bangkok and La Paz, there’s so much living going on in the streets — buying and selling and eating and talking. I think the street food movement here in San Francisco is bringing some of that life to our streets, and at every Park(ing) Day and Sunday Streets we also get a sense of what could be.
What’s your biggest priority or campaign right now at Walk SF? What goals do you have for the remainder of 2010 and 2011?
Right now, I’m still in the listening and planning stages of Walk SF’s work for the coming year, but we’re looking at a combination of tackling citywide policies (reducing speeds, creating school zones, and lowering the cost of street improvements) and working with neighborhood groups on improvements in specific spots around the city. For example, on Walk to School Day (October 6), we got together with parents and kids in the Sunnyside neighborhood, where a big arterial road slices through a residential area, and drew attention to the need for change. We released a report on current conditions, with recommendations including a reduced speed limit, so that more kids can walk to school safely. This is a big issue as obesity is on the rise — and kids want to do it! Walking is fun, and they know it! They had a great time out there on the 6th. We want them to be able to do that every day.
One of the things a lot of pedestrian organizations struggle with is, while everyone walks, very few people consider themselves pedestrians or walkability advocates. How do you change that mindset and boost your membership?
We remind folks that everyone walks, whether you’re walking to the parking garage, going for a run with your dog, or getting a pint of milk at the corner store. There is a movement nationally now around reclaiming streets as shared public space, and that is exciting, especially with the various experiments with parklets and what here is called Sunday Streets, where streets are opened up for pedestrians and bikes every month. Those have been a huge success, and are changing people’s perceptions of what streets are for and who pedestrians are. We have a huge and impressive bike coalition here that’s helped to transform our streets; but not everyone who wants better streets rides a bike. Walk SF offers even more people a place and a space to speak up.
With the lifting of the Bicycle Plan injunction, your colleagues over at the SFBC have been touting their goal of making SF the most bike-friendly city in the nation. Do you see SF becoming the most pedestrian-friendly city in the nation, as well? If so, how do you get there?
That’s our goal, to make SF the most walkable city in the US! Some magazines and polls have already given SF that title, but there are a lot of exciting things going on in New York and Portland and Seattle that are definitely beyond what we’ve got here. And unfortunately, San Francisco has very high rates of pedestrian collisions and injuries, which the city has got to address. San Francisco has good land use and lots of destinations within walking distance of many people, but we’ve still got a lot of work to do on basic safety and on improving the experience of walking.
Where’s your favorite place to walk in San Fran?
I love connecting urban neighborhoods and parks, so I like to walk from my neighborhood, the Mission, to Bernal Hill. I go along Valencia with its cute shops and newly redone street with wide sidewalks and street trees and bike parking, through the vibrant Latino heart of the neighborhood where I can practice my South American Spanish, to the peak of Bernal, from which I can see the Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, the East Bay hills, hawks flying overhead — and a lot of other happy walkers.
Being that you’re an Alliance leader now, you’re part of a little tradition. At our Leadership Retreat every two years, we have a Talent Show. So what’s one of your hidden talents?
Ha! Hmmmm… Well, I taught yoga in Buenos Aires and am looking to start that up again in SF. Don’t know if that’s a show-worthy thing, but perhaps it would do people good to stretch and breathe in between being overwhelmed by everyone’s talents! Actually, another talent is conning my friends and family into taking much longer walks with me than they ever planned… of course, they might debate whether that’s a talent!
Keep track of Elizabeth’s efforts and progress in the Bay City on the Walk SF website.
Kids today could be the first generation with a lower life expectancy than their parents. Many studies chalk up that disturbing possibility to the fact that nearly 80 percent of children don’t get enough exercise.
It used to be that students got a daily dose of physical activity simply traveling to and from school. In 1969, at least 50 percent of students walked or biked to school. Today that number has dropped to less than 15 percent.
Across the U.S., school leaders and local advocates are making strides in reversing that trend with International Walk to School Day activities. Drawing on inspiration from the United Kingdom, the Partnership for a Walkable America sponsored the first National Walk Our Children to School Day in Chicago in 1997. Five years later, more than 3 million parents, students and advocates in all 50 states marked the second international event.
Today, an impressive 3,213 schools are participating in Walk to School Day — and many Alliance member organizations are celebrating, too.
In California, for instance, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition highlighted yesterday that Walk to School Day marks a tripling in the number of schools participating in San Francisco’s Safe Routes to School Program. ““Safe Routes to Schools is a smart way to improve our streets and neighborhoods, which will encourage more families to walk and bike to school,” Renée Rivera, Acting Executive Director of the SFBC said in the press release. “Walk to School day is a great one day event that allows more kids and parents to experience firsthand how fun and easy walking to school can be.”
Up in Illinois, the Active Transportation Alliance helped a handful their local schools plan particularly festive celebrations with mini grants of $500. In addition to funding, Active Trans kicked in school safety patrol equipment, a banner to promote the event, snack bars, T-shirts, safety vests, signs, and stickers, as well as a Safe Routes to School consultation for the entire school district and safety resources for a Walk and Roll to School Day assembly.
It’s time to ask both chambers of Congress to save our streets. 
A new report from the 
Some key findings in the report include:
This month, the Mill Valley School District passed a new Safe Routes to School policy, initiated by the 
In 2007-2008, districts across the United States spent a staggering $21.5 billion busing students from their neighborhoods to the classroom. At an average of $854 per student, that accounted for more than 4 percent of the entire cost of the K-12 education system. 
This spring, 
Last week, Camie talked to the folks at the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition about a 
Thanks to a recent grant from the 
On April 1st, the Los Angeles City Council considered – and passed – an allocation of $1.2 million in funding for a citywide Safe Routes to School Plan. 
The plan will fund the first year of a two-year study that will use collision data to prioritize the city’s efforts and develop a meaningful approach to make communities more walkable and bikeable by pushing funding to the areas that need it most. The current approach has 15 city districts competing to submit projects to LADOT for each round of state DOT funding, and the areas in need of SRTS dollars don’t always win funding. According to Jessica Meaney, the California policy manager of Safe Routes to School National Partnership, the passage of this plan will create a more efficient strategy. “The city of LA is huge,” 
We’ve got a parade of 
Like everyone else in Washington, D.C., bicycle and pedestrian advocates expected a Republican surge in last week’s midterm elections. We knew a conservative Congress would have major implications for the next federal transportation bill. We were bracing ourselves for new faces and fresh challenges on Capitol Hill. 
With more than 160 member organizations, the Alliance is propelled by creative and visionary leaders in communities across North America. In the past few weeks, a handful of new faces have joined our ranks and we know you’d like to learn a little more about them. This week, meet Elizabeth Stampe, the first executive director of 
Kids today could be the first generation with a lower life expectancy than their parents. Many studies chalk up that disturbing possibility to the fact that nearly 80 percent of children don’t get enough exercise. 
