Transportation Enhancements on the Chopping Block

Hopefully by now you’ve received the alert from us or one of our national partners about the threat to Transportation Enhancement funding, which is the largest source of Federal bicycle and pedestrian funding. If you do anything to better bicycling this September, please contact Senators Graham and Demint to ask that they continue their support of this vital program during the next extension of SAFETEA-LU.

Advocates outside Senator Demint’s Capitol Hill office during 2011 National Bike Summit

To understand SAFETEA-LU and extensions, revisit our blog post from July where we discuss the transportation bill.

What is particularly alarming is that every attack made on the program that occurs now is potentially devastating. If Enhancements are stripped during this next extension, the chance of Enhancements  reappearing in a new transportation bill is near zero.  

The Senate has until midnight tomorrow to act. As you may imagine,  should Enhancements survive this vote, we don’t expect Congresional opponents to go home. More attacks will come, most likely during the November appropriation process. 

In the words of our friends at the National Center for Biking and Walking, 

We must continue to make the case that Enhancement projects help connect people to jobs, they lower the cost of transportation, they are more efficient job creators than road projects, and that the Federal government should be building a transportation system that works for everyone.

 If you’d like to know how the roads or trails that you ride in your community have benefited from transportation enhancements, contact Rachael and we’ll give you the run-down.

Thanks for your support, and don’t forget to contact our Senators asap!