2012 National Bike Summit: Our message to Congress

This year's National Bike Summit in Washington, DC, is next week.  We have a large delegation from Missouri attending this year, representing a wide variety of organizations and areas of the state.

National Bike Summit

What are some of the most important messages we will bring our members of Congress this year?

• Bicycling and walking: The Challenge of the 21st Century

The challenge of the 20th Century was building a complete, connected network of paved roads for automobiles. That job is now complete.

The challenge of the 21st Century is making our transportation system work on the human scale again.

That means: biking, walking, trails, mass transit. It means retrofitting our entire paved road system to be accessible to people.

It is a huge job, but we can do it!

• Fair Share for Bicycling and Walking:
  • Nationwide, bicycling and walking make up 12% of trips and 14% of fatalities but receive only 1.6% of funding. (source)
     
  • In Missouri, bicycling and walking make up 7% of trips, 7.9% of fatalities, 14% of traffic injuries, but receive only 1.83% of federal transportation funds. (source)
     
  • As the figures above show, the federal government today spends far less on bicycling and walking than our fair share.  At a time when automobile use is flatlining and the amount of bicycling and walking is exploding, we should be increasing the share of funding for bicycling and walking, not decreasing it.

• Inexpensive and Cost-Effective
  • Bicycle and pedestrian transportation is very inexpensive and delivers tremendous bang for the buck in the form of community livability, health, and safety benefits.  All bicycle and pedestrian programs together make up only 0.029% of the federal budget--and have huge positive impact in our communities' health, livability, and economy.
     
  • People who bicycle and walk are paying their fair share of our nation's transportation costs--and more.  Now we need a fair shake in the nation's transportation funding as well.
     
• Bicycling and Walking are a 21st Century Megatrend:
  • The amount of driving in the U.S. and Missouri has leveled off, while the amount of bicycling and walking in the U.S. is growing steadily. In particular, the amount of bicycling in Missouri has skyrocketed this decade. With the state of the economy and the price of gas, far more people are depending on bicycling, walking, and transit for basic transportation--and trend that is likely to accelerate in the future.

After a century of continuous growth, the amount of vehicle miles driven in the U.S. has leveled off over the past decade.  

By contrast, the number of bicycle commuters in Missouri dwindled and stagnated throughout the 20th Century--but has skyrocketed this decade.  

Missouri now has over 2.5 times the bicycle commuters we saw just a decade ago--while the number of miles driven is exactly the same as it was.

Please take a moment this week to contact your members of Congress, ask them to support bicycling and walking, thank both Missouri Senators for supporting bicycling and walking in their recent vote in support of MAP-21, and let them know that the Missouri delegation from the National Bike Summit will be visiting their offices this week.