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Support the Recreational Trails Program!

Here's how you can help expand support for continued funding for trails, greenways, and recreation routes through the federal Recreational Trails Program.

Dear Supporter of the Recreational Trails Program:

The Coalition for Recreational Trails (CRT) would like to thank you for signing on to one or both of the letters we sent to Congress last year in support of the RTP. We are very proud of the huge outpouring of support for RTP that these letters represent. The number and diversity of trail user groups that support the program – see the attached list -- have impressed the folks on Capitol Hill as well.

With the extension of the surface transportation legislation – including RTP – scheduled to end in December, we need your help again. CRT has created a Council of Advisors for organizations that support the continuation and expansion of the RTP. By joining the Council, the Advisors agree to sign on to letters supporting RTP that will be sent to Members of Congress and to the Administration. The funding levels and modifications that CRT is requesting for RTP reauthorization are included in the attached RTP “one pager.” If we revise those requests, we will be sure to let you know.

We also need to expand the voices supporting RTP. Just think, what would happen in your state if RTP disappeared? So we are asking the Council of Advisors to recruit additional RTP supporters. You can use the attached sign-on form or send interested organizations to www.AmericanTrails.org/rtp to learn more and download the form.

Based on your previously expressed support for RTP, we will assume that your organization would like to join the Council of Advisors, unless we hear back from you by Monday, July 12th. Again, if your organization’s name is already on the list and you would like to be part of the Council of Advisors, you do not need to do anything.

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

Contact your Members of Congress – Senators and Representatives alike! 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!

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.

Ask other friends of trails to contact their Members of Congress about RTP.

Thank you once again for your ongoing 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 and Marianne Fowler
Co-Chairs
Coalition for Recreational Trails Coalition for Recreational Trails

Coalition for Recreational Trails asks Secretary of Transportation to support RTP

July 14, 2010

The letter includes support from 348 trail and recreation organizations and asks Secretary LaHood to "join Americans across the country in supporting the Recreational Trails Program as part of the new federal transportation bill." The letter emphasizes that "trails are an investment in the future of our communities and our public lands, while connecting people of all ages and backgrounds to the environment." (Download letter in pdf format, 168 kb).

Also see the letter (or download in PDF format) that the Coalition for Recreational Trails sent earlier to key members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives requesting support for increased funding for the Recreational Trails Program (see program details) in the next multi-year surface transportation bill. We are trying to get as many organizations as possible to sign the letter for delivery to the Senate, House of Representatives, the Secretary of Transportation, and others. Sign on to the letter supporting RTP!

For more informtaion, contact Catherine A. Ahern, American Recreation Coalition and Coalition for Recreational Trails
202-682-9530; Fax 202-682-9529
cahern@funoutdoors.com

Support the Recreational Trails Program! Join our efforts with the Coalition for Recreational Trails to get RTP funding included in the next transportation bill and sign on to the letter supporting RTP. Will your state's trails program survive? See Concerns about the future of the Recreational Trails Program.

Sign on to the letter supporting RTP! and see the letter in PDF format

Read more about Reauthorization of federal transportation funds and programs like RTP and see a description of the RTP program

Nationwide trails community works for reauthorization of the Recreational Trails Program