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UPDATED: 4/4/08

Big Wins for Bikes in 2008 Legislative Session

2008 was a huge year for Cascade Bicycle Club's priorities in the state legislature. Thanks to your responses to our action alerts and the hard work of our friends in the transportation and environmental communities, Washington State took several large steps forward during this session toward improved conditions for cyclists. A few bills we supported did not make it to the Governor's desk, but that does not necessarily mean they are gone for good. You can count on Cascade Bicycle Club to continue to work on your behalf in future legislative sessions.

Here are some of the highlights of the 2008 legislative session:

Bills we supported:

Climate Action and Green Jobs (House Bill 2815) -- PASSED

This legislation, possibly the most important bill in Olympia in 2008, builds on the work of last year's Climate Advisory Team by giving the Washington State Department of Ecology the authority to monitor and plan for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from our state.

The improvement of bicycling and walking opportunities will play a significant part in the realization of our climate goals. Since the most common automobile trips are short - 40% are less than 2 miles in length - adding bike and pedestrian connections has the potential to slash carbon emissions while building better, healthier communities. Climate Action and Green Jobs requires an eventual decrease in the number of miles driven by vehicles each year, paving the way for a renewed focus on improving conditions for biking, walking, and transit.

Financing the State Route 520 bridge replacement project (House Bill 3096) -- PASSED

Among other things, this legislation allows for early tolling on the existing 520 bridge to pay for an accelerated construction of its replacement. Early tolling will save hundreds of millions of dollars in interest payments and will speed completion of the replacement bridge and the new bicycle and pedestrian path that will be part of it.

Tolling Authorization Bill (House Bill 1773) -- PASSED

This bill makes it the policy of the State of Washington to use tolling to provide transportation funding for critical system preservation and safety projects. Tolling may also be used to encourage efficient use of the transportation system. As we know, pricing affects our decisions as consumers, and this provides the public with a tool to manage and preserve the limited resource that is our road network.

While imperfect, the bill includes language on using tolls to meet greenhouse gas reduction goals and the state's new goal to reduce total vehicle miles traveled (a necessity if we are to effectively address climate change). We believe that the legislation has the potential to improve bicycle and transit service in tolled corridors.

Local Solutions for Global Warming (Senate Bill 6580) - PASSED

This bill would provide Washington cities and counties with informational tools to assess how their development patterns are affecting their global warming emissions. It also creates a grant program to support localities that are already working to reduce their climate impact or that wish to start. Finally, it mandates a report to the legislature from the state department administering the program, detailing how local governments are working to reduce their climate emissions and what changes, if any, should be made to the program.

As with the Climate Action and Green Jobs bill, we anticipate that bicycling will become a much larger part of local communities' transportation mix as we all work to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

Adding bicyclist and pedestrian safety information to drivers' education curriculum (House Bill 2564) -- PASSED

Education, while not a panacea, is a cost-effective way to prevent collisions between vehicles, pedestrians, and bicyclists. Many people do not know how to safely drive around pedestrians and bicyclists, and this bill will help change our driving culture.

HB 2564 requires that bicycle and pedestrian safety are added to the subject areas that must be included in the basic traffic safety education curriculum.

Excluding car-sharing activities from the rental car tax (House Bill 2880) -- FAILED

People who use car-sharing services walk, bike, and take the bus much more than the average person. Car-sharing can make it possible to avoid owning and maintaining a private automobile in a regional like ours, which currently lacks a comprehensive rapid transit system. That why we supported eliminating the double-taxation that customers of car-sharing systems like Zipcar currently are subjected to in the state of Washington; the tax acts to discourage responsible choices. Unfortunately we were unsuccessful in securing passage of the bill this year.

Exempting regional growth centers from concurrency requirements (House Bill 2577) -- FAILED

The world's greatest cities are not built around the car. But here in Washington, we have a state requirement that as population grows, so too must roads' ability to handle extra traffic. This creates a self-fulfilling prophesy whereby expanding roadways make walking and biking dangerous and inconvenient, forcing even more people into their cars. HB 2577 would have created an exception to that rule for areas that choose instead to build walkable, bikeable density.

Bills we opposed:

Adding a goal of congestion reduction to state transportation policy (House Bill 3290) -- FAILED

HB 3290 sounds like a common-sense measure, but it would actually have represented a step backward from our work to define mobility as the movement of people of goods, rather than simply the movement of vehicles. Cascade Bicycle Club was successful in helping to defeat this bill.

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