Dear Friends,
The bicycle is the single most efficient form of transportation ever designed. It is low-cost and allows people burn calories instead of fossil fuels. It connects our communities and generates tremendous economic opportunity. Critically, it also brings people together: everyone has a bike story.
Over the past few weeks, I had the opportunity to celebrate how far the bike movement has come. When I founded the Congressional Bike Caucus 28 years ago, bike infrastructure was neglected by the federal government. It received a fraction of all federal spending, if anything at all. Federal investments focused on moving cars quickly, to the exclusion of almost everything else.
Today we've created a national movement shaping communities large and small. President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law included historic funding levels for bike and pedestrian infrastructure. I am particularly proud it included the creation of a $1 billion Safe Streets and Roads for All grant program to fund vision zero infrastructure projects, modeled after legislation I authored. There is now a gusher of funding available and our communities are taking advantage.
We celebrated our progress at the 2024 Bike Summit in Washington, D.C. Our nation’s capital is itself a symbol of how far we’ve come. One of my proudest accomplishments is working to get bike lanes installed along Pennsylvania Avenue. Countless federal employees now use them to bike to work down one of our nation’s most iconic streets. At the Bike Summit, I accepted the first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award in Bike-Partisanship, which recognizes how bikes bring people together and cut through partisanship on Capitol Hill.
Kicking off the annual Congressional Bike Caucus ride
We then capped off a phenomenal week in Tucson, where I received the Jim Oberstar award for supporting the bicycle movement. Receiving a lifetime achievement award in honor of my infrastructure mentor in Congress, the legendary Jim Oberstar, has special meaning for me. Oberstar never stopped working for the bicycle community and neither should we.
I am proud to accept these awards. But more to the point, they are a symbol of how far we've come to increase federal investments and build support for our movement.
The bicycle offers us a roadmap to rebuild and renew America and bring people together. Most importantly, it has the power to unlock the full potential of livable communities: places where families are safe, healthy, and economically secure.
I look forward to the work ahead.
Courage, | 
|
| Earl Blumenauer
Member of Congress |
|
|
