AMERICA WALKS: Call to Action!

We are one step closer to a federal transportation law that makes streets safer for all users.

Dear Walk Bike Berks,        

After several long weeks of intense work from advocates around the country, the Cardin-Cochran Amendment has been accepted as part of the base Senate transportation bill, MAP-21. If MAP-21 becomes law, the language from this amendment will ensure that local governments, school systems, and metropolitan planning organizations are able to access much-needed funds to make walking and bicycling safe and accessible.

The list of who we need to thank for this important victory is long, but our most immediate "thank you" goes to the following US Senators - Please take a minute to click on their name and thank them:

• Senators Cardin (D-MD) and Cochran (R-MS) for championing this amendment and ensuring that local governments have a voice in transportation planning and projects; and
• The leaders of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Sens. Boxer (D-CA), Baucus (D-MT), Inhofe (R-OK), and Vitter (R-LA), for including this amendment.

What you can do to ensure continued support for walking and biking:

• Please e-mail or call the Senators listed above with a simple message, "thank you for including the Cardin-Cochran Amendment into MAP-21."
• Ask your state's US Senators to "support the Klobuchar/Burr/Shaheen/Risch Amendment (#1661)." This amendment supports the Recreational Trails Program that has built and maintained thousands of miles of trails across the United States.

PA Senators are:

• Toomey, Patrick J. - (R - PA)	Class III
  502 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
  (202) 224-4254
  Web Form: www.toomey.senate.gov/?p=contact

  Casey, Robert P., Jr. - (D - PA)	Class I
  393 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
  (202) 224-6324
  Web Form: www.casey.senate.gov/contact/

America Walks thanks everyone who called and emailed in support of the Cardin-Cochran amendment. Your voices made this possible!

Sincerely,
Scott Bricker, Executive Director
America Walks

ALERT: Walking and Bicycling Safety are under attack!

Federal funding for bike and pedestrian safety
is once again on the chopping block.
Senator Rand Paul has seized upon the very serious T4 America reports examining the woeful condition of our country’s bridges to force Americans to make an unnecessary choice: safety in our cars while crossing bridges or safety while walking or biking in our communities.

Tell your Senators that we don’t have to choose. Protect bike and pedestrian funding against this misguided attack.

Senator Paul’s amendment would also change the TIGER program — competitive grants awarded to all kinds of transportation projects — so that projects to make walking or biking safer won’t be eligible. The amendment would also redirect a relatively small amount of funding — 10 percent of the TIGER program — into bridge repair. At the cost of safety for everyone who uses a road, states would gain enough money to repaint a few bridges.

And there would still be no real plan to fix bridges. Here’s what you aren’t being told about bridge repair:

States can already take up to half of their money for bridge repair and spend it on new highway capacity, no matter the condition of their bridges. And states can already spend most of what’s usually the biggest pot of transportation funding on almost anything they want. They could fix bridges, build transit, highways, bridges, sidewalks; it's all eligible, and totally up to the states. No mandates from Washington.

This amendment will be offered on the floor of the Senate tomorrow (Tuesday).

Write or call your Senators and tell them that this proposal will do almost nothing to fix our bridges while making us less safe.

Thank you again for stepping forward to help.
Stephen Lee Davis
Deputy Communications Director

Transportation for America