A Push to the Finish for Neighborhood Safe Streets Bill

Kids from Broadway Elementary in the Spokane Valley practicing our Safe Routes to School bicycle/pedestrian safety curriculum. We prepare them for the streets–can we make the streets safer for them too?

What will make our streets safer for our kids? Too many headlines tell the sad story: We need to slow down.

How do we make that happen? You take action right now to ask your state senator to vote yes for HB 1045, our Neighborhood Safe Streets Bill.

The Neighborhood Safe Streets Bill should be coming to the floor of the Senate for a vote in the next few days–almost the last critical step in the process.

Earlier this session HB 1045 passed the House with overwhelming bipartisan support, 86-10, and was unanimously recommended for passage in the Senate Transportation Committee last month.

It’s time to ask your state senator to vote yes for safer streets, less red tape, and cost savings for taxpayers.

HB 1045 is simple: Cities can save our tax dollars by slowing speed limits on non-arterial streets to 20 mph without having to spend money on a traffic and engineering study. The time and expense of that study can interfere with a commonsense decision that makes your street safer for everyone from toddlers to grandparents.

We’ve given you lots of facts and talking points to include in your email in our previous blog posts. What we need you to do right now is help us get this bill across the finish line.

Contact your state senator.

By phone: Call the legislative hotline 1-800-562-6000 and tell the operator you’d like to leave a message for your senator. The friendly operator will copy down your message and send it to your legislators. This is a very easy process; say “Please vote yes for House Bill 1045, the Neighborhood Safe Streets Bill.”

By email: Enter your mailing address on the district finder form (choose Legislative, not Congressional) and follow the instructions on the site to reach a contact form.

Choose your state senator and ask for a YES vote on the floor for HB 1045. Use what you’ll find in our last blog post, Will the State Senate Vote to Help Slow Traffic in Your Neighborhood? and stress these points:

• HB 1045 is about local control, increasing government efficiency by cutting red tape and expense, and making neighborhood streets safer.
• HB 1045 has broad bipartisan support.
• HB 1045 can save cities and towns money; it’s smart policy that removes unnecessary regulation over a decrease of 5 mph. This change lets cities spend that money on actually making safety and traffic improvements instead of conducting yet another study.
• The elderly are most vulnerable to collisions at speeds above 20 MPH; slower streets are more forgiving to those whose mobility is affected by the highly individual process of aging.
• Safe, walkable streets are important for safety and livability, and they improve the quality of our schools and neighborhoods—so kids can walk and bike and so parents can feel safe sending their kids to school.
• This bill could help reduce cut-through traffic on neighborhood streets coming off arterials onto non-arterial streets, which affects property values, safety, and livability in cities and towns across Washington.

Our Legislation & Statewide Issues page lists the issues and bills we’re following so bookmark that, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and ask your friends to sign up for our email Action Alerts to keep pace with the session as it speeds up.

We’re almost there–can you help get this bill across the finish line? Don’t stop pedaling now!