Good discussion points and let me be clear that I'm in full support of SRTS. It's a fantastic federal program and it's a significant portion of our work at the Bike Fed. We run the state's largest Safe Routes to School program in Milwaukee and wrote a district-wide Safe Routes to School Plan for the Madison school district which enabled them to secure $300,000 in SRTS funds (which are nearly all federal dollars simply funneled through WisDOT).
I'm going to share this email exchange with our Advocacy Committee. Robbie, as a Bike Fed Board member, I encourage you to share your feedback with the Board and Advocacy Committee as well, especially if you feel that we should refocus our efforts. At the beginning of the year, we chose to focus our state-level lobbying efforts on building relationships with the new republican leaders and winning back our state bike/ped funding. We've been successful in both areas. Getting back $2 million of our funding in these challenging political times was a significant win. We also feel we've built good relationships inside the Capital that will benefit us greatly in the months and years to come. The Cap Times headline from yesterday reads: Bike Fed brings parties together around legislative proposal. To me, that is not "heading down the wrong track". Getting bipartisan support for bicycling is a significant step forward. Amanda On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 1:34 PM, Robbie Webber <[email protected]>wrote: > One reason that the state might be interested in funding SRTS during a > tough budget climate is that it is significantly cheaper to have kids > walking and biking to school than paying for hazardous busing* to get kids > short distances - even if teaching them how to safely walk and bike, or > building a little infrastructure, costs a some money. > > Ask a few schools what their transportation budgets are. Ask them what > portion of that is hazardous busing. Now ask some state legislators if they > would like to save some money in the state budget by making aid to schools > for hazardous busing a much smaller amount. > > Also use the argument that driving kids to school is a significant time and > financial burden on busy and stressed parents. Even though many kids qualify > for busing, they are driven a short distance because the parents don't want > to get them ready in time for the bus, and they are afraid to have them > walk/bike to school. > > * Hazardous busing is providing bus service for kids that live closer than > the distance where kids *could* walk/bike to school, but the school feels it > is too dangerous because of road/walking conditions. The State of Wisconsin > mandates busing for kids that live more than 2 miles from their school. The > Madison Metropolitan School District provides automatic provides bus service > for kids that live more than 1.5 miles from school. However, many kids are > bused very short distances - even a few blocks - because there is a road > that is deemed too dangerous for the kids to cross, even with a crossing > guard. > > Robbie Webber > > > > > > > On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 12:48 PM, Amanda White <[email protected]>wrote: > >> >> My concern with trying to push Safe Routes to School is that our schools >> just took an incredibly huge hit. With the serious budget crisis now facing >> our school systems across the state, it's now harder than ever to push >> biking and walking to school. If the state leaders don't want to adequately >> fund our kids' education why would they fund SRTS? >> >> -- ________________________ Amanda White Associate Director Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin (608) 251-4456 [email protected] www.bfw.org *We've moved!* You can find us at: 409 East Main Street, Suite 203, Madison, WI 53703
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