The Virginia Bicycling Federation – a coalition of bicycling advocates and organizations including WABA representing the growing bicycling movement in Virginia – is back at the General Assembly in Richmond this year supporting legislation to make our roads safer and more accessible for bicycling.

Our slate is a little different in 2025. We’ve temporarily paused our push for the Safety Stop and riding two-abreast after last year’s thoughtfully crafted bills were voted down courtesy of unified opposition from leaders at the Virginia State Police, Department of Motor Vehicles, and VDOT – a powerful trio frustratingly reluctant to fully see bicycling as legitimate transportation with unique needs. 

Undaunted, we’re pivoting to topics like speed enforcement and maintenance where we expect to find broader, more bipartisan consensus. These include:

Bills expanding on Virginia’s existing camera enforcement program:

  • HB2041 – Expands use of speed safety cameras (currently only allowed in school and work zones) to high-risk corridors and intersections.
  • HB1673 / SB1233 – Allows use of photo enforcement for crosswalk and stop sign violations (not just speed violations) at school crossing zones, highway work zones, and high-risk intersections.
  • HB2159 – Expands the definition of “school crossing zone” to include areas surrounding schools where the presence of students is to be reasonably expected and expands definition of “school” to include institutions of higher education.

A bill to support more bicycling infrastructure funding:

  • SB1007 – Limited to Northern Virginia, imposes an annual $0.50 tax on each parking space in an off-street parking facility with revenue supporting a new Bicycle, Pedestrian, and Safety Improvements Infrastructure Fund.

And lastly – quietly but most critically – a bill to confront the woeful repair state of our infrastructure:

  • SJ260 – Directs the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) to study VDOT policies and funding allocations in regard to the maintenance of highways, bridges, sidewalks, bicycle paths and lanes, shared-use paths, and other transportation infrastructure.

How can you take action?

Legislators love to hear from their constituents – one email from a resident in their district is worth 10 emails from non-residents. So we need YOU to reach out to your Delegate or Senator, if and when they are in a position to vote on one of the bills above. Unsure who your legislators are? Check out here.

This process starts out small with a committee or subcommittee vote, and your representative might not be on all or any of the relevant committees. But fear not – if and when a bill advances out of committee to a full chamber vote, everyone can join in encouraging their representatives to support it.

Below are steps to check a bill’s status, check if your legislator is in a position to support, and how to contact your legislator:

  1. Click the link to the Committee to which a bill has been assigned (above)
  2. On the Committee page, you’ll see its members; click on a member to bring up their email address
    1. You can check to see the bill’s status in the Committee Legislation section
  3. If one of the committee members is your representative, write them a short note encouraging their support
    1. If they sponsored the bill, you can thank them 🙂

This year’s General Assembly is a short session – at most 45 days – so bills will be moving fast from subcommittee to committee to full chamber votes. Check back here (or the Committee pages directly) each week or every few days. We’ll also do our best to keep you updated via our newsletters.