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 7:00a.m. on Monday. This sub-committee consists of Delegates Carrico asChair, 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 aFiscal Impact Study from 2005 that shows that each committee would causean 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.
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