The Safe Routes to School Partnership needs your help

The Safe Routes to School National Partnership needs five minutes of your time to help make sure that Members of Congress support bicycling and walking in the multi-year federal transportation bill, a draft of which is scheduled to be released in a couple of weeks.

There are two different "Dear Colleague" letters being circulated in the U.S. House of Representatives that call for increased federal funding for bicycle and pedestrian programs in the next transportation bill. With your help as a constituent, we can get a critical mass of Members of Congress to sign on to these letters and show strong, broad support for bicycling, walking, and Safe Routes to School in the next transportation bill.

Congressman Daniel Lipinski (D) of Illinois is seeking co-signers from any member of the U.S. House of Representatives. And Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D) of Oregon is seeking co-signers from fellow members of the Congressional Bike Caucus.

Both of these letters seek increased funding for Safe Routes to School, creation of bicycle/pedestrian networks, and the inclusion of a Complete Streets policy in the transportation bill. The Lipinski letter also includes a call for a "fair share for safety" to link highway safety funds to bike/ped fatality rates, and the Blumenauer letter calls for increased bike/ped data collection.

To ask your Member of Congress to sign these letters, please visit each of the following links, type in your zip code, and follow the easy instructions to e-mail your Member of Congress. Each letter should take about two minutes:

1) Rep. Lipinski's letter for the House of Representatives:
http://capwiz.com/lab/issues/alert/?alertid=13375861&type=TA

2) Rep. Blumenauer's letter for Members of the Congressional Bike Caucus: http://capwiz.com/lab/issues/alert/?alertid=13371566&type=TA

Learn more about the partnership at http://saferoutespartnership.org/