Three bills early on one morning is helpful in that it doesn’t consume much time, but the results were not that great.

First up in House Transportation Sub Committee 2 at the more civilized hour of 7:30 (earlier meetings have been at 7:00) was Senate Bill 228, the annual Northern Virginia effort to require “Motorists to Stop for Pedestrians in Marked Crosswalks.” This year it was patroned by Sen. George Barker of Fairfax County, with a few amendments. Although he did an excellent job of presenting the bill, it met with the same fate (Gently laid on the table) that its predecessors had eight previous times in the last decade. As Sen. Barker left the committee room, his parting comment was “See you next year”.

Next up was Senator Patsy Ticer of Alexandria with SB 566, the Senate version of Three Foot passing. After a brief introduction, since the Committee had just heard HB 1048 with Del. Kaye Kory last week, she introduced me and I immediately began fielding questions from Del. Oder from Newport News (who had supported 1048) who recounted an incident on his way to church with his wife last Sunday where he observed two cyclists passing too close to his stopped car and then running a red light, [continue reading…]

As a number have spotted, the vote on HB1048 was posted later last night, and can be seen at

http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?101+vot+HV0644+HB1048

All of the Democrats voted for the bill, with two absent, who would have voted for it if they were there.

All who opposed the bill were Republicans, although it was encouraging that 7 R’s did vote for the bill, and are to be thanked for their support — Cox from Hanover county; Iaquinto, Oder, Stolle, Tata, & Villanueva, all from Tidewater; and LeMunyon from Fairfax.

If you contacted your delegate, please follow up and thank them or express your disappointment, depending on how they voted.

Now we go back again to House Transportation Sub Comm 2 — Carrico, Oder, Rust, Garrett, Cox, Carr, & Ward tomorrow morning at the more civilized hour of 7:30, since there are only 3 bills on their docket.

SB 566, 3 foot passing with Senator Ticer as patron is one of them, along with our old friend “Stop for Pedestrians in Crosswalks”, this time as SB 228 with Senator Barker as patron.

As we’ve done previously with these committee members, please contact them again.

With only 7 on the sub committee, I think it is permissible for you to call the one geographically closest to you, thanking Oder, Cox, Carr & Ward for voting for HB 1048 in this SubCommittee, the full Transportation Committee, and the House floor and asking them for their similar support of SB566, as well as for Stop for Pedestrians in Crosswalks. [continue reading…]

Update: HB 1048 has failed but three foot passing is still alive as SB 566. Please continue to write or call in support of SB 566.

HB 1048, Three Foot Passing & Following Too Closely FAILED by a 54 – 43 vote to be engrossed and reported forward, which means it is dead for this session.

Delegates Cosgrove & Carrico spoke against the bill, while Delegates Toscano & Ward spoke for it.

Senate Bill 566 containing just Three Foot Passing is still alive, and will be crossing over to the House Transportation Committee and then, hopefully, to the Full House, in the near future.

As soon as the roll call voting is posted I will forward it along and will urge everyone to contact their delegates expressing disappointment if they voted Nay and thanking them if they voted For the bill. Hopefully, we may be able to turn at least 6 or 7 votes around and get SB 566 passed.

Thanks to everyone for their efforts so far. We came pretty close.

Update: HB 1048 has failed but three foot passing is still alive as SB 566. Please continue to write or call in support of SB 566.

After being reported out of Sub Committee yesterday by a 5-2 vote, HB1048, 3 foot passing & following too close, was reported out of the full House Transportation Committee this morning by a very tight 11-10 vote. Since the vote was electronically tallied and then taken down rather quickly, I’m not sure exactly who voted each way, but it appeared that all the D’s voted for the bill, joined by two or three R’s (which I think included Oder & Rust).

As in Sub Committee, there was even more discussion of how difficult it would be with the additional foot to legally pass a bicycle without going over the double center line on a two lane road. The strongest anti-cycling sentiment was expressed by Del. Cosgrove of Chesapeake, Del. Knight of Virginia Beach, who clearly voted against the bill, along with Del. Villanueva of Va Beach, even though the representative of that City and Bruce Drees of the Tidewater Bicycling Assn. both spoke in favor of it.

Now its on to the Full House floor (either on Saturday or Monday), where Chairman Joe May of Loudon (who also appeared to vote against the bill) wished our patron, Kaye Kory, a good-natured “Good luck on the floor” after he announced the result of the voting.

Now, we need EVERYONE to contact their delegate. If you don’t know who it is, you can find out at the VA General Assembly’s Who’s My Legislator page…

http://conview.state.va.us/whosmy.nsf/main?openform

…and ask them to Support HB1048, 3 Foot Passing on the House floor, which will help educate motorists to give themselves a little more margin of error when passing a cyclist.

Please take the time to send this Email!

The House vote will be close, and every vote will be important.