National Bike Summit, March 2011

Going to Washington, DC, to the National Bike Summit--where we visit the office of every member of Congress from Missouri--is one of our most effective advocacy events of the year.

Will you consider joining us for the 2012 National Bike Summit in March 20-22, 2012?

We get to meet our senators and representatives (or in some cases their staff--which can also be very effective), 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.

We'll be working on issues like these:

• Re-authorization of the federal transportation bill--a six-year bill with the possibility of completely reforming the way U.S. transportation is planned, designed, funded, and built
• Increased funding for bicycling and walking facilities and programs
• Complete Streets policies at a national level
• Continuation of the highly effective and successful Safe Routes to School program
• The Active Transportation initiative
• Many others

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 5 were represented last year)
• Particularly important is representation from these districts--where we have had little or no representation at past Bike Summits:
  • Congressman Todd Akin (District 2--St. Louis area)
  • Congressman Sam Graves (District 6--St. Joseph & North KC area)
  • Congressman Roy Blunt (District 7--Springfield area and running for U.S. Senate!)
  • Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (District 8--SE Missouri)
• 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, or have questions about this year's Summit, please email me (director@mobikefed.org).