We know how you start your day: Looking forward to that first jolt of caffeine in the system to help get you rolling. Let us make it even easier for you by having the coffee delivered straight to your door!

Our friends at Roast House Coffee in Spokane have cooked up Gear Grinder Blend to benefit the Bicycle Alliance. Organic, farm-to-cup fair-trade coffee in compostable bags and it benefits bicycle advocacy? Doesn’t get much better than that!

Roast House owner Deb Di Bernardo has long supported bike events in Spokane with donated coffee, from the Bike to Work Kickoff Breakfast put on by Spokane Bikes to races and rides like the great fall family ride Spokefest. As their site says, they’re “Spokane’s small, local, artisanal, goody-two-shoes roasting company.” Further evidence: Deb delivers coffee by bike to many of the Spokane coffee shops that serve her roast.

Available in dark French roast, medium roast, and medium roast decaf for those late-night cups to accompany your dessert, this is a smooth, delicious coffee. You can order it online; the price includes all sales tax and shipping and these bags are a full 16 ounces–an actual pound of coffee instead of the 12-ounce bags so common on the shelves these days. Your purchase benefits the Bicycle Alliance and supports a business dedicated to biking and sustainability.

Gear Grinder Medium Roast: Deb says this is her personal favorite for French press every morning, and that “In blind taste tests this blend kicked the pants of the Italian imports.”

Ethically sourced Mexican and Nicaraguan coffees combine to create a blend that showcases flavors of delicate chocolate and dry cocoa with mild acidity and a silky body. While it reminds some people of pudding, the blend turns sweet and tangy when prepared as espresso.

Dark Roast: This three-bean blend of sustainably grown and ethically sourced Mexican, Brazilian and Papua New Guinea is roasted to a deep, dark mahogany, revealing a pungent, bittersweet, smoky aroma. A splash of cream is the perfect finish for this intense brew, which is recommended for espresso, drip, French press and pour-over preparations.

Medium Roast Decaf: Ethically sourced, certified organic coffees from the most reputable cooperatives in Latin America, Indonesia and Ethiopia, roasted to bring out the depth of flavor that’s only possible in decafs processed in the chemical-free Swiss Water Process. It’s a deeply satisfying brew that’s 99.9% light on caffeine but heavy on flavor.

Fueled by caffeine!

Note: If you’re in the Seattle area, you can check with the office (Elliott at 206-224-9252 ext. 300) to see if we have some bags on hand to save on shipping. That’s not front-door convenience like the home shipping option but we welcome visitors!

2012 brought its ups and downs for investments in Safe Routes to School – an oversubscribed state grant program that increases physical activity by getting kids walking and biking, improves safety and reduces vehicle citations, and improves concentration in academics.

First, the additive fee bill passed in the legislature and signed by the governor in spring 2012 brought a much-needed influx of state investments for the growing Safe Routes to School program. We say “additive” because the goal of the bill was to increase investments above and beyond where they were with federal and state funding.

www.pedbikeimages.org / Dan Burden

Unfortunately, the progress forward in Safe Routes to School threatened to disappear just months later with the passage of the two-year federal transportation bill. Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21) diminished direct federal funding for walking and biking by at least 35%. With hard work and full-on campaigning, Washington Bikes with help from our friends at the Transportation for Washington Campaign worked to restore funding to the 2009-11 biennium levels for federal funding in Safe Routes.

State budgets have to be based on some assumptions about the level of federal money coming in. But unfortunately, the next two years of federal funding for Safe Routes to School will still fall short of the dollars assumed as a base for Safe Routes when the state legislature made its additive fee bill investments last spring.

That’s where Senate Bill 5506 comes in. This bill seeks to provide certainty by ensuring that the level of federal funds dedicated to Safe Routes to School grants will remain the same as the last two years by establishing a floor of federal funding. Under MAP-21 the state has flexibility in redirecting some of its funds to make this possible. This week SB 5506 needs your help to get voted out of the Senate Transportation Committee. Our friends at the Childhood Obesity Prevention Coalition have an action alert ready to go.

SB 5506, sponsored by Senator Andy Billig (Spokane), helps guarantee that we continue to grow investments that already show results. Seventy percent of the Safe Routes to School projects in Washington state that were awarded between 2005 and 2009 have been completed. At schools with completed projects, the number of children biking and walking has increased by over 20 percent.

Additionally, Safe Routes to School projects have brought new infrastructure and safety improvements, along with reductions in motor vehicle citations. Washington state Safe Routes to School investments have added 75,000 feet of new sidewalks near schools, and reduced  motorist speeds and traffic citations. For completed projects, so far no collisions involving bicyclists or pedestrians have been recorded at Safe Routes to School project locations after project completion.

By drawing partially from the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP), SB 5506 continues to make the explicit linkage between child safety and roadway safety as 14% of all serious injuries and deaths in Washington occur when walking or biking and yet HSIP funds currently expend less than 1% to fix this problem. Similarly, walking on Washington state streets constitutes the third leading cause of death for our kids.

Making the link explicit between highway safety and walking and biking is a priority of Washington Bikes. With our work on MAP-21, we’re carrying it on in supporting SB 5506, working on the update of Target Zero (the Washington state strategic highway safety plan), and by working with our legislators and WSDOT.

Here at Washington Bikes, we’re proud to advocate and grow the linkage between road safety investments and getting kids to walk and bike. Next week we’ll be sharing it with advocates across the country at the National Bike Summit in Washington D.C.

Back here in the other Washington, we’ve got work to do this week. Please visit the Childhood Obesity Prevention Coalition’s action alert, send it out, and let the Senate Transportation Committee know about the great reasons to vote YES on SB 5506.