Originally published on the
League of American Bicyclists
blog.
Last week (in June), Congress did what many thought impossible – they passed a new
transportation authorization bill. President Obama is expected to sign
the bill into law on Friday (July 6). Unfortunately, that achievement came at the
cost of a balanced bill that keeps strong dedicated funding for biking
and walking projects.
The new bill, Moving Ahead for Progress in the
21st Century (MAP-21),
weakens and cuts dedicated bicycle and walking programs.
This is certainly going to slow progress towards a bicycle friendly America. Many people are asking “What do we do now?” The answer is in the
language of the bill itself and, perhaps, in an advocacy model we’ve
been developing over the past several years.
Despite the best efforts of some extreme members of Congress – and
thanks to the efforts of our congressional champions (Rush Holt here in New Jersey) – bicycling and
walking projects are still eligible for federal transportation funds.
This means bicycling and walking projects can be built with some of the
largest pots of money, like the Surface Transportation Program (STP) and
the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program (CMAQ),
as well as the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP). This critical
point is the key to making the most of the new bill.
But
this is not new. Bike/ped projects have been eligible project types in
those programs for 20 years. We have long known that creating a
transportation network that includes active transportation
infrastructure will require more than the 1.5 percent that was set-aside
for Transportation Enhancements and Safe Routes to School (now combined
into “Transportation Alternatives”). That’s why the League and the
Alliance for Biking & Walking, with funding from SRAM, created
Advocacy Advance.
The Advocacy Advance program holds Action 2020 workshops for
advocates and transportation agency staff to share best practices for
maximizing funding under the eligible funding programs. We’ve been to
Texas, Connecticut, Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania and we have
upcoming workshops in Missouri, Virginia, and New York.
Learn more about the workshops and consider applying to bring an Action 2020 workshop to your community.
We’ve already seen the tactic of fighting for eligible funds paying off.
Bike Delaware recently scored
a major win
and set an excellent example for advocates in other states. They teamed
up with Nemours Health and Prevention Services (a health group),
several bike-friendly members of the General Assembly, and Delaware’s
bike-friendly Governor, Jack Markel, to pass and fund
Walkable Bikeable Delaware an initiative to dedicate state funding to vastly expand the state’s trail network. After securing
$5 million in the state budget last year, the Assembly recently passed next year’s budget which included a whopping
$13.25 million for walking and bicycling.
This is in and of itself a major win. But the leadership in Delaware
has the vision and ambition to use the state dollars as a match for
federal funds. They have already used Walkable Bikeable Delaware funds
from last year’s budget to secure the
first ever Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) funds for a bike project in state history.
Delaware is pointing the way forward for bicycling both in its
state-level commitment to funding infrastructure and in its use of
federal funds that have bicycling eligibility, like CMAQ.
Read article on the LAB blog HERE>>>
