BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

I just sent e-mails.

Here are the links to our reps. Copy and paste, change "calling" to "e-mailing" in the first line, and correct the spelling of "Amendments" in the last line. Thank you for the post!

http://specter.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm

http://casey.senate.gov/contact/

Found another typo in the word Southwest. I'm reposting Scott's original with the corrections in case you want to copy that.

Dear Senator, I am calling you today to urge you to vote NO on two amendments to the FY10 transportation appropriations act.

Transportation Enhancements are the major funding source for all bicycle and pedestrian programs, and infrastructure projects.

Bicycling and Walking are clean and efficient modes of transportation: Currently, bicycling and walking account for 10% of the national mode share and yet receive less than 2% of the surface transportation funding.

Each year bicycling and walking saves 1.4 billion gallons and 12 million tons of carbon dioxide emission. At a time when we are looking to address climate change and reduce Green House Gas Emission’s (GHG) we should not be cutting funding for biking and walking.

Bicycle and Pedestrian Infrastructure saves lives. Nationally, 13% of all roadway fatalities involve bicyclists or pedestrians. Cutting transportation enhancement funding for bicycle and pedestrian facilities will increase the rate of fatalities for these groups.

Building Bicycling and Pedestrian facilities are good for the economy. Building biking and walking infrastructure creates jobs – bike infrastructure is more labor intensive and less material intensive than building roads. Sidewalks and bike lanes make streets and downtowns into destinations for shopping and entertainment. Investing in walking and biking facilities helps local business and is an investment in the local economy.

Additionally, a recent survey conducted by AARP, shows that 47% of the nation’s elderly currently do not feel safe crossing the streets in their neighborhoods.

10.4 Million Dollars of TE funds have been used to build successful recreational and bike commuting trails and bridges in the Southwest PA region. Please don't let these dollars be slashed. Vote NO today on S.Amendments 2370 and 2371.

Vote is up in the Senate now. Watch Live:

http://www.c-span.org/Watch/C-SPAN2_wm.aspx

okay wordies, what about the colon in the fourth sentence, the apostrophe in "Emission's" in the fifth, the acronym "(GHG)" in the fifth should be (GHGE) and change "S" to Senate in the last sentence.

Anyone find anything else?

Can we tweet them instead?

Lost, 39-59. There have to be other places to cut spending... hmmm maybe the war efforts?

It lost? then what am I watching now.. is the colburn amendment different?

Clarification: Coburn's amendments (spelled correctly this time) failed. We WON! Thanks for taking the time to contact our senators!

Coburn wants to balance the highway budget but doesn't want to raise the gas tax either. One way he could do that is to convince people to stop driving so much!

He hears bike paths and think of their 5 year old on a big wheel.

Technical correction: Bike Pittsburgh had asked for information on "important" TE funded projects in the region, and provided the $10.4 million figure. The actual total for TE funded expended in the region for all projects is much higher than $10.4 million. Can you all just use "millions" instead of an actual number? Thanks!

sorry for the botch, Sara and thanks so much for providing the data. just put it together as quick as possible. the amendments failed so we won!

Casey's site seems to be down, too?

Sent Specter this:

Senator Specter:

I urge you to vote NO on S. Amendment 2370 and S. Amendment 2371, which would disestablish programs that provide funding for essential bicycle & pedestrian transportation projects that I use daily, for commuting & recreation. With the planet warming as we speak, taking away funding from efficient & pleasant transportation is the worst step possible. Once again, please vote NO on these irrational amendments.

Thanks,

A. G.

PS: Why is there no option for "bicycles" or "pedestrians" or the like under transportation? Your constituents use these modes every day.

Successfully sent to both offices.

Scott, here's a question - Iare bicycle and Ped fatalities really 13% of all fatalities? That seems pretty high to me. Over 5,000 per year. I'm guessing the vast majority of them would be pedestrian fatalities, but still.

That would come out to about 1 fatality a week for the Pittsburgh area.

Maybe there needs to be more publicity about just how murderous cars are.

Mick

This is always an interesting page:

http://www.nsc.org/research/odds.aspx

2005 US data (number of fatailities):

Motor-Vehicle Accidents 45,343

Pedestrian 6,074

Pedalcyclist 927

it's actually probably worse than that because some 15k of those 45k deaths are unspecified...

Salty, just checking - are those 6K ped deaths and 927 bike part of the 45,343 or in addition to the 45,343?

Looks to me like those car drivers kill a lot of innocent people (ie. "innocent" meaning "not in a car").

Mick

The board stripped out my indentation... 45k is the total, 'Pedestrian' and 'Pedalcyclist' are sub-categories included in that total.

Only about 18k are occupants of a car/truck/van, although as I said 15k are "unspecified". The other major contributor is motorcycle riders, ~4.5k.

They're not precisely subcategories. The Pedalcyclist category includes some deaths that are counted under Motor-Vehicle Accidents, plus other deaths that aren't. The ICD codes, explained here, indicate what's going on. A code V13 ("Pedal cyclist injured in collision with car, pick-up truck or van") would go in both counts, while a V10 ("Pedal cyclist injured in collision with pedestrian or animal") would go in the Pedalcyclist category but not the Motor-Vehicle Accidents one. The Motor-Vehicle Accidents category also wouldn't count cyclist deaths due to collisions with other cyclists, trains, horse-drawn wagons, stationary objects, etc. nor non-collision accidents.

While there isn't enough info in the table to say whether bike and pedestrian fatalities are 13% of all fatalities, due to that huge other/unknown category, I think there is enough to say, for instance, that cyclists were killed in 2.8% of all transport accidents in which the victim's mode of transport was recorded. (48,441 transport accidents, less 14,902 where the victim's mode wasn't specified, means 33,539 where we know the victim's mode of transport. Of those, 2.8% were on a bike.) And pedestrians were killed in 18.1% of such accidents.