FW: SB644 Motorists to Stop for Pedestrians in Crosswalks

[Bruce&Linda Dwyer]

More info on bills

-----Original Message-----
From: Lloyd Vye [mailto:bdvye at comcast.net] 
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2008 1:03 PM
To: VBFBoard at yahoogroups.com; VBF Topica; slewis at bikewalkvirginia.org
Subject: vbf: SB644 Motorists to Stop for Pedestrians in Crosswalks

was reported out of the Senate Transportation Committee yesterday 
afternoon by a 9 - 6 vote. (the first time such a bill has ever gotten 
out of committee in at least 6 years)

The bad news is that all of the Republicans on the Committee voted 
against the bill, except for Senator John Watkins (Chesterfield, a 
portion of Richmond, and a very small portion of Henrico). Any 
constituents of Sen. Watkins should call his office 804 698 7510 and 
express their pleasure at his Yes vote.  Constituents of any of the 
Democrat Senators (both Millers, Houck, Marsh, Puckett, Deeds, Ticer, 
and Petersen) should also  call their office and commend them.

This augurs well for passage in the full Senate, since it is controlled 
by the D's, but not so good when it gets over to the House, where the 
R's  have the majority. Its a shame that this issue seems to be getting 
a partisan vote.

 We'll get another reading on the House when HB1270 (which is an 
identical bill coming from the House side, and being patroned by Del. 
Adam Ebbin) is heard by House Transportation Sub-Committee 2 at 7:00 
a.m. on Monday. This sub-committee consists of Delegates Carrico as 
Chair, and Rust, Fralin, Loupassi, Ward, Marsden, and Nichols. If we 
have any who are constituents of any of them, a call this afternoon to 
their office would be helpful.

No word yet on HB 855 (Requiring VDOT to Establish Bike & Ped Advisory 
Committees in all Construction Districts). VDOT does not appear to be 
interested in supporting, or staying neutral, on the bill, citing a 
Fiscal Impact Study from 2005 that shows that each committee would cause 
an expenditure of $75,000 per year for a total annual cost of $675,000. 
This, of course, is ridiculous, since we don't envision any new staff 
being required of VDOT to implement such committees, so that the actual 
cost to them would be minimal.  The good news here is that VDOT knows we 
are still interested in having such committees, and that they are 
thinking about, and talking about, what can be done to get more citizen 
input. We'll see where this leads us.

Bud Vye

--^----------------------------------------------------------------
This email was sent to: ouibike at verizon.net

EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?aVxiE6.brcDfN.b3VpYmlr
Or send an email to: vbf-unsubscribe at topica.com

For Topica's complete suite of email marketing solutions visit:
http://www.topica.com/?p=TEXFOOTER
--^----------------------------------------------------------------