Bike Walk CT Participates in a "Virtual" Lobby Day

Despite the cancellation of the 2020 National Bike Summit this week, Bike Walk Connecticut still met with staff on Capitol Hill via conference call on Tuesday, March 17, 2020 to ask for support on various bike/ped legislative proposals.  We organized these meetings as part of the National Bike Summit’s Lobby Day. Click here to download fact sheets provided by the League of American Bicyclists related to each of the 'asks' below.

Our requests to Senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal included these three ‘asks’:

• Support for a vision test in any automated vehicles and oppose a potential 10-year safety regulation vacuum.
• Co-sponsor the Cycling Safety Bill being worked on by Senator Schatz (D-HI) that implements recommendations from National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) 2019 bicycle safety report.
• Co-sponsor the national Complete Streets bill introduced by Senator Markey (D-MA).

We proposed the following requests to Connecticut Representatives Joe Courtney, John Larson, Jim Himes, and Rosa DeLauro (we hope to meet with Rep. Hayes soon):

• Support for a vision test in any automated vehicles and oppose a potential 10-year safety regulation vacuum.
• Co-sponsor the Transportation Alternatives (TA) Enhancement Act (HR 5231) that improves the TA program’s effectiveness and efficiency by increasing access to technical assistance and funding to local governments.
• Co-sponsor the SAFE Streets Act (HR 3040) that improves how bicyclist and pedestrian fatalities are addressed in areas where fatalities are occurring.

All Connecticut Legislator offices indicated interest in our requests, and we now await their response.  We appreciated the time that office staff generously provided us to discuss these bike/ped proposals.  Connecticut’s Senate and House offices also received fact sheets regarding these issues.

A special thank you from Bike Walk Connecticut to Bruce Donald from East Coast Greenway and Laura Baum for participating in these discussions.