Thanks to the efforts of the BABC, local bike coalitions, TransForm and the Greenbelt Alliance, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) approved $192 Million in STP/CMAQ funding for sustainable transportation over the next 3 years, $48 Million more than MTC’s initial proposal for those funds.
The $192 Million in Sustainable Transportation funding will go to the following programs:
CLIMATE INITIATIVES
A series of innovative grant and outreach programs aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation. This includes $17 Million in funding for the first regional Safe Routes to School (SR2S) program in the country, which provides funding for education and bike infrastructure to encourage students to bike and walk safely to school.
REGIONAL BICYCLE PROGRAM
Funds the Regional Bicycle Network (RBN), a 2,100 mile regional network of bike routes providing connections between counties and between major transit hubs and business and retail centers throughout the region.
TRANSPORTATION FOR LIVABLE COMMUNITIES (TLC)
Provides Transit and Capital Funds to improve Pedestrian, Bicycle and Transit Access. TLC encourages Transit Oriented Development, which helps create communities that make it easier to use non-motorized transportation.
We couldn’t have done any of this without the support of all of you who wrote their MTC commissioners demanding that funding for these important programs be increased. We would like to thank everyone who wrote a letter, signed our petition or gave public comment. Your support is the most powerful tool in the fight for a better future for biking, walking and transit.
While this increase in funding was a great win, we still have several challenges ahead of us. Even with the increased funding these programs received, they are still not funded at the levels promised in the regional transportation plan adopted by MTC this year. Funding for Safe Routes to Transit (SR2T) is limited to evaluation only, despite the hundreds of you who signed our petition to fund SR2T. The Federal Transportation Act could see a major overhaul this year, changing the way this STP/CMAQ funding is allotted, possibly providing more opportunities for funding bicycle and pedestrian improvements that encourage sustainable transportation.
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Six-time Leadville 100 winner, and former US Mountain Bike team member, Dave Wiens, will lead a new annual cycling event for the Bay Area, The Dirt Bowl, to be held on Super Bowl Sunday, February 7th, 2010.
What trends are likely the next ten years? One thing for sure, 2010 through 2019 will be one day looked at as 1) the turning point for addressing climate change by using effective urban management strategies, or it will be remembered as 2) the time when we collectively fumbled the Big Blue Ball.
Download CycleTracks, the free app that generates maps and statistics of your rides that you can share with friends now available on Android phones and iPhones. Time and route data is saved for you—and also transmitted to the San Francisco County Transportation Authority to improve the bicycle component of their travel forecasting model, helping planners better understand and serve the needs of San Francisco cyclists. You’ll be promoting Bay Area cycling with each ride you record! (All data collected will be kept confidential). For more information and links to downloads visit: 
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission voted unanimously today to spend $80 million on an ambitious climate initiatives program that aims to reduce driving in an effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The test of Santa Rosa's first bike boulevard originally expected to take six months will now stretch to 10 as the city scrambles to find middle ground between warring factions. 
The Bay Area Bicycle Coalition has joined the California Bicycle Coalition in encouraging the Economic Allowance Advisory Committee (EAAC) to allow investment of the allowances being considered in discussions of a Cap-And-Trade system for California. The committee is already recommending investing allowances in transportation planning to support Sustainable Community Strategies, which will help encourage biking and walking. Our recommendation to the EAAC is to explicitly add non-motorized infrastructure as an eligible investment so that we can implement the sustainable community strategies they are already supporting. You can learn more about the EAAC and the Cap-And-Trade process being designed as part of AB32 at:
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Bid on items at the Sonoma County Bike Coalitions 
