Last week, the Bicycle Coalition attended the 2025 National Bike Summit for programming and the opportunity to meet with New Jersey and Pennsylvania elected officials for Hill Day. We’d like to thank all who participated and advocated for a better, safer, more accessible future for bicycling in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Constituents throughout the region met with their State Senators and Members of Congress requesting they co-sponsor the the Sarah Debbink Langenkamp Active Transportation Safety Act and to share the many benefits that bicycling safety improvements bring to their community. Here’s more information on what we covered:
Capitol Hill Day
PA Delegation (left to right): Daniel Paschall, Sam Pearson, MacKenzie Hand, Monica Garrison, Patrick Monahan, Laura Pauls-Thomas, Bryan Perry, and Scott Bricker
NJ Delegation (left to right): Miriam Martin, John Boyle, Corey Hannigan, Andy Kim, US Senator for NJ, Elena Peeples, and Sofia Barandiaran
The Asks:
Introduce Transportation Alternatives & Sarah Debbink Langenkamp Active Transportation Safety Act
What it is:
Sarah Debbink Langenkamp was a U.S. diplomat and mother of two boys who had been evacuated from Ukraine in the summer of 2022 only to be killed weeks later while riding her bike at home on a road in Bethesda, Maryland. This bill is named after Sarah in the hope that remembrance of her life, service, and tragic death will prevent further unnecessary fatalities on our streets.
This bill highlights the need to fill gaps in biking and walking networks and makes it easier for states and local governments to use Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) dollars as a “local match” to build safe bicycling and pedestrian infrastructure through HSIP and the Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP).
The TAP was created in 2012 to give local governments access to a small percentage of federal transportation funds for local priorities. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) included a new policy meant to give the state the opportunity to use safety funds as local matches for TAP projects that address local safety concerns. However, the IIJA language requires the state to identify every specific project that would be eligible. The Langenkamp Safety Act would clarify language to make it easier for the state to take advantage of this flexibility by allowing the state to match local government-identified projects while also ensuring the funds are used only on safety-oriented projects.
What it does:
While it does not spend any new money or create any new mandates on states, it does:
- Help reduce the disconnect between state-identified and locally-identified priorities by giving the state the flexibility to spend safety dollars on local priorities.
- Give states flexibility to fund bicycle and walking safety projects with 100% federal funds, including for locally identified safety priorities.
- Make it easier for states and local governments to fund the safety projects identified in IIJA- funded safety plans.
- Highlight the need to fill gaps in biking and walking networks, and will allow projects to be eligible for funding under HSIP.
Protect road safety: Tell them, don’t cut funding! Sign the petition
We need your help. Reports indicate that federal funding for bike lanes and other important transportation projects may be frozen soon. We know that these projects save lives. And if funding is frozen, many projects already approved for federal funding may never break ground to transform dangerous streets. Those projects already in progress will stop immediately and may never start back up again.
Your voice matters. Help us deliver thousands of messages of support to the Secretary of Transportation.
Tell the Department of Transportation not to freeze these critical transportation funds.
Washington DC Infrastructure Tour:
The District has some of the best bicycle infrastructure in the country. If you are in Washington DC anytime soon we recommend you rent a bike from Capital BikeShare and explore the city via these tours:
- Congressional Bike Ride – 2.91 miles
- Head Out for an Adventure! – 12.43 miles
The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia leads the movement to make every bicycle ride safe, to empower youth and adults to ride, and to foster a ridership that reflects the diversity of the region. Join or renew to continue that advocacy and education work throughout the region. More info here.