Educating the Candidates

We contacted candidates for Governor, State Senator, and State Representative to educate them about Bike Walk Connecticut and the importance of making Connecticut a better place to bike and walk.  Here's what we said:

Dear Candidate: 

As you make your rounds in these last few days before the election, we hope you'll keep our mission in mind. Are the communities you visit good, safe places for people to bike and walk?

We believe Connecticut must become a better place to bike and walk.
We believe more people want to spend less time sitting in their cars.  
We think parents want their kids to be able to bike or walk to school.  
We know more people would bike and walk more, if it were convenient and they felt safe.

If we want to reduce traffic congestion and pollution, encourage people to get more exercise, help people save money, and foster lively communities, then promoting biking and walking is smart policy. To see what some Connecticut residents are saying about why biking and walking is important to them, please click here.

We hope you'll work with us to get better, safer places for biking and walking all across Connecticut.  

Best wishes to you on the final stretch of the campaign trail!

Kelly Kennedy, Executive Director
Bike Walk Connecticut
www.bikewalkct.org


... By the way, if you're not familiar with our work, here are some of our accomplishments so far this year:

• In May we launched a new  "Complete Streets" initiative and on July 1 released a first-of-its-kind survey and Scorecard ranking of the state's cities and towns on how bike- and walk-friendly they are, and how well they are implementingConnecticut's 2009 complete streets law.

• We held a filled-to-capacity Complete Streets Leadership Forum on June 30, bringing together planners, engineers, elected officials and citizen activists from all over the state to start sharing ideas on what has worked, and what hasn't, in implementing complete streets in their towns. 
   
• With more cars on the road, pedestrian and cyclist fatalities have been on the rise.  We worked with state legislators to finally get the Vulnerable User Bill, Public Act 14-31, passed in Connecticut--after four years of trying. This new law imposes a fine of up to $1000 on reckless drivers who kill or injure a pedestrian or cyclist.  At a minimum, this new law is already getting people to think and talk more about sharing the road, and that's a step forward.
   
• We organized and actively promoted Bike to Work Day on Friday, May 16th. Despite the rain we had 600 people pledge to Bike to Work that day, and more employers were represented this year compared to last year. 
   
• We also continue to offer educational classes for bicycle safety, and we are very pleased to be gearing up for a Share the Road campaign in partnership with another organization.