Who In Congress Voted Against Safe Routes To School?
Times are hard in America, and when times get hard, we all need to make some sacrifices. For parents of school-aged children, one sacrifice that makes sense to bring the family budget back into the black is to have the kids walk or bike to school. It’s good exercise for them, and keeping a car in the garage helps make the roads relatively clear, saving gasoline and cutting pollution.
There’s one big problem, though. Too many of America’s communities are now designed for the convenience of cars, rather than the safety of America’s kids. With the multi-lane roads and heavy traffic out there, a bicyclist can turn into a victim in no time at all. What’s worse is that many neighborhoods don’t even have sidewalks anymore. Americans are expected to drive everywhere now, even if they’re just going right down the street.
The Safe Routes To School program was supposed to help solve this program, establishing safe bicycle lanes and walking routes in American communities so that American children – and American adults – can start using their muscle power to get around again, instead of getting flabby rolling around everywhere in the seats of their SUVs.
This month, the Safe Routes To School program is hitting a major speed bump. The Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has voted in favor of slashing funding for Safe Routes To School. The cuts are a part of H.R. 7, which gives huge perks to crude oil corporations.
U.S. Representative Tom Petri tried to preserve some money for Safe Routes To School, offering an amendment to H.R. 7 in a markup hearing. However, the amendment failed by just two votes.
Who voted against Safe Routes To School? The opponents of safe neighborhoods for active kids were:
John Mica
Lou Barletta
Larry Bucshon
Shelley Moore Capito
Howard Coble
Chip Cravaack
Rick Crawford
Jeff Denham
John Duncan
Blake Farenthold
Charles Fleischmann
Bob Gibbs
Tom Graves
Frank Guinta
Richard Hanna
Andy Harris
Jaime Herrera
Randy Hultgren
Duncan Hunter
Jeff Landry
James Lankford
Billy Long
Patrick Meehan
Gary Miller
Candice Miller
Reid Ribble
Jean Schmidt
Bill Shuster
Steve Southerland
