Missouri Bicycling, Running, Walking Calendar

National Bike Summit, Mar 10-13, 2009, Washington DC

Web site: http://www.bikeleague.org/conferences/summit09/index.php

Mark your calendars now for March 10-13 here in Washington DC for the 2009 National Bike Summit. We need to keep the momentum rising as the debate on the future of federal transportation funding really starts to heat up. Make sure you are part of the 2009 Summit.

If you are interested in attending the summit from Missouri, please email director@mobikefed.org - we are keeping a list of those interested in attending so as to coordinate planning, or Missouri-specific agenda, housing and travel.

If your schedule is tight: the Summit starts the evening of March 10 with an introductory
seminar (helpful but not absolutely essential). It ends Fri. March 13 with the Congressional Bike Ride. So if your schedule is tight you can arrive March 11th and leave the evening of March 12th. You get all the important advocacy and it only takes 2 days.
We are again planning to rent a common housing situation which can be shared among several people--and which dramatically reduces the housing cost.

Visiting the Summit is very, very effective advocacy and plus it is just a blast!

We get to meet our senators and representatives (or in some cases their designated representatives), make the case for our issues (nationwide, statewide, and local), make great connections, and also do things like take a bicycle ride with bicycle advocates from around the country, see the DC area's transit and bicycle systems, see how their river bridges accommodate walking and bicycling, take a ride down the Mt Vernon Trail to see historical sites, and more.

Right now airline rates are low and we are planning to again do a common housing arrangement that makes housing quite inexpensive (around $200 for the entire Summit, vs. usual hotel rates of about $200/night).

Many states have delegations of 20-30 who visit the National Bike Summit *every year*. Last year we had an even dozen from Missouri.

We'd like to increase that and (just as important) increase the representation from Missouri from these various groups:

- ALL 9 Missouri congressional districts (I believe only 6 were represented last year)
- Missouri bicycle business community
- Missouri bicycle clubs, mountain biking, road biking, transportational biking, racing, etc etc
- health & wellness community
- Safe Routes to Schools
- trails groups
- pedestrian groups
- large cities, medium cities, small cities, rural areas
- cities, counties, MPOs, state government--all levels of government

If you are (even slightly) interested in attending the summit this year as part of the Missouri delegation, please email me (director@mobikefed.org).