Dear Friend,

Because you live in West Virginia, you have a very important chance to help in an urgent way today.  

The House and Senate are on the cusp of finally striking a deal on the transportation bill. We’ve heard alarming news that some of the good provisions we've fought hard for that would make everyone safer, give us more transportation options and repair our roads, bridges and transit systems could be sacrificed to get a deal done.

More than 240 people have died while walking on West Virginia roads since 2000. Yet Congress is considering scrapping the funding that helps communities make their streets safer.

At least one of your Senators are in this small group making the deal, and they need to stand up right now and refuse to see these good pieces of the bill discarded in favor of just getting a deal done. But time is short — they’re working right now to hammer out the details and strike a deal by early next week.

Please call Senator Rockefeller on the conference commitee with the number above and leave this message with the person who answers the phone.

Hi, my name is [NAME] and I’m calling from [PLACE]. I’m calling to ask Senator Rockefeller to stand up for three important provisions in the transportation bill being negotiated right now. 

1) Please preserve the Cardin-Cochran provisions and dedicated funding in MAP-21 that provides grants to communities to make walking and biking safer and prevent hundreds or thousands more pedestrian deaths. More than 240 pedestrians have died on West Virginia roads in the last ten years — this small bit of money provided in the Senate bill could help save very real lives.

2) Please defend and preserve the Senate’s strong plan to make sure we repair our roads and bridges. With more than 990 structurally deficient bridges in West Virginia, we need the focus on repair to help reduce this backlog.

3) Please ensure that our local public transportation systems are allowed to use some of their federal money to keep operating buses during the recession. We need more affordable ways to get around during these hard times, not fewer. 

Thank them for their time, and after you hang up the phone, please forward this email to all of your friends who live in your state. Time is extremely short and there’s great pressure to strip out these critical provisions in the bill just to get a deal done.

PS: If you’re on Twitter, click here to share this new report showing how many pedestrians died in each congressional district from 2001-2010. And then tweet those numbers at your Senator if they're on Twitter. 

Thanks for your support,

Stephen Lee Davis
Deputy Communications Director
Transportation for America

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