SAVE THE DATE FOR PRO BIKE®/PRO WALK FLORIDA
CONFERENCE
BIKES FOR VETERANS
PROTECT FLORIDA’S TRAIL FUNDING
RIDE WITH THE KIDZ
TOUR TIME
FINALLY A CLEAN TDF?
AND THEN SOME
SAVE THE DATE FOR PRO BIKE®/PRO WALK FLORIDA CONFERENCE
Don’t miss the third annual PRO BIKE®/PRO WALK FLORIDA CONFERENCE
“Healthy Community Makeovers: Designs and Programs for Active and
Healthy Lifestyles” to be held August 27-30, 2007 in Orlando at the
Embassy Suites Downtown hotel featuring keynote speaker Gil Penalosa.
The conference is a collaborative effort of many agencies involved with
bicycle and pedestrian issues. Sessions for planners, engineers, law
enforcement, health professionals, developers, landscape architects,
educators and advocates will focus on facility design, land use, fitness
promotion, trails management, law enforcement and education to encourage
more people to walk and bike safely and responsibly. In addition to the
educational sessions, participants will enjoy walking and biking tours,
dynamic keynote speakers and vendor exhibits.
For Florida, and beyond, to become truly pedestrian and
bicyclist-friendly, we must seek improvements in traffic safety
education and law enforcement, transportation facility design and
operation, development regulations, and attitudes towards these
environmentally friendly and health-building modes. The conference
sessions will help us progress toward this worthy goal of improving our
state and the rest of the nation for walking and bicycling.
Visit our website at www.probikeprowalkflorida.com for additional
information. Don’t delay in making hotel reservations since the room
block will be released 7/31/07.
BIKES FOR VETERANS
Mary Lu Carpenter needs your help. Hear her plea, "Hello fellow
cyclists! I work at the Orlando VA Medical center located in Baldwin
Park. We have approximately 60 veterans whom we care for that are here
secondary to homelessness or rehabilitation. We encourage exercise and
use of bicycles for transportation. Most of our vets do not have a car.
If you have an adult bike in decent shape (does not need to be a road
bike) that you would like to donate please contact me at
marylucarpenter@yahoo.com.
Contributed by Hal Downing, Winter Park
PROTECT FLORIDA’S TRAIL FUNDING
In
recent months, increasing budgetary pressures have forced the government
to repeatedly cut domestic spending. While Rails-to-Trails Conservancy
understands competing legitimate demands on federal funds, we are
committed to protecting trail funding from unfair cuts. Thank you for
standing with us and continuing to respond to our calls to action.
1. Take action to again protect your state’s trail funding
When notified of a funding cut in March, you asked your governors to
direct their transportation departments to protect Transportation
Enhancements (TE), the nation’s largest funding source for trails,
walking and biking. The difference you made was tremendous. In 2006,
states cut $600 million from TE. In March, states cut one-third of that
amount from TE. Thank you.
Despite the improvement, however, some states still disproportionately
cut TE. On Wednesday, June 20, a 2007 Appropriations Act triggered the
requirement that states cut yet another $870 million from their
transportation programs! TE is once again in danger of being
disproportionately targeted. Given your impressive past success, it is
critical that you speak up again for TE.
Decisions for how to allocate these cuts must be made by July 20. It is
crucial that you call your state department of transportation (DOT) head
as soon as possible and ask that TE funding be preserved. Calls are a
great way to follow up on a previous action. Please call now to
personally speak up for TE! Florida’s Interim Secretary is Stephanie
Kopelousos, 850-414-4100. Visit
http://support.railstotrails.org/site/PageNavigator/June_2007_rescission_alert
for talking points.
2.
Federal Advocacy: H.R. 2701 to protect trail funding passes House
Committee!
On
Friday, June 15, 2007, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy was notified that
Sec. 252 of H.R. 2701, pending before the House Transportation &
Infrastructure Committee, included a provision requiring future TE cuts
be proportional to cuts from other programs. If it passes the full
Congress, this bill will prevent state departments of transportation
(DOTs) from gutting TE.
We issued an urgent action to a select group of you with congressional
representatives on this committee. With only 24 hours to respond before
the vote, many of you wrote your representatives asking them to support
this bill. Thanks to you, the TE protection provision passed the
Committee. This was a vital step in the ongoing process to ensure that
TE will not be unfairly targeted in future rescissions.
Thank you, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy,
www.railstotrails.org
RIDE WITH THE KIDZ
Take a Saturday and ride with the Kidz! As part of the Active Living by
Design initiative, 14 bikes are being given to the Teenz of Parramore in
downtown Orlando. There will be a group ride on Saturday, July 28.
Mighk Wilson, the President of the Florida Bicycle Association and
Bike/Ped Coordinator for MetroPlan Orlando, needs volunteers. Contact
Mighk at 407 481 5672 extension 318 or Malisa McCreedy with the City of
Orlando at 407 246 3347.
TOUR TIME
The 94th Tour de France started yesterday in London, site of last week's
thwarted car bombings, and concludes July 29 in Paris. In between are
3,547 km (2,200 miles) of racing divided into one prologue time trial
and 20 stages. Yesterday’s 7.9-km (4.9-mile) prologue comes exactly two
years after explosions rocked London's public transportation system,
killing 52 commuters and four suicide bombers.
The Tour has no defending champion, as Floyd Landis remains in legal
limbo and unable to compete this year. The man who may yet inherit the
'06 victory, runner-up Oscar Pereiro (Caisse d'Epargne) isn't given much
chance of winning -- but he wasn't supposed to contend last July either.
If there is a favorite, most votes go to Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana).
The 33-year-old Kazakh has ridden five Tours, won three stages and
finished as high as third overall (2003). He also has a strong team and
an experienced lieutenant in Andreas Kloden, coming off a third-place
finish last year. Kloden will be a yellow jersey contender if Vino
falters.
Levi Leipheimer (Discovery Channel) is the top North American threat.
His team is built around putting him on the podium and recapturing some
of the magic of the Armstrong era. Two other English speakers are their
team leaders -- Australians Cadel Evans (Predictor-Lotto) and Michael
Rogers (T-Mobile).
Tour stages will be televised every day by the Versus network (formerly
OLN), featuring redoubtable commentators Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen.
Here's the schedule (check your local listings for possible variations):
---Live coverage of all flat stages, 8:30-11:30 a.m. ET
---Live coverage of all mountain stages, 7:30-11:30 a.m. ET
---Daily replays at noon-2 p.m., 5-7 p.m. and midnight-3 a.m. ET
---Daily primetime coverage, 8-11 p.m. ET
On the web, you'll find excellent daily coverage at
http://www.velonews.com and
http://www.cyclingnews.com. Live
streaming
audio is scheduled by Eurosport.com at
http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/cycling/tour-de-france
Finally,a Clean TdF?
The International Cycling Union (UCI) has devised a new way to pressure
riders not to dope — fine 'em a year's pay if they are proved positive.
That's in addition to a two-year suspension. Here's the text of the UCI
anti-doping declaration that all 189 Tour de France riders have been
ordered to sign before the race begins Saturday:
"I do solemnly declare, to my team, my colleagues, the UCI, the cycling
movement and the public that I am not involved in the Operation Puerto
affair nor in any other doping case and that I will not commit any
infringement to the UCI anti-doping rules. As proof of my commitment, I
accept, if it should happen that I violate the rules and am granted a
standard sanction of a two-year suspension or more, in the Puerto affair
or in any other anti-doping proceedings, to pay the UCI, in addition to
the standard sanctions, an amount equal to my annual salary for 2007 as
a contribution to the fight against doping.
"At the same time, I declare to the Spanish Law that my DNA is at its
disposal, so that it can be compared with the blood samples seized in
the Puerto affair. I appeal to the Spanish Law to organize this test as
soon as possible or allow the UCI to organize it."
This declaration was made public after the UCI's meeting on June 19 with
ProTour team managers and doctors in Geneva. Although there is no legal
way to force riders to sign it, UCI president Pat McQuaid asked the Tour
teams not to use riders who decline.
McQuaid said the names of those who sign are being published on the UCI
website, thus making it obvious who refuses.
Contributed by Hal Downing, Winter Park
AND THEN SOME
“It's cool to be clean." -- Mark Cavendish (T-Mobile), after being one
of the first two riders to sign the UCI anti-doping declaration
"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving
his goal, nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental
attitude." -Thomas Jefferson
"How is it that so often . . . I get the feeling I've worked hard to
learn something I already know, or knew, once." -Linda Ellerbee
"He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not
learn is in great danger." -Confucius
"It often takes more courage to change one's opinion than to stick to
it." -G. C. Lichtenberg