After Congress and the President were unable to agree on a deal to continue funding for federal agencies and programs through the annual appropriations process, the federal government was shut down and non-essential employees were sent home. The shutdown is now in its second week, and there is no sign of progress towards a resolution.
This October I was asked to write a guest post for the Green Trips program blog on how families and children can learn about their impact on the environment, their health, and their budgets by choosing to bike or walk for transportation instead of using a car.
While it seems that the MAP-21 transportation law passed fairly recently, Congress only passed a two-year bill and MAP-21 expires in September 2014. Congress is starting to hold hearings on the transportation law and to consider how to fund the next bill.
Over the past decades bicycle safety education has developed into its own field, ultimately being implemented in a variety of ways, depending primarily on the amount of time and resources available to convey important concepts. These choices are not easy and inevitably we, as educators, must make informed compromises.
Freedom. It means different things to different people. As a child, freedom to me meant a whole Saturday to ride my bike, named Winning Colors in honor of the female horse that won the1988 Kentucky Derby, across ditches, dirt roads, woods, marshes, and the occasional paved street.
As we have discussed in previous posts, the U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that the Highway Trust Fund will go bankrupt as early as mid-summer, while the current transportation bill, MAP-21, will expire shortly after in September.