Thank You For Saving Bike Funding (Again)!

[caption id="attachment_6357" align="aligncenter" width="350" caption="Senators Kerry (far left) and Brown (far right)"][/caption]


For the second time in as many months, an outpouring of emails and calls to our senators has saved Transportation Enhancements from being eliminated. Thousands of concerned citizens across the country contacted their senators, and MassBike joined a group of advocates in meeting with Senator Brown's transportation policy advisor to convince the senator to vote against this amendment. These efforts resulted in 60 votes against Senator Paul’s (R-KY) amendment, including from our own two senators. This is a very promising show of bipartisanship in support of biking.

Unfortunately, this does not guarantee that bike funding is secure. In March, Congress will dive into the issue of a new transportation authorization, meaning that ALL surface transportation funding is back on the table. House Republicans have already indicated dramatically scaling back the federal role in transportation funding, probably meaning that little more than interstate highways would receive money.

Bipartisan support is key to our continued success in defending bike funding. We depend on our members and friends of biking to continue contacting members of Congress as these threats emerge. We will keep you posted as things develop in Washington.