Backwards

Backwards. That’s the direction the latest proposed transportation funding package in Olympia is headed.

The latest proposal increases the funding in the package by hundreds of millions of dollars, and it boosts money for costly new highway expansions.

What does it cut?

It cuts funds that would help make it safer for families to walk and bike in their neighborhoods.

These modest pots of money – Safe Routes to School and Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety grants – were already only a tiny sliver of the overall proposal. And yet legislators are proposing cutting the funding for those programs by $49 million.

Billions for highway expansion, millions less for biking and walking programs.

It’s simply backwards. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

If people like you speak out TODAY, we have a fighting chance to change it. ACT NOW.

Legislators are likely to vote on the package TODAY – it is extremely urgent that we speak out immediately.

Ask your legislators to RESTORE the funding for bike safety in the transportation package, and if those cuts are not restored, to vote NO on the package.

Your representatives need to hear from you.

They need to hear – loud and clear – that you, their constituents, want to go forward with transportation investments focused on our core maintenance and safety needs – instead of pouring the vast majority of our resources into highway expansions.

We can focus our investments on making roads safer for families and children, if enough of us act.