A small group of House and Senate leaders (including our own Representative Ed Markey) are still negotiating on the final transportation bill right now.

It’s all in their hands—whether or not local communities will have access to funds to build biking and walking infrastructure and support Safe Routes to School—and we need your help.

Can you take a moment to call your Senators and Representative and let them know that the transportation conference committee must preserve the bipartisan Cardin-Cochran agreement (co-sponsored by both Senator Kerry and Senator Brown)? This agreement ensures that communities will have access to funds to build bike lanes, sidewalks, and biking and walking paths, and to help kids walk and bike to school.

Here’s how to call:

1. Call your Representative and both Senators at the numbers listed below.

Don’t know who your U.S. Representative is? Click here and enter your address to find out.

And our two U.S. Senators:

Use the script below to ask your elected officials to preserve the Cardin-Cochran agreement:

Hi, my name is [name] and I live in [city/town/county].

I’m calling to ask Representative/Senator [name] to support the bipartisan Cardin-Cochran agreement in the transportation conference committee that ensures local governments have access to funds to build bikeways and sidewalks.

Americans support federal funding for biking and walking. In a March 2012 poll, 83 percent of Americans said they support maintaining or increasing federal funding for biking and walking—that includes 88 percent of Democrats and 80 percent of Republicans.

These projects are important to my community. (Mention a local project you know about, or use some of the facts from your state or district profile.) Please support the Cardin-Cochran agreement so that [your city/town/county] can build projects important to our community.

2. Use the America Bikes tip sheet to report back on anything you learn in your calls.

Thank you for supporting biking and walking in Massachusetts and across the country!

Just two months ago, the Senate passed a transportation bill that included the Cardin-Cochran agreement. This bipartisan compromise would ensure that local governments and school systems are able to access much-needed funds to make bicycling and walking safer and more accessible.

Funding for biking and walking has popular support—a recent national survey found that 83 percent of Americans support maintaining or increasing federal funds for sidewalks and bike lanes.

Will you tell Congress that Americans support biking and walking funding?

Take Action here.

Right now, as selected Senators and Representatives conference to create a consensus transportation bill, we need to protect the Cardin-Cochran agreement. Representative Ed Markey of Massachusetts is on the conference committee, so it is especially important to take action if you live in his district.

The Cardin-Cochran agreement ensures local control over a small portion of funds for biking and walking. The provision devolves decision-making on a small portion of funds from the states to local governments, whose leaders know the transportation needs of their communities best.

Local elected officials across the country want and need federal funding to build sidewalks, bike lanes, and bike paths.

Without the Cardin-Cochran agreement, states could instead choose to direct these limited funds towards building more highway lanes.

Most Americans want to increase or maintain funding for sidewalks and bikeways. The Cardin-Cochran agreement would preserve this critical funding.

Please contact your Senators and Representative to maintain the Cardin-Cochran agreement, which gives local governments a voice in transportation planning. There are sample letters below for conferees and non-conferees.

Take Action here.

Thank you for standing up to tell Congress that Americans support funding for biking and walking.

Our national partners reported late last week that the US House of Representatives passed yet another extension of the current transportation legislation SAFETEA-LU. Whereas past extensions have been passed at the midnight hour, this one preemptively extends the expiration date from July 1 to September 30. The primary reason for this extension is to give the House and Senate time to take the Senate’s transportation bill, MAP-21, to conference committee. This will allow the two chambers to work out the details of the legislation.

Unlike past “clean” extensions, this one has policy changes. The good news is that the programs that matter most to biking and walking are untouched. The bad news is that the policy changes have to do with controversial issues like the Keystone Oil Pipeline, so it is unclear how the Senate will react. America Bikes described the next steps like this:

So what’s next?

This time, instead of just prolonging current transportation law, the House and Senate will conference this extension with MAP-21. Leadership in both chambers are discussing who will be ‘Conferees.’ Once all the Conferees are named, the two chambers could start work to reconcile the differences between the two bills and create a new transportation bill. Once the conferenced bill has passed Congress, President Obama can sign the bill into law.

When House and Senate go to conference, the two chambers will technically negotiate to reconcile the differences between MAP-21 and current law. Conference Committees are a black box, though, and sometimes what comes out doesn’t resemble what went in.

We will need to be vigilant and advocate to Conferees, leadership and all members of Congress to preserve dedicated funding for biking and walking, including Transportation Enhancements, Safe Routes to School, and Recreational Trails. We will also promote the local control provisions of the Cardin-Cochran amendment to MAP-21.

We keeping in close touch with our national partners to send out an action alert when the time is right. The good thing is that this extension gives some time to determine our next moves. Hopefully, biking and walking will come out unscathed from this process. As usual, we will depend on your voice to make sure that is the outcome.

Jackie and Kara (LivableStreets Alliance) and Jess (MAPC)

As we’ve been posting over the past several months, the transportation funding situation in DC is abysmal. The Senate put together a bill that, while it largely preserves funding for biking and walking, includes a modest reduction from current spending levels and increases the competition for the funding. Meanwhile, advocates defeated a House attempt to pass a bill eliminating bike funding. This week, the House has proposed a 60-day extension, further delaying passage of a new transportation bill. It was against this backdrop that advocates from around the country came to the nation’s capital to talk with their members of Congress and their staffs to make the case on the importance of investments in biking and walking.

We in the MassBike office were working hard literally up until the last minute coordinating meetings with Congressional staffers to make sure that every office met with someone from Massachusetts. In the end, we were able to meet with two members of Congress (Ed Markey and James McGovern) and staff from the other ten offices. You can see pictures from the summit here.

Congressman Ed Markey (center) with advocates

This year we had 15 event participants from across the state, including professional advocates, local businesses, and citizens that just care about better biking in their communities. The delegation included:

Unlike some other states, Massachusetts is fortunate to have a Congressional delegation that is very supportive of biking and walking. In fact, we presented Senator Scott Brown with a National Bicycle Leadership Award from the League of American Bicyclists (see picture below). We urged our members of Congress to convince their colleagues to support biking and walking, and offered whatever help we could to enable their advocacy in the Capitol. We look forward to continuing to work with our Congressional delegation to promote biking and walking at the federal level while local advocates push on the ground to turn federal support into off-road paths, bike lanes, intersection improvements, and signage that makes the streets safer for all users.

David Watson Presenting Award To Karalyn O'Brien, Senator Brown's Transportation Aide

In the meantime, we are going to be shifting our attention to the upcoming Massachusetts Bike/Walk Summit, in which we will be asking advocates from across the state to come to Beacon Hill to let their state legislators know how very important biking and walking in their community is. This event takes place on Thursday, May 17th and is the central MassBike event for Bay State Bike Week. If you would like to attend, please RSVP by clicking here.

Finally, in order for us to undertake our federal and state advocacy, we need the support of groups and citizens who want to see better biking in Massachusetts. Please consider joining or donating to MassBike today so that we can keep advocating to key decision makers for years to come.