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Action Alert: Biking and walking safety could get cut in Federal budget

You know what to do. Get on the horn and make sure Sen. Patty Murray, as a key Senate leader, and Sen. Maria Cantwell know that biking and walking safety is vital to the nation’s transportation budget. The deadline for a new bill is drawing near, and there are worrying rumblings that Senate and House leaders could cut these vital funds.

So call (not email) Senators Murray and Cantwell now and through the weekend. This is not an exercise.

From Transportation Choices Coalition:


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Because you live in Washington, you have a very important chance to help in an urgent way today.

The House and Senate are on the cusp of finally striking a deal on the transportation bill. We’ve heard alarming news that some of the good provisions we’ve fought hard for that would make everyone safer, give us more transportation options and repair our roads, bridges and transit systems could be sacrificed to get a deal done.

More than 680 people have died while walking on STATE roads since 2000. Yet Congress is considering scrapping the funding that helps communities make their streets safer.

Your Senators are in a unique position to influence the deal, and they need to stand up now and refuse to see these good pieces of the bill discarded in favor of just getting a deal done. But time is short – they’re working right now to hammer out the details and strike a deal by early next week.

Please call your Senators Murray and Cantwell with the numbers at the right and leave this message with the person who answers the phone.

Hi, my name is [NAME] and I’m calling from [PLACE]. I’m calling to ask [SENATOR] to stand up for three important provisions in the transportation bill being negotiated right now.

1)    Please preserve the Cardin-Cochran provisions and dedicated funding in MAP-21 that provide grants to communities to make walking and biking safer and prevent hundreds or thousands more preventable deaths. More than 680 pedestrians have died on Washington’s roads in the last ten years – this small bit of money provided in the Senate bill could help save very real lives.

2)    Please defend and preserve the Senate’s strong plan to make sure we repair our roads and bridges. With more than 391 structurally deficient bridges in Washington, we need the focus on repair to help reduce this backlog.

3)    Please ensure that our local public transportation systems are allowed to use some of their federal money to keep their buses and trains rolling during the recession. We need more affordable ways to get around during these hard times, not fewer.

Sen. Murray 206-553-5545 (local) 202-224-2621 (DC)
Sen. Cantwell 206-220-6400 (local) 202-224-3441 (DC)


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Comments

5 responses to “Action Alert: Biking and walking safety could get cut in Federal budget”

  1. merlin

    Thanks for posting, Tom. Will do first thing in the morning.

  2. Art Lewellan

    Federal spending on transportation infrastructure is important, but Washington State highway and transit planners are probably the nation’s worst and should not be trusted to invest wisely. The deep bore tunnel is a catastrophe in the making and its related street reconfiguratioons will make downtown traffic much more hazardous. Link LRT, the Lake Union Streetcar and Sounder commuter-rail are the nation’s worst new rail starts in terms of ridership, accident rate, capital and operating costs. Metro is one of the nation’s worst designed transit systems. Nevermind overall transit ridership, the system is extremely complicated and ineffective. The trolleybuses are ideal for hill-climbing but neglected and even the new routes are poorly arranged. Incompetence so incomprehensible, corruption cannot be ruled out. Criminal incompetence, dereliction of duty, callous disregard for public safety all serve elite automobile-related business interests who control the economy and dispise the lower class of humanity.

    1. Tom Fucoloro

      Well, then you should call and support they keep the minuscule safety budget in tact!

  3. Interesting. The broadcast sounds almost exactly like the one I got here in Texas – from LAB, but with KB Hutchison instead of Murray and Cantwell. Conspiracy theories?

    1. Tom Fucoloro

      It’s a national effort, so local orgs are taking the national message to their members. So yes, it’s a conspiracy (AKA political organizing)

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