Good evening,
The summit opened tonite, this picture shows Dennis S. (from Charleston) and I at the opening reception where we heard some from some of the other small communities who have made bicycling a big part of their communities (and economies). A small town in MN (pop 800) who put in a trail saw their hotel tax proceeds rise from $250K to $4.7 MILLION after putting in the trail. League leadership made it clear that now that we have separate trails to ride on and have shown our economic impact, it's time for us to have space on the road. That's what this summit is going to be all about - passing the:
Safe Routes to Schools Act
Active Communities Act
and Complete Streets Act.
Fortunately Dennis tells me that all of our lawmakers are already planning to vote in favor of these bills so all we have to do when we show up is thank them. We'll still ask them to do more of course, but this is a great position to be in. Please take any opportunity you can to write Mollohan, Rockefeller or Byrd and thank them for their support of better roads for bikes and other vehicles to share. Then let them know what else you'd like to see.
And keep in touch with them. In the advocate training workshop they reminded us that you have to stay in this for the long term. Copenhagen and Madison, WI took 30 years to get where they are. Using their example we can do it faster, but only if we stay on the job
Thank you.
Nick
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