Help Piper, Join us at Transportation Advocacy Day

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Since last week, over 17,000 people read our message about helping Piper get the freedom to safely ride her bike around her neighborhood.

Over 17,000 people!

Maybe you were one of them.  Now imagine if just 6% of those people came to Olympia for Transportation Advocacy Day to say that they want safer communities for biking and walking.  Consider the impact of over 1,000 people walking into our state capitol and demanding that we as a state get serious about creating a better community through bicycling.  Think about the message that would send to our legislators; they would stand up and take notice.

Today marks the start of the 2012 legislative session, which is slated to last for 60 jam-packed days.  As we’ve mentioned before, this year’s legislative session brings unprecedented challenges, but also opportunities.  We’ve crafted our legislative agenda to seize these opportunities and help create a better community through bicycling, but to get things done, we’re going to need your help.  And one of the easiest, most fun, educational and empowering ways you can help is to join us on Jan. 31 in Olympia for Transportation Advocacy Day.

What’s Transportation Advocacy Day?  It’s your opportunity to join fellow advocates from across the state in lobbying your legislators for a better transportation future.  We’ll feed you breakfast, educate you on the political dynamics of the session and our legislative priorities, empower you with the tools to successfully lobby your legislators, feed you lunch, and provide you with a range of options for the afternoon from meeting with and lobbying your legislator to speaking with their assistant to attending (and even testifying!) at a hearing.

This year, in collaboration with our allies in the transportation and public health communities, we’ll be advocating for:

• SHB 1217 – Neighborhood Safe Speeds bill, to make streets and neighborhoods safer by giving cities and towns the freedom to set speed limits to 20 miles per hour on non-arterial streets without a costly engineering and traffic study;
• HB 1700 – Safe and Flexible Design Guidelines bill, which gives cities and counties the flexibility to use updated guidelines for designing bicycle and pedestrian projects, helping to increase safety and reduce project costs;
• Adding health to Washington’s six transportation goals, which has the potential to save lives, improve health and safety and reduce health care costs by creating active transportation opportunities that prevent chronic diseases, improve air quality and reduce obesity; and
• Supporting the Transportation for Washington principles of “Fix it first; save lives,” “More transit,” and “Building great, healthy communities."

Fun, well organized, empowering and effective – that’s Transportation Advocacy Day in a nutshell.  And if you want to help give Piper (and everyone else) the freedom to safely ride her bike around her neighborhood, join us at Transportation Advocacy Day and let’s make it happen.