Transportation bill torpedoes bicycle and pedestrian funding

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Thursday, Feb. 2Amendment to restore funds for bicycle and pedestrian projects fails to pass.


The money for a lot of those bicycle lanes and paths we've come to enjoy over the years could become extinct in a new bill introduced on Tuesday in Congress.

The American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act is the new multi-year Transportation funding bill, but unlike its predecessors, it doesn't include a penny to pay for bicycle or pedestrian projects.

Bicycle and pedestrian advocacy groups are calling on members to contact their congressmen to put bicycling and pedestrian funding back in the transportation bill.

Threats

It seems like we're continually being contacted about threats to bike funding, but that's the nature of Capitol Hill these days. People who bike and walk don't have teams of lobbyists to look after their interests; they have to speak for themselves.

We can argue that bike and pedestrian projects — formerly funded as Transportation Enhancements and Safe Routes to School — have gone a long way to make roads safer for cyclists.

Those projects also encouraged more workers to commute by bike in recent years (a 40% increase in the past decade), serving to unclog road and parking congestion.

Funding missing


Now this American Energy Infrastructure Jobs Act comes along, but without the dedicated funding for Transportation Enhancements and Safe Routes to School.

It also allows construction of bridges without safe access for bicyclists and pedestrians and eliminates language that regulates rumble strips. It also eliminates funding for bicycle and pedestrian coordinators in state DOT's.

The amount of bicycle and pedestrian funding in previous Transportation bills hasn't been much — only 1.5%. That's compared to 12% of the public that either walks or rides a bike to work. But 1.5% is better than 0%.

[Here are charts from US DOT showing how much has been spent on bicycle and pedestrian projects from 1999 to 2011. Washington state (the No. 1 bike-friendly state), for instance, received $223 million over that period.]

Advocacy

This Transportation bill is still at the committee level. The League of American Bicyclists reports that, on Thursday, U.S. Reps. Thomas Petri, R-Wisconsin, and Timothy Johnson, R-Illinois, will offer an amendment to restore dedicated funding for Transportation Enhancements and Safe Routes to School. (They were joined on Wednesday by US Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Wisconsin.) [The so-called mark-up on Thursday will be webcast.]

The League is asking bicyclists to contact their Representatives to support the amendment, especially if they're on the House Committee on  Transportation and Infrastructure [see committee members].

For those congressmen not on the committee, you can ask them to urge their colleagues to support the amendment.

More details and a pre-written email, which you can edit however you want, are posted at the League of American Bicyclists Action Alert.

A lot of controversy will center on an attempt to get the Canada-to-Texas Keystone Pipeline, which President Obama opposes, attached to this bill.

We can't let the interests of bicyclists and pedestrians get lost in the hub-bub.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.bikingbis.com/2012/01/31/transportation-bill-torpedoes-bicycle-and-pedestrian-funding/

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