Delegate Ebbin’s bill (which is identical to Sen. Ticer’s bill on the Senate side) was reported out of House Transportation SubCommittee 2 to the full House Transportation Committee this morning by a 5 – 2 vote. Del. Fralin of Roanoke led the opposition as he has done to similar bills over the past several years, but when it came to a vote only Chairman Carrico joined him in voting against the bill. Del. Ebbin was well prepared and did a nice job of defending the bill, as its patron.Coupled with the reporting of Senator Ticer’s SB644 to the full Senate last Thursday, we now have two bills still alive, which is far beyond any progress made in previous years, so we are gaining some traction on this. There were a number of witnesses speaking in favor of the bill this morning, including representatives from several northern Virginia PTA’s, Fairfax County, Fairfax County Police Dept., City of Alexandria, and myself for VBF.
Delegate Rust from Herndon weighed in that the cyclists on the W&OD Trail, near his home, were not dis-mounting to cross the streets in his area, but were just riding across, although he ended up voting to report.
Del. Fralin raised several questions, all to the effect that he thought Yield was sufficient, and that requiring motorists to Stop would somehow create more problems than it would solve.
Now we’ll see how the bill fares in the full Transportation Committee, which could be tomorrow afternoon, or Thursday morning.
Anyone who has their Delegate on the Transportation Committee should now call their office to ask for their support, and it also is now timely for EVERYONE to alert their Senator to support SB644 when it hits the floor of the full Senate, any day now.
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I neglected to mention the important role played by Del. Dave Marsden of Northern VA at this morning’s meeting. He gave the bill very strong
support from his seat on the Sub-Committee and was instrumental in moving some of the members to vote to report it.
If we have any of his constituents on the list, they should be sure to call his office 804 698-1041 and leave him a message thanking him for his strong support of the bill.
Also, just noticed that Sen. Ticer’s similar Senate Bill 644 had its first reading dispensed with today by a 40-0 vote, which is the first step in sailing through the full Senate, now that it is out of Committee. So far, so good!
Bud Vye