BikePGH staff members Jane and Ngani with other Pennsylvanians outside of Senator Casey’s office

BikePGH visits Senators Casey and Toomey, & Congressman Doyle

Every year Bike Pittsburgh sends representatives to the League of American Bicyclists lobby day in D.C. where biking and walking advocates from across the country visit their elected officials to make the case for bikeable communities.

This year we talked about two (comparatively*) simple topics that served as great opportunities for us to continue relationships with our congressional representatives.

The PHIT Act

The Personal Health Investment Today (PHIT) Act is a bill with bipartisan support that would allow Americans to use pretax dollars in health savings accounts (HSAs) and flexible spending accounts (FSAs) to purchase things to support active lifestyles. Specifically, the bill allows the use of up to $250 of pre-tax dollars towards the purchase of a bicycle. Other eligible expenses would be things like ride registration fees, bicycling education classes and gym memberships with a limit of $1000 per taxpayer per year. Learn more.

402 Funding For Bike/Ped Projects

So there’s this really great Federal funding source that states can apply for called 402 funding. 402 funding can be used by any state towards education programs designed to lower the number of traffic fatalities within the state. Guess how much 402 money Pennsylvania has used for bike/ped education projects last year? $0. A big goose egg. We told our representatives how great it would be if the Commonwealth were using 402 money towards lowering the number of bike/ped traffic fatalities.

*Over the past many years we have been asking for a transportation bill that includes dedicated funding for biking and walking. Late last year a new transportation bill – the 5-year, Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act – passed and includes 5 years of dedicated funding for biking and walking projects. Phew! We’re glad to have that one out of the way…for now.

Join us at the Women & Biking Forum on Saturday, April 2nd! Hosted by BikePGH’s Spinnsters, this forum aims to bring women together to celebrate bicycling, and to develop strategies to break down the barriers to bicycling that specifically affect women. Women and trans* identified people welcome to this day of workshops, keynote speakers, luncheon and more!