LMB believes in advocacy at all levels of government to improve life through bicycling. To that end, Jessica Lanave attended the annual National Bike Summit (NBS) in Washington DC, organized by the League of American Bicyclists (LAB.) NBS brings together a variety of advocates from around the country and even internationally. Jessica served as the Bike Summit State Coordinator for Michigan, arranging meetings with the offices of Senators Stabenow and Peters, and Representatives Bergman, Slotkin, Scholten, Huizenga, and Kildee. The three major asks identified by LAB for this summit were:
1. Truck Side Guard Research
Sign on to a Dear Colleague letter, led by Senator Gillibrand, advocating for report language requiring NHTSA to include vulnerable road user crashes when completing the truck side guard research required in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).
2. HR 1685 and S.881 The E-BIKE Act
The Electric Bicycle Incentive Kickstart for the Environment (E-BIKE) Act creates a tax rebate for people buying electric bikes, similar to the tax incentive for buying an electric car.
3. HR 1668 Sarah Debbink Langenkamp Active Transportation Safety Act
While it doesn’t spend any new money or create new mandates on states, it does:
• help reduce the disconnect between state-identified and locally-identified priorities by giving the state the flexibility to spend safety dollars on local priorities.
• give states flexibility to fund bicycle and walking safety projects with 100% federal funds, including for locally identified safety priorities.
• make it easier for states and local governments to fund the safety projects identified in IIJA-funded safety plans. 437 local governments received IIJA funding to write safety plans in one year alone!
• highlight the need to fill gaps in biking and walking networks, and makes such projects eligible for funding under HSIP.
Since the summit, LMB has stayed active in national advocacy, including outreach to the office of Rep. Debbie Dingell on the need for a “vision test” in autonomous vehicle (AV) legislation to ensure that self-driving cars can detect and avoid people on bikes. For more, see Bikeleague.org/u-s-must-lead-on-safety-in-race-to-develop-self-driving-vehicles.
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