Advocacy & Safety - Support Virginia HB 855 -- regional VDOT bike/ped committees

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mattotoole
01-22-08, 01:37 PM
Fellow Virginia Cyclists,

Please help support House Bill 855, which establishes regional VDOT bike/ped advisory committees for each VDOT district -- a giant leap forward for bicycling in Virginia. I've put an article about it on the VBF website (http://www.vabike.org/support-virginia-hb-855), with links to find your legislators, and members of the House Transportation Committee. You can use the "share this" button at the end of the article to help spread the word. Please forward it to your bike club mailing lists, etc.

I'll post more about this soon -- talking points for discussing it with legislators and others, plus advice about who else to approach for support.

We've come close to getting this done before. With your help we can get it done in 2008.

John E
01-23-08, 07:47 AM
This could be a good idea, provided they do not try to establish things like Portland OR style bike lanes to the right of right-turn lanes.
RTC_Kartik
01-23-08, 07:58 AM
Mattotoole -

Thanks for posting this; I'll be sure to forward it to my Virginian friends.

Do you know if any other states have such a requirement as posed in this bill? It'd be interesting to push for this elsewhere.

-Kartik

Pledge to Burn Calories, Not Carbon! (tm) www.railstotrails.org/pledge (http://www.railstotrails.org/pledge)

Poguemahone
01-24-08, 07:15 AM
If you find out when this is up in committe (probably transportation, always a chuckle) post it and I'll try to get down and lobby for it. Although they tend to just squash anything bike related, whine about how the gas tax is too high (even though it doesn't begin to pay for VDOT), and insist that talking on your cellphone while driving is a matter of personal choice (come to think of it, driving drunk is too... maybe they support that), while also making sure the roads are safe for unliscenced drivers by not making the fines too high... gotta love transportation in the Virginia legislature.
mattotoole
01-24-08, 06:48 PM
If you find out when this is up in committe (probably transportation, always a chuckle) post it and I'll try to get down and lobby for it. Although they tend to just squash anything bike related, whine about how the gas tax is too high (even though it doesn't begin to pay for VDOT), and insist that talking on your cellphone while driving is a matter of personal choice (come to think of it, driving drunk is too... maybe they support that), while also making sure the roads are safe for unliscenced drivers by not making the fines too high... gotta love transportation in the Virginia legislature.

That would be great! The more voices they hear it from, the better chance it has of passing.

Say hi to Bud Vye, our lobbyist. In fact look him up beforehand through the link on the Board page of the VBF site (http://www.vabike.org/board-of-directors). I don't know when they'll be discussing this in committee. Bud might, or maybe Allen.

However if you follow the link to the Transportation Committee that I posted, you'll see that they meet Tuesday after Assembly is adjourned, and Thursday mornings at 8:30. So if anyone wants to drop a note, do it at a convenient time just before -- like Monday or Wednesday.

I'll post some talking points soon.