Booker, Menendez, Carper and Colleagues Ask USDOT’s Foxx for Walking/Cycling Safety Measure

Senators Tom Carper (Delaware), Cory Booker (New Jersey), Robert Menendez (New Jersey) and Chuck Schumer (New York)

In a recent letter to United States Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, New Jersey senators Cory Booker and Robert Menendez, joined by several of their senate colleagues – including Tom Carper – asked Secretary Foxx to establish a safety “performance measure” for walking and cycling:

“To: The Honorable Anthony Foxx, Secretary, United States Department of Transportation

From: Senators Cory Booker (New Jersey), Robert Menendez (New Jersey), Tom Carper (Delaware), Benjamin Cardin (Maryland), Kirsten Gillibrand (New York), Brian Schatz (Hawaii), Charles Schumer (New York), Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire)

….While highway fatalities have decreased overall, fatalities for pedestrians and bicyclists are on the rise, and the strategies needed to address their safety tend to differ greatly from the traditional safety measures for motorists. [Your Department’s policy]…should address this issue by developing separate measures for motorized and non-motorized transportation.”

Read entire letter HERE.

This senatorial letter is just the latest in multiple congressional efforts to establish a safety measure for walking and cycling for the federal government’s Highway Safety improvement Program. It follows similar recent efforts by the U.S Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the U.S. House of Representative Appropriations Committee. And all of that, in turn, is on top of nearly 10,000 comments from ordinary cyclists for the exact same thing.

RELATED:

• Letter from Senator Cory Booker et al to USDOT Secretary Anthony Foxx (re: Highway Safety Improvement Program)

• 10K Comments for Bicyclist Safety (LAB)

• U.S. House Committee Tells USDOT To Reduce Walking and Cycling Fatalities and Injuries

• U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations Report

• Is the United States Department of Transportation Aware That We Have a Huge Problem?

• Safety Act Language for Walking and Cycling Is Included in Federal Transportation Bill Approved by Senate Committee

• B+ for Boxer Bill (League of American Bicyclists)

• EPW Committee Unanimously Approves Major Bipartisan Transportation Bill, MAP-21 Reauthorization Act

• MAP–21 Reauthorization Act (S.2322)

• Senator Coons and Representative Carney Will Co-Sponsor the Bicycle and Pedestrian Road Safety Act

• House Majority Leader Will Lead Delaware’s Cycling Delegation to Washington DC