Policy

Strengthen Enhancements, CMAQ and Other Existing Programs

Background
ISTEA and TEA-21 have enabled significant increases in the spending of federal transportation dollars on bicycle and pedestrian projects. In the 20 years prior to ISTEA, an average of less than $2 million per year was spent by all 50 states combined - this has risen to an average of more than $200 million per year during the TEA-21 years. The increase has come without a specific set-aside program: bicycle and pedestrian projects are broadly eligible for all the major funding categories.

More than $2 billion of ISTEA and TEA-21funds have been invested in bicycling and walking since 1991. This investment has increased transportation choice in thousands of communities across the country, improved the safety of cyclists, promoted bicycle use, and reduced energy consumption and air pollution. For example, bicycle use in the city of has increased 143% since the early 1990s without any increase in bicycle crashes; during this time Portland’s bicycle network grew from 83 miles to 228 miles.

ISTEA and TEA-21 funds have been used to:

• plan and implement extensive bike lane networks in cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles;
• map and sign thousands of miles of long distance bicycle routes in states such as New York,  Georgia, and Pennsylvania;
• teach bicycle safety education to tens of thousands of children annually  in states such as Maine and Texas;
• preserve hundreds of miles of rail corridor and historic transportation facilities, such as New York’s Erie Canal, Missouri’s KATY Trail,  and the Stone Arch bridge in Minneapolis, while improving them for bicycling and walking;
• install bike racks on the front of more than half of the nation’s transit bus fleet resulting in more than half a million monthly bus-boardings by cyclists – at least one quarter of whom would otherwise be driving alone.

• $2 billion is still less than one percent of all federal transportation funds spent since 1991. Yet bicycling and walking account for at least 7 percent of trips and 13.3 percent of traffic fatalities.
• Approximately three-quarters of the funding has come from the Transportation Enhancements program and very little has come from the mainstream transportation funding programs.
• California’s Safe Routes to School program, initiated in FY2000 and using Safety Set-aside funds, attracted requests for more than five times the available funds.
• At least $1 billion of bicycle and pedestrian projects are stuck in the delivery pipeline and need to be freed: funds have been awarded but the projects have yet to be implemented.

• Maintaining the Transportation Enhancements (TE) program as a 10% set-aside of STP funds, with the existing funding categories and without funds being transferable to other programs; adding categories or making the funds transferable would dilute the effectiveness of the program.
• Establishing an alternative transportation set-aside (20%) within the Parks Roads and Parkway Program of the Federal Lands Highway Program to fund bicycle, pedestrian and transit projects; bicycling in National Parks and other federal lands should be encouraged but is often difficult, unwelcoming and unsafe.
• Increasing funding for the Recreational Trails Program (RTP) to $143 million a year. This figure is 50% of the estimated fuel taxes paid for off-road vehicle use.
• Providing incentives to states that simplify project delivery and funding mechanisms under the TE and RTP programs to help local governments.
• Providing an incentive for states to obligate TE and CMAQ program funds at 100 percent.
• Ensuring that funds authorized for the CMAQ program are increased relative to the number of metropolitan areas made eligible; without this change, the availability of CMAQ funds will fall dramatically

2. Strengthen the eligibility of bicycle projects in all funding categories by explicitly confirming that:

• National Highway System (NHS) funds may be used for bicycle and pedestrian projects within and across NHS corridors; roads on the NHS can be a significant barrier to bicycle travel.
• Surface Transportation Program (STP) and Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) program funds may be used for local and MPO bicycle and pedestrian coordinator positions; some agencies have questioned the eligibility of these funds for filling these important staff positions.
• States must include bicycle and pedestrian projects in their Safety Set-aside and State and Community Traffic Safety (Section 402) programs at least proportional to the percentage of bicycle and pedestrian fatalities. Currently, 13.3% of fatalities on our roadways are pedestrians and bicyclists.
• “Safe Routes to School” projects are eligible for the Safety Set-aside funds, as well as the State and Community Traffic Safety programs (Section 402); the existing language doesn’t specifically mention Safe Routes projects.
• Bicycle projects may be grouped together into programs and still remain eligible for funding programs such as the Hazard Elimination Program. Such efforts might include replacing unsafe drainage grates citywide, striping a sequence of bike lanes or upgrading a number of traffic lights to detect bicycles.

3. Make technical corrections to remove administrative anomalies by:

Ensuring that the federal share for bicycle and pedestrian projects is calculated in the same way as all other transportation projects in each state (in accordance with Section 120(b)). This would remove lingering confusion about the appropriate federal/state share for bicycle projects in states with significant federal land holdings.

4. Expand the effectiveness and efficiency of existing bicycle and pedestrian resources by:

• Requiring that state departments of transportation appoint a full-time pedestrian coordinator in addition to a full-time bicycle coordinator in recognition of the increasing demand for bicycle and pedestrian projects.
• Requiring that Transportation Management Areas (Municipal Planning Organizations (MPO) over 200,000 population) designate a bicycle/pedestrian coordinator; these positions have proven valuable in providing a consistent point of contact on bicycling issues.
• Renewing funding for the Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Grants (Section 1212(o)) which established the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center.

5. Refine the planning process to ensure coverage of bicycle and pedestrian issues by:

• Including a representative of a bicycle/pedestrian organization in the list of interested parties given a reasonable opportunity to comment on MPO and state long range plans and transportation improvement programs.
• Requiring states and MPOs to certify that the needs of bicyclists and pedestrians have been adequately addressed by the long-range transportation plans and that bicycle and pedestrian projects are included in the transportation improvement program.

6. Set targets for improving the safety of bicyclists and pedestrians, and for increasing use of the two modes by:

• Adopting the goals of the National Bicycling and Walking Study to double the percentage of trips made by bicycle and reduce by ten percent the number of bicyclists and pedestrians killed or injured in collisions with motor vehicles.
• Setting a deadline of 2013 to reach the targets; without a deadline the target is meaningless.

7. Improve data collection, analysis and research related to bicycling and walking by:

• Funding the Surface Transportation and Environment Cooperative Research Program and specifically including bicycle and pedestrian travel as an important element of the program.
• Expanding funding for the collection and analysis of bicycle and pedestrian data in the Intermodal Transportation Database maintained by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics; little bicycle data is currently collected or available, making decisions and projections about future use and safety almost impossible.
• Collecting safety and use data related to bicycling and walking on local streets and trails in addition to data collected on major roads in connection with motor vehicle activity.

8. Strengthen intermodal and multimodal travel options for people using transit, bicycling and walking by:

• Continuing the Transit Enhancements program, which is currently funded at 1% of funding in each major transit district.
• Standardizing matching ratios for bicycle projects using transit funding at a 95% federal share.
• Establishing the full-time position of bicycle and pedestrian program manager at the Federal Transit Administration.

March 2003