The following article was supplied by SBRA Member John Saraceno. There were embedded links to help find and contact your Senators, just in case they not carried forward, you can copy/paste the following: http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/7093/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8594 .

Bicycle and Pedestrian Funding under Attack Again
Contact your Senators Again Today to Save Transportation Enhancements Funding

It’s happening again. Just one month ago, Sen. Coburn (R-OK) failed in his efforts to strip funding for Transportation Enhancements from the six-month transportation extension.

Now, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is taking the lead in trying to destroy Transportation Enhancements. On November 1, the Senate will finalize the transportation appropriations bill, which sets funding levels for FY2012. Sen. Paul has offered an amendment to redirect all funding for Transportation Enhancements to bridge repair.

Send an email to your Senators now to ask them to vote against the Paul amendment that would eliminate Transportation Enhancements. We agree on the need to keep our bridges safe, but the lives of pedestrians and cyclists are important too.

Senator Rand Paul’s 80-year Bridge Repair Plan: If Sen. Paul’s amendment is successful, it would eliminate approximately $700 million in federal funding for FY2012 that is used to construct sidewalks, bike lanes, bike paths, trails and other infrastructure that makes it safe for bicyclists and pedestrians to get around. Even if every penny of these funds is diverted to bridge repairs, Senator Paul’s plan will still take 80 years to fix the backlog of bridge repairs we have today. Keep in mind that:

The Transportation Enhancements program represents less than two percent of federal transportation funds and these projects help alleviate traffic congestion, improve safety, get people active, and create more jobs per dollar than highway-only projects.
Last year, states gave more than $530 million dollars of bridge repair money back to the federal government last year. States are leaving bridge repair funds on the table, unspent, year after year; they should at least spend these funds first.
Thirteen people died when the Minneapolis bridge collapsed in 2007: since then, close to 20,000 pedestrians and 2,800 cyclists have died on our nation’s highways, largely as a result of poor highway design and a lack of safe non-motorized infrastructure – exactly what the enhancement program was created to fix.
If the Paul amendment succeeds, it will make it much more challenging to sustain funding for Transportation Enhancements, Safe Routes to School, and Recreational Trails in the long-term transportation bill that the Environment and Public Works Committee starts debating just 8 days later on November 9.

We must turn back any amendment to strip Transportation Enhancements. Last month, more than 75,000 messages were sent to Senators to ask them to stand strong for Transportation Enhancements. That was an amazing turnout, but we must do better this time. Every time someone in Congress attacks bicycling and walking, we must push back even stronger than we did the time before. And, we will keep doing it until bicycle and pedestrian funding is protected.

This is the third time in a month that a few Senators have targeted Transportation Enhancements, using a different angle each time. It is a waste of the Senate's time and taxpayers dollars to focus on this small and valuable program when we are in dire need of real and viable solutions to fix our failing transportation system.

Please contact your Senators today to ask them to vote against the Paul amendment (SA-821) to eliminate Transportation Enhancements. And then please forward this message to at least five others who care about the safety of people walking and bicycling on our streets.

Thank you for your help today, and for passing the call to action along.