Dear Campaign Advocate,
As our last campaign e-mail mentioned, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC) has been in close conversations with key congressional offices in the U.S. House and Senate about introducing marker bills* that would create a focused competitive grant program for active transportation systems.
We are now at liberty to share details of the House process.
Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) is the lead sponsor of the "Active Transportation Act of 2009," which would direct the secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation to "carry out an active transportation investment program ... to encourage a mode shift to active transportation within selected communities by providing safe and convenient options to bicycle and walk for routine travel."
This opportunity represents our best chance yet to realize the goals of our years of collective work on the Campaign for Active Transportation!
Rep. Blumenauer will soon be introducing the Act on the House floor. To aid his effort, RTC has authored a group sign-on letter** and partnered with America Bikes to develop an impressive list of supporting organizations.
Please consider having your organization and other local groups sign this letter, which Rep. Blumenauer can then use to bolster support for this legislation.
To sign the letter, e-mail the name and title of a representative of each signatory organization, including the corresponding city/county and state, to Kartik Sribarra at kartik@railstotrails.org by 12 p.m. EST next Friday, Dec. 18. Please note that this deadline represents our best sense of the timing of this legislation's progress. However, there remains a chance that we will be forced to adjust this deadline as we are responding to fast-moving congressional activity. We will let you know as soon as we can if this is the case. Therefore, it is in our best interest to collect signatures as quickly as possible in case legislation progresses more quickly than expected.
Thank you,
Rails-to-Trails Conservancy
* A marker bill is one that "marks" the position of several legislators on a particular issue with the intention that the marker bill's content will eventually be incorporated into the final version.
** You may reference the "Active Transportation Act of 2009" language in determining whether or not to sign, but please do not circulate this language in whole or in part more than necessary to gain signatures; it is not yet to be made public. Thank you. 
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