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Show your support for for the new Bicycle and Pedestrian Infrastructure Financing Act

Read More: http://blog.nj.com/nj_off-road_bikin...ncing_act.html

Website: https://www.votervoice.net/BikeLeagu.../34386/Respond

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Modeled after the successful Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA), this bipartisan legislation will allow communities to take advantage of low-cost financing for projects that make our streets and sidewalks safer for all users.

- The New Opportunities for Bicycle and Pedestrian Infrastructure Financing Act of 2014 (NOBPIFA) will allow communities to take advantage of low-cost financing for projects that make streets and sidewalks safer for all users through a new federal credit assistance program that would direct millions specifically for low-income communities.

- The League of American Bicyclists is asking all of us to voice our opinion and to make sure our representatives are aware of how we feel. If you believe bicycling should be safe for everyone, tell your Representative to support H.R. 3978 today!

The League summarizes the main points of the bill thusly:

• It creates a low-interest long-term loan program for communities to build biking and walking networks.

• It enforces that 25% of the funding must be spent in low-income communities

• It has the funding, $11 million, as a set-aside from the $1 billion dollar TIFIA loan program already funded in MAP-21.

• It offers a new tool for Mayors and local governments to finance needed transportation infrastructure.
And it doesn't add any new costs to the transportation bill, or to the federal budget.

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San Francisco and its cycletracks lead the way toward safer biking statewide

Read More: http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2014/01...king-statewide

San Francisco has been blazing the trail toward safer cycling with innovative designs such as cycletracks, or bike lanes that are physically separated from cars, which have been installed on Market Street and JFK Drive. But cycletracks aren’t legal under state law, something that a San Francisco lawmaker and activist are trying to solve so that other California cities can more easily build them.

“Right now, many cities are not putting in cycletracks for fear they don’t conform to the Caltrans manual,” says Assemblymember Phil Ting, whose Assembly Bill 1193 — which would legalize and set design standards for cycletracks — cleared the Assembly yesterday [Wed/29] and is now awaiting action by the Senate. --- Ting is working on the issue with the California Bicycle Coalition, whose executive director Dave Snyder is a longtime San Francisco bike activist. Snyder says Caltrans doesn’t allow bike lanes that include physical barriers against traffic, even though they are widely used in other countries and states and considered to be safest design for cyclists.

“San Francisco is technically breaking the law because they have the best traffic engineers in the state and a good City Attorney’s Office and they know they can defend it in court if they have to,” Snyder said. “Most places in the state won’t do that.” --- In addition to the direct benefits of the legislation in San Francisco and other cities, Snyder said the legislation seems to be triggering a long-overdue discussion at Caltrans and other agencies about how to encourage more people to see cycling as an attractive transportation option, with all the environmental, public health, and traffic alleviation benefits that brings.

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