Bike summit 2009: Congressional visits with Bond, McCaskill, Cleaver, Luetkemeyer, Carnahan, and others

Missouri's National Bike Summit delegation meets with Senator McCaskill

Karen Karabell of the St. Louis Regional Bicycle Federation posted this summary of some our meetings with Missouri's congressional delegation during the National Bike Summit 2009:

Our mid- and northeast Missouri colleagues (Ian Thomas & Rob Johnson of Columbia and Alex Tetlak of Kirksville) got Blaine Luetkemeyer, the new congressman representing Missouri's 9th District, to join the bike caucus. Emmanuel Cleaver, the Kansas City congressman, reaffirmed his caucus membership, and his support for a bikable/walkable Paris of the Plains (my favorite nickname for KC).

We started the day by splitting up: Half of us went to "Coffee With Claire" and the others went to "Coffee With Kit." When asked about her position on Complete Streets, Senator McCaskill did not say that she would co-sponsor the legislation, but did say that anything that encourages more people to bike and walk is a good thing.

We met with Missouri's champion of bicycling in Congress, Russ Carnahan. Russ rode his bicycle yesterday to work. He said it takes about 45 minutes to get from his Virginia home to the Capitol.

Ironically for me, the one congressman I did not see was my own: William "Lacy" Clay. We did meet with his top staff person, Michele Bogdanovich, who has worked for both Lacy Clay and his father, and has an extensive knowledge of Realpolitik in our nation's capital. Michele and her boss totally support livable communities. But she will not lie to us or make any promises that Clay cannot deliver.

With my clacking away in this hotel room, I just woke up my 13-year-old son (who apparently had quite an interaction with Senator Bond yesterday). So I'll stop.

Thanks for your support and kind words,

Karen

On a related note--we need your help to increase Missouri's representation at the National Bike Summit for 2010. Especially we would like to see every congressional district represented.

This year--even though we had over 15 here representing Missouri, we were missing delegates from the districts of Rep. Emerson, Blunt, Akin, and Skelton.

That's four of Missouri's nine congressional districts missing!

So if you live in one of those districts, please consider attending next year.

If you are in a club or group, consider putting a few hundred dollars together to help pay the costs of someone from your area to attend the National Bike Summit.

The National Bike Summit is really some of the most effective advocacy we do--it helps on the national, state, regional, and local levels all at once.

A number of bills our supporters have been talking about all year were filed this week--and it's all because of the push provided by 580 National Bike Summit participants from 47 states coming to visit their members of Congress this week--augmented by many thousands of you who email, call, or send a letter of support.

More about the National Bike Summit 2009 from MoBikeFed and Bike Portland.