San Francisco Bike Blog

Tomorrow is the official kick-off day for the Transportation 4 America (T4) campaign - which is a broad coalition of walk, bike, urban planning, affordable housing, and other groups that will call upon the future President of the US and Congress to ‘build a 21st Century transportation system.’

From the press release (PDF):

On the heels of the Wall Street bailout and hours before the final presidential debate, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) has joined a national coalition, Transportation 4 America (T4), along with Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and Assemblyman Mark Leno, to call on the Presidential Candidates and Congress to strengthen our economy by building a 21st Century transportation system.

There’s a kick-off event happening at 10am tomorrow morning (Wednesday):

As part of the nationwide campaign to influence the next federal transportation bill, San Francisco will host one of 10 nationwide events at the downtown San Francisco Caltrain Station at 4th and King, Wednesday Oct. 15 at 10:00am.  The event will highlight “Build for America: A Five-Point Plan to Get Our Economy Moving” which calls for re-thinking neighborhoods so that they are less car-dependent and more affordable by reducing oil consumption through biking, walking and world-class transit infrastructure. Changes which would create green jobs could save Americans thousands of dollars a year.

What: “Build for America: A Five-Point Plan to Get Our Economy Moving”
When: Wednesday Oct. 15 10:00 am
Where: San Francisco Caltrain Station at 4th and King
Who: Melanie Nutter, the Deputy District Director for Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Amanda Brown-Stevens from Greenbelt Alliance; Emily Rusch of CALPIRG; Kate Gordon from the Apollo Alliance; Judith Bell from PolicyLink; and a representative of State Assemblyman Mark Leno.

This is a big deal. It’s about trying to corral the wastefulness of the ways we typically spend our $70 Billion a year in federal transportation dollars, and trying to do something smarter with it. These bills only come along once every few years - the current bill will be six years old at the time it expires, this upcoming September.

Since the current bill expires in less than a year, jockeying for money from the new bill will start in early 2009. The new bill will be generally referred to as the 2009 Federal Transportation Bill.

There is typically a lot of money being appropriated in these transportation bills, and as far as I can tell, they’re absolute gold mines for Congresspersons and lobbyists. It’s easy money, that in my experience, is not easily challenged. But this time around is going to be different. The people who usually get this money are not going to simply acquiesce, however — privileged or not, they’re going to want their cut - so we have to be prepared to dig in to fight for what’s right. We have to be willing to work hard to pry some money away from dead causes and put them towards new, productive, green, job-producing, sustainable forms of transport - one of which, of course, is bicycling.

In the big scheme of things, this is not a very long lobbying effort on our part. The Bike Commuter Bill took 7 years to get passed. This transportation bill will happen within this year — it will probably be signed in the fall of 2009 - ready to take effect when the current bill expires (September). The first drafts may start appearing as early as the middle of the summer. So we could be looking at only a six-month window to convince our fellow citizens and our representatives that we’re serious about having a world-class transportation system. As soon as the new Congress sits - it’s go time.

Should be a fun ride!

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