Action Alert: RTP Funding needs your support
URGENT ACTION NEEDED!
SIGN ON to a letter to your Governor to ensure they keep funding the RTP in your State!Â
The Recreational Trails Program (RTP) was reauthorized – with dedicated annual funding of $85 million for the remainder of this year and Fiscal Years 2013 and 2014 – when the President signed the transportation reauthorization legislation known as MAP-21 on July 6th. The new legislation does contain one potential roadblock to the continuation of the RTP at the state level: a provision allowing the state governors to opt out of the program if they notify the U.S. Secretary of Transportation of their decision no later than 30 days before the funds are apportioned. Since the funds will be apportioned on October 1st, any opt-out decisions must be sent to US DOT by September 1st.
The International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) has taken the lead for the Coalition for Recreational Trails (CRT) and developed a grass-roots campaign to convince every state governor NOT to opt out of the RTP. IMBA has prepared a letter to be sent individually to each governor that RTP supporters – organizations (not individuals) – from every state are asked to sign. Signers will be broken down by state and 50 separate letters will be prepared.
We need your help to reach out to your grass-roots contacts, other regional, state and local groups and communities, and any other organizations that benefit from the RTP to ask them to sign the letters, too.
- Click here to go to the IMBA website to sign on to the letter to your Governor
- Click here to read IMBA’s alert
- Click here to view the other groups in your State that have signed on to the RTP letter to your Governor – to date
Marianne Wesley Fowler and Derrick A. Crandall, Co-Chairs of the Coalition for Recreational Trails have expressed their gratitude to the trails community, “Working together, we have come a very long way in our effort to protect the RTP…. RTP supporters everywhere should be very proud of that amazing achievement, which was only made possible by the widespread, visible and continuous support that the RTP received prior to enactment of the law. Many, many thanks for your help. The deadline to sign on to the letters is August so we urgently need your all-out help with this last (we hope) hurdle.”Â
Please ask your Governor to keep funding the Recreational Trails Program. Click here to sign on to the letter to your Governor. In addition, please ask other organizations to sign the letter, and everyone should be encouraged to directly contact their Governor as well.