On Monday morning, U.S. Sens. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) introduced The Developing a Reliable and Innovative Vision for the Economy Act,or DRIVE Act.  As the acronym suggests, the bill focuses on freight and highways.

While we did get some important changes to the Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP), there are still several more ways we can make this bill more inclusive of people who bike. You can read the League analysis of the bill here.

Tomorrow the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will debate the bill and vote on a number of amendments to improve safety, promote safety innovations, and support multimodal transportation. The bill is 270 pages long and there are inevitably a lot of amendments, including several that we believe are essential to make the bill more balanced, multi-modal and supportive of local control.

Your Senator is on this Committee. Please help us by asking them to support these amendments.

We have less than a day to show support for a bill that’s a transportation bill — and not just a driving bill.

Below are the amendments we hope your lawmaker will support during tomorrow’shearing.

Cardin Amendments on the Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP)

• To restore funding to 2009 levels
• To ensure states can’t transfer funding that has been allocated to local governments

Gillibrand Amendment on Vision Zero

• To create an incentive program to reward local innovations in traffic safety

Markey Amendment on Safe Streets

• To ensure states adopt a Complete Streets policy

Merkley Amendments on equity and access

• To establish  a national goal of achieving a transportation system that connects people to economic opportunities through multiple modes of transportation
• To establish a pilot project to study connectivity of transportation options to economic opportunities

Cardin Amendment on flexibility in overall funding levels

• Stating that if more funding for transportation is found through tax reform or another measure, the committee won’t be limited by the funding numbers in this bill.

Thank you for helping us build a more bicycle-friendly America for everyone!

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