Thank You, Rep Quigley!

Our campaign for a national bicycle and pedestrian safety goal got an important boost last week in the House of Representatives, thanks to Congressman Mike Quigley of Illinois.

Representative Quigley is not only a bike commuter in his hometown of Chicago and his adopted town of Washington, D.C., but he also sits on the important Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) Appropriations Committee.

This spring, Representative Quigley worked with Republicans and Democrats to get report language in the bill that calls on the Federal Highway Administration to create a non-motorized safety performance measure.

The language, included below, isn’t law, but it’s a very strong directive from Congress to FHWA. Since it’s attached to the Appropriations bill — which details the administration’s budget for the year — it’s hard to ignore!

Please thank Congressman Quigley (@RepMikeQuigley) for his continued support of biking — and for his leadership in ensuring a bicycle and pedestrian safety measure. 

Safety performance measures and reporting requirements: On March 11, 2014, FHWA published an NPRM to establish safety performance measures for the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) as required by section 1203 of MAP–21. The NPRM proposes to establish one measure for each of the following areas as mandated by MAP–21: number of fatalities; fatality rate; number of serious injuries; and serious injury rate. In addition, while the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) already uses performance measures for pedestrian fatalities in administering NHTSA’s highway traffic safety grant program, the Committee understands that NHTSA intends to establish performance measures for bicycle fatalities when it administers its fiscal year 2015 traffic safety grants. Recognizing the increase in pedestrian and bicycle fatalities, the Secretary of Transportation should establish separate non-motorized safety performance measures for the purpose of carrying out HSIP requirements. The FHWA should define these performance measures specifically to evaluate the number of fatalities and serious injuries for pedestrian and bicycle crashes. The statutory deadline for completing the rulemaking has come and gone. The Committee directs FHWA to publish its final rule on safety performance measures no later than 60 days after the enactment of this Act.

Tell FHWA that bicyclist safety must be a priority — take action here!