Pedal Forward: Preparing Advocacy Plans for 2025 State Legislative Sessions
Join the TrailNation Collaborative, powered by Rails to Trails Conservancy (RTC), for a session exploring how to best position your active transportation and trail asks for upcoming state legislative sessions, most of which will occur in the winter and spring of 2025. The goal of this dialogue is to give state- and metropolitan-level advocates around the country ideas for tactics and policies around funding active transportation infrastructure.
During this highly interactive 60-minute session, attendees heard from RTC’s Andrew Dupuy, Director of State-level Policy and Erica Briggs, Midwest Policy Manager, as they covered legislative best practices and past funding victories.
RTC was joined by Move Minnesota’s Elissa Schufman, Interim Executive Director, and Nas Nourkadi, Policy and Community Specialist to discuss how they championed successful climate legislation in Minnesota. Those new to legislative advocacy will appreciate the “Legislature 101” tactics while veterans will learn new policy and funding models and advocacy tactics from other states.
This dialogue featured a brief presentation and case studies on the subject matter at hand, followed by guided discussions to brainstorm ideas, best practices and solutions. Participants had the chance to engage directly with their peers through breakouts on legislative priorities and best practices in their states.
Speakers
- Elissa Schufman (she/they), Interim Executive Director, Move Minnesota
- Nas Nourkadi (he/him), Policy and Community Specialist, Move Minnesota
- Drew Dupuy (he/him), Director of State-Level Policy, RTC
- Erica Briggs (she/her), Midwest Policy Manager, RTC
Resources
- Learn more about advocating for active transportation on our website. Click here to find resources, such as state policy legislation examples, towards the bottom of the page. https://www.railstotrails.org/policy/
- Read RTC’s recent blog post, “Biking, Walking and Trails Win Big in 2024 Ballot Measures.” https://www.railstotrails.org/trailblog/2024/november/14/biking-walking-and-trails-win-big-in-2024-ballot-measures/
- Click here to search for your state’s lobbying laws. https://afj.org/resource-library/?topic%5B%5D=29&topic%5B%5D=137&topic%5B%5D=28
- Learn more about Move Minnesota https://www.movemn.org/ and Move Minnesota Action. https://movemnaction.org/
- Applying our new Driving Down Emissions Law to Rethinking I-94 https://www.movemn.org/applying-our-new-driving-down-emissions-law-to-rethinking-i-94/
- How Move Minnesota is Leading the Nation to Curb Climate Pollution from Transportation https://www.movemn.org/how-move-minnesota-is-leading-the-nation-to-curb-climate-pollution-from-transportation/
- Pathways to Decarbonizing Transportation in MN https://www.leg.mn.gov/docs/2019/other/190966.pdf
- Minnesota Statewide Multimodal Transportation Plan https://minnesotago.org/learn-about-plans/statewide-multimodal-transportation-plan
- Click here to learn how CO Carbon Legislation works. https://rmi.org/colorado-passes-embodied-carbon-legislation/
- Transportation Greenhouse Gas Emissions Impact Mitigation Working Group https://www.dot.state.mn.us/sustainability/ghg-work-group.html
RTC’s TrailNation Collaborative, Trail Development and Policy teams produce a free webinar series designed to help trail professionals build, grow, manage, maintain, promote or otherwise support trails and trail networks. Sign up here to get webinar alerts.
Have a comment or question on our webinar series? Contact us below with topic or speaker ideas. We appreciate your feedback! Email us.
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