Help Save the Recreational Trails Program

The nation’s surface transportation legislation— including the Recreational Trails Program (RTP)— expires in December. While Congress is likely to extend most of the SAFETEA-LU provisions short-term, there are no guarantees as the Administration and the Congress search for ways to cut spending. And RTP is at risk in the long-delayed long-term reauthorization of surface transportation programs. We need your help!

Would the trails in your state suffer if RTP disappears? You and other trails advocates across the nation need to speak out to prevent that very real possibility.

The Coalition for Recreational Trails (CRT) is working hard to ensure continued and increased funding for the Recreational Trails Program. We are very proud to report that the letters we sent to Congress in support of the RTP last year – signed by 269 organizations –demonstrates the number and diversity of trail user groups that support the program.This has impressed Capitol Hill! Please help us continue to deliver this message and grow the list of RTP supporters!

CRT has created a Council of Advisors comprised of organizations that support RTP’s continuation. Advisors add their names to letters to key Members of Congress, to the Administration, and to others. In addition, Advisors reach out to other organizations to ask them to sign-on and to help in a variety of ways.

CRT’s reauthorization position for RTP is provided as a one-page paper. Please feel free to use it as you talk to your leaders. Please note that if CRT’s platform should change, you will be informed. You can use the attached sign-on form or send interested organizations to www.AmericanTrails.org/rtp to learn more and download the form.

Your organization can sign on as an Advisor at any time. However, if you sign-on by Monday, July 12, we will add your organization’s name to a letter we are presenting at the July 14 USDOT Listening Session in DC.

We would like to suggest several important ways that you can help secure the future of RTP funding for trails:

1. Sign on as a member of the Recreational Trails Program Council of Advisors.
2. Ask any organization or agency you know to sign on as a member of the RTP Council of Advisors.
3. Contact your Members of Congress – Senators and Representatives alike! (Note: Senators and Representatives will be in their states and home districts for the 4th of July recess, July 3rd -11th.) Invite them to an RTP-funded trail ground-breaking, to a volunteer work day, or to an opening celebration. Tell the media about these events too, and then send news clips to your Congressional offices. Tell them about your success stories and about the myriad of people of all ages and abilities that love and use these trails!
4. Please let us know if you have a good connection with a Member of Congress and are willing to make contact— especially on these key committees and subcommittees:  the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee's Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee’s Subcommittee on Highways and Transit.  We need RTP champions in the Senate and the House— but critically in the Senate.
5. Ask other friends of trails to contact their Members of Congress about RTP.
6. Please pass the word on through your networks! CRT would like to have over 500 organizations sign-on as supporters.

The Coalition for Recreational Trails’ work includes these and additional efforts on your behalf:

• Meets regularly to develop and implement strategy for not only continuing, but increasing funding for the RTP.
• Developed a platform, including funding levels and modifications for the next national surface transportation program.
• Created and is expanding the RTP Council of Advisors.
• Sends letters and communicates on an ongoing basis with key Members of Congress and/or their staffers, as well as with the Administration.
• Holds the CRT Annual Achievement Awards to bring recognition to these important RTP-funded trails.

Thank you for your support for the Recreational Trails Program. And, please spread the word that this is the most important year ever to get Members of Congress to understand why reauthorizing RTP is essential to the long-term future of trails all across the country.

Sincerely,

Derrick Crandall                                               Marianne Fowler
Co-Chair                                                        Co-Chair
Coalition for Recreational Trails                           Coalition for Recreational Trails