Before and after: Sidewalk on Marshall Avenue, St. Paul. Source: Bike Walk Twin Cities

If you ever doubted whether a small investment in biking and walking could have a large impact, here is your proof.

The last transportation law, SAFETEA-LU, provided four communities with four years of funding to build an infrastructure network for nonmotorized transportation (a fancy way of saying “sidewalks and bike paths”). It wasn’t a lot of money — $25 million each to Columbia, Missouri; Marin County, California; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Sheboygan County, Wisconsin.

The program built 333 miles of on-street biking and walking routes, 23 of off-street facilities, and 5,727 bike parking spaces in the four municipalities — not to mention some outreach and education. Not bad, especially when you consider that $100 million would only buy about five miles of new four-lane highway in an urbanized area [PDF].

Total two-hour bicycling and walking counts for all pilot communities, fall 2007 and fall 2010. Source: FHWA Report to the U.S. Congress on the Outcomes of the Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program

FHWA summed up the results in its report on the outcomes of the pilot program [PDF]:

• An estimated 32 million driving miles were averted between 2007 and 2010. It appears that the numbers keep climbing — half of that savings happened just in 2010, the last year of the pilot, when an estimated 16 million miles were walked or bicycled that would have otherwise been driven.
• The four pilot areas saw an average increase of 49 percent in the number of bicyclists and a 22 percent increase in the number of pedestrians between 2007 and 2010.
• In each community, a greater percentage of pedestrian and bicycling trips included transit in 2010 than in 2007.
• Despite increases in biking and walking, fatal bike/ped crashes held steady or decreased in all of the communities.
• The pilot communities saved an estimated 22 pounds of CO2 in 2010 per person or a total of 7,701 tons — the equivalent of saving over a gallon of gas per person.
• Many people tried bicycling for the first time in their adults lives or ever.

Interestingly, average one-way trip distances by foot and by bicycle fell in some places, probably since more people were taking more trips without cars, instead of only walking and biking for exercise. And bike/ped trips including transit went way up.

Percentage of pedestrian and bicyclist trips that included transit for Columbia and Marin County.

The pilot results were released today, the first day of National Bike Month. (Though Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood notes that when he was a kid, “every month was bike month.”)

The FHWA report is full of data showing how a small down payment on active transportation can lead — quickly — to dramatic improvements in air quality, traffic levels, and public health.

The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, a major supporter of the pilot program, called it a “raging success.”

“These are not all typical, bike-friendly cities,” said Marianne Fowler, RTC’s senior vice president of federal relations. ”These four communities represent a solid cross-section of America. Even in places like Sheboygan, which doesn’t have urban density, has cold winters, and has had almost no experience with biking and walking initiatives in the past, locals have rapidly become champions because they have seen the real-time effects, the actual benefits to their community.”

Fowler went on to say that with the evidence now in black and white before them, Congressional representatives must now recognize that continued investment in walking in biking represents terrific value for American taxpayers.

“The incongruous thing is that Congress, with a simple, low-cost solution to so many transportation problems right here in front of them, can’t see the people for the cars,” she said.

How much will that new traffic calming project benefit society? A new tool from the World Health Organization puts a figure on it. Photo: Tom Fudge/KPBS

Of course, it can be hard to convince politicians to see things in those terms when it’s time to pony up for walking and biking infrastructure. That is the brilliance of this new tool from the World Health Organization.

The WHO, which is on a mission to rein in the worldwide epidemic of traffic deaths and injuries, has developed a tool that measures the health impacts of bike and pedestrian infrastructure projects, calculating cost-benefit analyses as well as the economic value of reduced mortality.

Of course you need to do a little advance preparation before using the tool. You’ll need to have a fair amount of information about local travel habits at your disposal. (For example, you’ll be prompted to estimate the percentage of people who currently take walking trips and the average length of the trip.) But it’s the type of info your local metro planning agency should have publicly available. Worst case scenario, you have to perform a survey.

The tool is recommended for planners and engineers as well as advocacy groups.

Philadelphia's bike/ped network was one of four recipients of exclusively bike/ped TIGER grants. (And no, four is not too many.) Photo: Phila. Ped and Bicycle Plan

Did TIGER spend too much money on bicycle and pedestrian programs? That’s the question Larry Ehl at Transportation Issues Daily is asking. After all, Congress appears to be encouraging USDOT to spend TIGER grant money on something — anything — other than bike/ped.

It’s right there in the 2012 transportation appropriation bill, which President Obama signed into law November 18. The TIGER section includes this mandate: “The conferees direct the Secretary to focus on road, transit, rail and port projects.” It doesn’t specifically say anything about bicycles and pedestrians, but reading between the lines, it’s easy to see what they mean. And as Ehl says, it’s a warning for USDOT to “tread lightly, or risk giving TIGER opponents more reasons to eliminate future funding for the program.”

Ehl suggests we “look at the actual numbers” and decide for ourselves:

• TIGER I (Recovery Act) allocated $43,500,000 to two exclusively bike-ped projects.  That was about 3% of the $1,498,000,000 awarded and 4% of the 51 projects.

• TIGER II allocated $25,200,000 to two exclusively bike-ped projects.  That was 4.5% out of the $556,500,000 awarded to capital projects and about 5% of the 42 projects. (TIGER II also awarded $27,500,000 for 33 planning grants.)

This is the old Tysons Corner. Photo: Restonian

“That strip mall just got rezoned for high rise buildings.” “These auto dealerships are going to disappear.”

Those aren’t words you hear very often in suburbia, but if you’re hanging out in Tysons Corner, Virginia, you’d better get used to it. This office enclave, which sits dead center between Washington, DC and Dulles International Airport, is experiencing a rare and dramatic transformation – from traffic-choked “edge city” to walkable urban center.

Fifty years ago this area was dairy farms. But fueled by employment at the headquarters of several major defense contractors, Tysons is now the 12th biggest business district in the country, and the single biggest outside a major city. Even during the recession, office vacancy has stayed comparatively low at 14 percent.

The new Tysons Corner. Image: Fairfax County

Tysons is also a retail heavyweight, with the fifth biggest shopping mall in the U.S. And no wonder – it sits in Fairfax County, consistently ranked one of the wealthiest in the country.

But even with all these jobs and shopping opportunities, it lacks people. There are 105,000 jobs in Tysons but only 17,000 residents. Nobody lives there.

Almost four years ago, Time gave Tysons this back-handed compliment: “That it is also a strip-malled, traffic-clogged mess does not take away from the fact that it is one of the great economic success stories of our time.”

All of this presents a unique opportunity for planners. How do you take an existing business district — dysfunctional but also thriving in its own way — and re-fashion it into a real urban center? And how do you get community support for a project that’s going to mean decades of disruptive construction and the uprooting of much existing infrastructure?

Fairfax County planner Tracy Strunk admits that re-planning something this big is incredibly ambitious. While they looked to development along the much-lauded Rosslyn-Ballston metro corridor for inspiration, “You get a few blocks from Rosslyn station and you’re in single-family detached. This isn’t going to be single-family detached.”

And making a walker’s nightmare into a walker’s paradise will be difficult. They’re building new city streets to fill in a semblance of a grid where now there are only wide arterial roads with long stretches between intersections. To do that, planners need to negotiate with business owners for their property, and their leases all expire at different times. And since Tysons is an unincorporated part of the county, and the county doesn’t control its own streets, this all requires a lot of negotiation with VDOT as well.

Developers are enthusiastic partners in this enterprise. Promised unlimited density within a quarter-mile radius around new metro stations (and there are four new stations planned for a four-mile strip), they are champing at the bit to tax themselves. They’ve agreed to a $480 million tax assessment district (22 cents per $100 of assessed property value) for the first phase and up to $300 million (10 cents per $100) for the second phase of building. Developers are also willing to build roads – and even schools and fire stations – on their properties, to serve the 30-odd story towers they’re planning to build.

A major impetus for all this change is the Metro extension to Dulles Airport. The new silver line will have 11 stations along a 23-mile rail extension. It represents a 25 percent increase over Metro’s current capacity, according to Marcia McAllister of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. She spoke to a group from the Rail~Volution conference last week.

The rail extension has attracted a lot of attention for its cost overruns and a prolonged debate over whether to build above ground or below ground. There are disagreements over whether to mandate the use of union labor. And financing is still in question: While tolling on the Dulles Toll Road is expected to meet 57 percent of the funding goals for Phase One (the first five stations, including all four in Tysons), some officials balk at the idea of letting tolls finance Phase Two (the last six stations, including the airport) as well. And while the federal government is ponying up about 15 percent of the cost of Phase One, so far it hasn’t offered a dime for Phase Two.

McAllister and the MWAA say the first phase will be operational by mid-2013, but delays have made some suspicious that that timeline is unrealistic.

Metrorail construction in Tysons Corner.

Still, the changes in Tysons are already visible. Anywhere you stand, you can see Metro construction. None of the four Tysons stations will have any commuter parking whatsoever. (All of the Phase Two stations will have parking garages except for the one at the airport.) Indeed, the new Tysons will have parking maximums that are lower than the original parking minimums.

And the car dealerships dotting the landscape will go the way of the dinosaurs, planners say: When the value of real estate skyrockets, their large surface parking lots will become impractical.

Of course, they’re building a Walmart where there used to be a car dealership. Nobody said this is the kind of urbanism that you’d find in, you know, a city. The Washington Post recently profiled an imagined 2014 Tysons and noted that there are still Exxon stations and McDonalds restaurants surrounded by parking, and the Post isn’t so optimistic that the auto dealerships will disappear entirely. They envision quarter-mile “blocks” still lined with them.

The new development won’t have the historic rowhouses with front porches or the charming old apartment buildings you find in Washington, but its new walkability, transit access, and mixed-use vitality could be enough to draw people looking for an urban-ish experience away from the grit of DC.

Fairfax planner Matt Ladd said he doesn’t think new Tysons residents will come primarily from DC, because it’s a “different market,” but to explain that, he went on to say that Fairfax has far better public schools (some of the best in the country, as opposed to some of the worst in DC). And office rents are lower. Residential rents will likely be “comparable,” he says – but that’s comparing brand-new units with smaller, older apartments in the city.

No one intentionally sets out live in a place with high rents and crappy schools, so let’s assume, yes, Tysons could well be a draw for many city dwellers. And given that there are such significant employment centers in Tysons and the surrounding area, along the Dulles Toll Road and Routes 66 and 270, taking up residence in Tysons could mean a shorter commute for many people. The guarantee that developers will build 20 percent of residential units as “workforce” units, priced below market value, will make the area even more attractive.

The new Tysons street map. It's no urban grid, but it's getting filled in. Image: Fairfax County

That’s all part of the plan. The ultimate goal is to increase employment in Tysons by nearly 100 percent, to 200,000 jobs, and to increase residential nearly sixfold, to 100,000 residents.

What happens, though, if the wars in the Middle East finally end and Congress accepts significant cuts to the defense budget, and the defense contracting sector shrinks? With such a major source of employment diminished, could the plans for Tysons’ revitalization survive? Or is it all a by-product of what has been called Washington’s “Doom Boom,” the vibrant jobs market surrounding an increased federal dedication to war and homeland security?

No sweat, the developers and planners say: Tysons has done a good job diversifying its employer base. Not only are Mitre, Booz Allen Hamilton, SAIC and other defense contractors located there, but Tysons is also home to Capital One, PNC Bank, Hilton Worldwide, Freddie Mac, Sprint Nextel and USA Today/Gannett Publications.

Whether Phase One is finished on time in 2013 or a bit later, it will transform an emblem of sprawl into a signal to the rest of the country that you don’t need a greenfield to make a new, livable community a reality.

Bike-share can bridge the last mile for public transit. Photo: Flickr/Arlington Country

For the transit officials and livability advocates gathered at the Rail~Volution conference this week, that key piece of the journey is known as the Last Mile. Frequent service and affordable fares, on their own, won’t entice people to make that trip. The route to the station also has to appeal to pedestrians and bicyclists.

Every transit trip is a multi-modal journey, pointed out Alan Lehto, director of project planning for TriMet in Portland, at the start of a panel yesterday. “Everybody who rides transit is a pedestrian or cyclist on at least one end of their trip,” Lehto said. “Getting people to and from the station is fundamentally important.”

But that aspect of transit is often overlooked. In fact, look no further than Portland itself, Lehto said. In a recent study, TriMet evaluated all 7,000 bus and transit stations within the region and found major gaps in bike-ped accessibility. “We realized that 1,500 of those don’t even have a sidewalk,” Lehto said.

Ensuring that transit stations are served by adequate pedestrian infrastructure is the bare minimum required to connect people to transit. Making the Last Mile truly appealing takes more than laying down sidewalks and adding a few bike racks.

Tim Stoner, managing director for Space Syntax, an engineering consulting firm in London, put it this way: “I want to talk about the last mile not as a distance, but as a place.” That place doesn’t end at the edge of the bus shelter. Before you can even think about the station itself, Stoner said, you have to think about the area’s connectivity. That starts with a good street grid.

“Human beings prefer simplicity,” Stoner said. Making a route physically safe and visually interesting for pedestrians is great, but even an inviting space can be a deterrent to transit, Stoner suggested, if it means pedestrians are sucked into an awkward or circuitous route.

Whether on foot or by bicycle, traveling to a transit station should be comfortable. Rory Renfro, an associate from Alta Planning + Design, shared his experience designing multi-modal transit plans for several cities in the United Arab Emirates. Whether it’s a small town on the Persian Gulf or a new development in Arizona, the Last Mile should consider “thermal comfort.” Taking temperature into account could mean siting bus stops in shaded areas, encouraging buildings with arcades for pedestrians or even adding climate control to transit shelters.

Accommodating bicycles adds another factor to the equation. But Rob Inerfeld, transportation planning manager for the city of Eugene, Oregon, suggested bicyclists can complement existing transit service and save transit agencies money.

Safe bike routes to transit hubs reduce the need for feeder service, potentially cutting bus costs. More folks bicycling can also relieve pressure on transit service during peak hours. To understand the capacity benefits, look no further than Capital Bikeshare, Inerfeld suggested. According to a CaBi survey, 40 percent of its members reported a reduction in their use of transit. And, with 22 of the district’s metro stops equipped with bike-share stations, CaBi has become a people-powered extension of the transit system itself.

“I think bike-sharing is a really good investment for transit agencies, especially relieving pressure on transit during peak hours,” Inerfeld said. “I haven’t found any examples in the U.S. where a transit agency led in the investment and development, but it would be nice to see more involvement of transit agencies in bike-sharing.”

But what if you want to ride your own bike for that Last Mile to the train stop and leave it there? For Inerfeld, the bottom of the bike parking hierarchy is an outdoor rack — ideally, covered from the elements and placed in highly visible areas to deter theft. The next step up, Inerfeld suggested, are bike lockers — large metal boxes that can be rented by the year or accessed for shorter time frames with a key card. Bike lockers can play an additional role as small-scale billboards, too. “Bike lockers can be advertisements for riding a bike to the station, but, in so many cases, they’re not used to get the word out,” he said.

The top shelf of bicycle accommodation is the full service bike station, like the Bicycle Transit Center at Union Station in D.C. Inside the helmet-shaped glass bubble, there’s parking for 140 bikes, in addition to repair and rental service, lockers and changing rooms. “People can combine biking and transit in all different ways,” Inerfeld said, leaving their bikes overnight or keeping them secure during the day. Already the facility has 200 members and an average of 35 trips per day. But given the $4 million price tag, Inerfeld acknowledged the bike station concept can carry some sticker shock.

Still, if bike stations and bike lockers can tap into evolving technology, they could skyrocket in popularity, as bike-share systems already have. “With bike-share, the technology is no longer getting in the way,” he said. “Bike parking is still operating on the old model; you have to sit on a waiting list to get a locker; the administrator may have no way of knowing how much it’s being used.” But the key card era is just around the corner. Just check out Bike Link, a company that manages bicycle shelters in California, charging users a mere three cents per hour and providing key card access to all its facilities.

Of course, all of these innovations require dollars. The good news for local agencies is that the Federal Transit Administration made a policy change this summer that benefits bike-walk connections. Previously, the FTA allowed funding for biking and walking projects that benefited public transportation facilities if they were located within 1,500 feet of that transit location. Now that distance has been bumped up to a half-mile. So many more Last Mile ideas could be on the table for federal funding.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has relented on his push to strip Transportation Enhancement funding from the six-month surface transportation extension, clearing the way for Senate passage last night and a White House signature today.

Sen. Barbara Boxer says dedicated funding for bike/ped projects is preserved, though Sen. Coburn appears satisfied that Transportation Enhancements is dead. Photo: AP

In exchange for releasing his stranglehold on the Senate (and the estimated 80,000 workers that could lose their jobs, at least temporarily, if the FAA bill lapsed) Coburn will get to insert his language into the long-term bill, when this latest extension expires.

According to CQ Today, Coburn said, “We’ve got an agreement that the next bill will be an opt-out for people on enhancements.” James Inhofe, the top Republican on the EPW committee which wrote the bill, “seems to have played a key role in brokering the deal,” CQ Today reports.

After the vote, Boxer quibbled with Coburn’s description of what will be in the next highway bill. Boxer said she and Inhofe had worked out “reforms” in the transportation enhancements section of the bill and met with Coburn to discuss them before the deal was worked out.

“We felt he would be pleased with the reforms,” she said. “It gives flexibility, without doing damage to the important programs in there.”

Boxer said Coburn made clear that he was “not going to vote for any more extensions” but allowed the current highway funding extension to move forward. “There’s not an opt-out,” she said. “You’ll see what we did. But no, there’s no opt-out. . . . There’s still dedicated funding. It gives more flexibility to the states as to how they will use that funding… It’s flexibility for the states within the transportation enhancements program.”

Clearly, Boxer is in a tight spot, having to placate some of the most conservative members of the Senate while also satisfying the active transportation advocates, in her state and around the country, who have held her feet to the fire on saving dedicated funds for bike/ped programs.

Sen. Coburn’s staff, meanwhile, is alarmed by Boxer’s comments. With the Senate out of session for the week, Coburn is back in Oklahoma and his aides are conferring with him. “Senator Boxer made an agreement with him to include the opt-out provision,” one staffer told Streetsblog. “The fact that she went on the record saying something that is in opposition to their agreement is concerning.”

Streetsblog could not reach the EPW Committee for comment before this story was posted, but we’ll update it if we hear more about exactly what was decided. It may just be a shuffling around of programs, with the essentials of bike/ped dedicated funding maintained, just in a different form.

Coburn was under intense pressure from senators on both sides of the aisle yesterday who wanted to avoid a weekend session, as well as the partial shutdown of the aviation system and the furlough of thousands of workers.

State DOTs and the transportation construction industry have been urging Congress for two years now to pass a long-term bill to restore some certainty to the business. They say the constant extensions create a chilling effect on new projects. Still, given the looming possibility of no extension at all, they are welcoming the six-month extension at current funding levels.

Voting against the extension last night were some of the most conservative members of the Senate. In addition to Sen. Coburn, Jim DeMint (R-SC), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Mike Lee (R-UT), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Pat  Toomey (R-PA).

Sen. Tom Coburn. Photo: TPM

When just one senator objects to a “unanimous consent” vote — the quickest way for the body to pass legislation — the leader has to allow for 30 hours of debate. Coburn has an amendment he wants to introduce, and he was concerned that Majority Leader Harry Reid wasn’t going to allow for amendments. Coburn’s action ensures that he will be able to bring his measure to the floor. The amendment, as we have reported, would eliminate the 1.5 percent of federal transportation funds that go to Transportation Enhancements, about half of which is spent on bicycle and pedestrian programs.

Reid isn’t happy about Coburn’s use of the hold to delay important legislation. “It’s a pretty good way to legislate around here, be a dictator and say either take this or leave that,” Reid was quoted as saying in a story by CQ.

In addition to his amendment to strip TE funds, Coburn wants to offer an amendment that would offset the cost of the disaster aid, so that it doesn’t add to the deficit.

As we’ve said, the votes will still go through, just more slowly. And while we at Streetsblog are no experts on the disaster relief bill, we think the odds look good that enough senators will be frustrated with Coburn’s insistence on slowing down the process that they will vote against his push to kill Transportation Enhancements.

The 12 programs that make up Transportation Enhancements. Source: National Transportation Enhancements Clearinghouse

For the last few days, we’ve been talking a lot about Sen. Tom Coburn’s crusade to remove bike/ped funding from the transportation bill — even just from the six-month extension that just passed the House and is on its way to the Senate. He’s determined to insert an amendment to take out the funds.

Ever the gentleman, Coburn had his office contact the Rails-to-Trail Conservancy, a principal supporter of Transportation Enhancement funding, since rail-trails are one of a dozen uses for the funds. Coburn’s office let RTC know that the senator would be introducing an amendment to eliminate TE funding.

Kevin Mills, vice president of policy at RTC, emphasizes that Coburn wants to eliminate the federal mandate to spend certain federal dollars on certain programs. There would no longer be dedicated funding for bike and pedestrian projects, but they would still be eligible for federal money. Without a federal mandate, however, many states hardly spend any money on active transportation at all.

Mills said that Coburn’s office left no doubt that the senator would do whatever it takes to force a vote on TE. Senate leadership is determined to pass a clean extension and wanted, like the House, to have a simple, amendment-free process. If leadership refuses to entertain Coburn’s amendment, many expect that Coburn will filibuster, though his office won’t explicitly say so.

If he does filibuster, all that means is that it’ll take 60 senators to bring the extension bill to a vote (without Coburn’s amendment). Bike advocacy groups are clearly worried about this possibility. But the facts are enough to give us hope.

The last time Coburn tried to kill TE funding (yes, he’s been at this for a while), in 2009, he offered two amendments. One would have prohibited the use of federal funds for TE projects if the Highway Trust Fund couldn’t cover unfunded highway authorizations. He had to withdraw that amendment for lack of support. The other amendment would have only eliminated the “set-aside,” or the federal mandate for all states to spend money on these programs. He lost that vote, with just 38 other senators voting with him and 59 voting to keep TE.

Now, “times are different,” Mills said. But the Congressional fervor over spending cuts still might not be enough to win the day for Sen. Coburn.

Of the 59 senators that voted to keep TE, 51 are still in the Senate. Five are Republicans, who will be under a lot of pressure to switch their votes. But then, at least one senator has pledged to switch her vote in the other direction, to save Transportation Enhancements. A couple of newly elected senators have also promised to vote to save TE.

Perhaps more importantly, many lawmakers who would love nothing more than to kill bike/ped funding once and for all are committed to voting against Coburn’s amendment. Even Sen. James Inhofe, who has been on record for years as wanting to get rid of the program, has said he won’t vote for Coburn’s amendment this time because it’s too important to get a clean extension done quickly, without introducing controversial measures that will slow it down. Knowing they’ll have their chance again in six months, even many TE opponents will put procedure before their anti-bike/ped zeal and vote the amendment down.

That should provide some comfort to cyclists, pedestrians, and others who benefit from Enhancement programs, but it just provides a little time to regroup for the big fight, in six months or whenever a longer-term bill is finally debated and voted on. Undoubtedly, the movement to kill TE will be in full swing then, and the movement to save it will have to be stronger.

A full bike rack outside the Senate building where today's EPW hearing was held. Photo: Tanya Snyder.

You’ve worked with us on Safe Routes to Schools, because that’s so crucial, and we kept it, and bike paths, and we kept it, and recreational trails, and we kept it. Tough debates, giving here, taking there. But that has remained in the bill.

The reauthorization negotiations have been largely overshadowed by the ongoing talks over the debt ceiling. For a long time it appeared that if the debt talks had any impact on the transportation program, it would be to institutionalize the 33 percent cuts mandated by House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan’s budget. However, as Boxer mentioned a few times during today’s hearing, the outlook is looking brighter.

The bipartisan Gang of Six has a plan to cut the deficit and raise the debt ceiling. That plan calls for very little spending – but the one area they did see fit to spend on was infrastructure. The Gang of Six plan calls for the following:

Tax reform must be estimated to provide $1 trillion in additional revenue to meet plan targets and generate an additional $133 billion by 2021, without raising the federal gas tax, to ensure improved solvency for the Highway Trust Fund.

According to our sources, that additional revenue would stabilize the trust fund for the next 10 years.

The vote of confidence by the Gang of Six is encouraging and should be a shot in the arm to the Senate. If that debt plan passes, it could even give House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica enough political cover to raise the total price tag of his bill.

EPW was able to get bipartisan buy-in, even from one of the most conservative Republicans in the Senate, James Inhofe (R-OK). Despite his conservatism on nearly every issue, though, Inhofe says he’s a “big spender” when it comes to two things: national defense and infrastructure.

Many senators mentioned the oft-repeated number $2.2 trillion: the amount the U.S. would have to spend over the next five years just to get the nation’s infrastructure to “passable” condition, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. That’s eight times more than the Senate bill foresees.

Still, the Senate bill remains larger than the House bill and for a shorter duration, and it remains to be seen how the two chambers will reconcile their competing visions. Terry O’Sullivan of the Laborers’ union said the House proposal “locks in failure for six years” and “gives up on America.”

O’Sullivan and nearly everyone else who spoke mentioned the massive job loss that would be caused by the low funding levels in the House bill – 630,000 jobs, according to Sen. Boxer. “We’re inviting unemployment,” she said.

Boxer said she’d visited a job re-training program that was teaching people to become chefs. Several of the participations had been construction workers who had “given up” on finding work in their field, she said.

Boxer pleaded with transportation advocates to keep contacting their senators – including her – to encourage them to move the reauthorization bill.

“We need the people to communicate with those on the Finance Committee on both sides of the aisle, and this committee, that you really need us to do this,” she said. “A lot of you said it took courage for us to come together. We need to have you in the background, with a loud voice.”

She said she felt that the public support was behind her in going forward with the bill, but advocates need to keep it up, especially with the Finance Committee which is still searching for $12 billion to close the funding gap. “They have to feel that this is a priority,” Boxer said. “If they don’t sense that America wants this, it’s going to be very difficult.”

Sen. Max Baucus, who chairs the Finance Committee and also leads the EPW Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure, said he’s “fairly confident” and “optimistic” that they’ll find the money.

Baucus was the first lawmaker to publicly call for a two-year bill, but at the hearing admitted it wasn’t ideal. “Chairman Boxer held out for six-year bill as long as possible,” he said. “But the issue is funding.”

At the end of the hearing, Boxer expressed frustration that President Obama hasn’t been more present in these negotiations – except for his recent mentions of an infrastructure bank. “We have to convince the administration to please weigh in, now,” she said. “Yes, we want an infrastructure bank; we love it, it’s great, but it’s not the core program.”

Deron Lovaas of NRDC said the administration has been “AWOL.” He said he’s disappointed the only administration bill that’s been made public was a leaked, “pre-final” version that had major sections that don’t reflect actual administration positions. He said President George W. Bush released an administration draft.

“The previous administration actually did a better job of managing their approach to this bill than the current administration,” Lovaas said, “which is disappointing, given how much skill Sec. LaHood and his team have.”

Boxer reiterated her desire to get the bill out of committee before the Senate leaves for August recess.

The Senate EPW Committee just posted a transportation bill outline on their website, and despite previous assurances by committee chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA), there appears to be no dedicated funding for bicycling and pedestrian programs in the bill. The outline focuses on the consolidation of programs and streamlining project delivery, much like the House bill. The performance measures mentioned in the outline – while not necessarily a comprehensive list – don’t include emissions reductions, undoubtedly at the insistence of climate-denier Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), ranking member of the committee.

One of Chicago's celebrated new bicycling facilities, the Kinzie Street protected bike lane. Will any federal support for bike/ped projects remain after the next transpo bill passes? Photo: Josh Koonce/flickr

The outline confirms that the Senate is working on a two-year bill but does not include the dollar amount. “Consolidation” is the name of the game these days and the Senate plays along, making seven core surface transportation programs into five, including a new Transportation Mobility Program, which “sub-allocates” some funds to metropolitan areas, and a National Freight Program, which proponents of multi-modalism have long pushed for.

It preserves the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program, which funds some bike and pedestrian programs. Transportation Enhancements, another major way such programs are funded, will probably now be under CMAQ. It’s unclear whether the Recreational Trails Program will move to CMAQ as well. But although bike and pedestrian projects will still be eligible for funding, there appear to be no explicit funding guarantees for bike-ped projects, and how funding levels will shake out in the final analysis is anybody’s guess.

Like the House, the Senate bill offers states “the flexibility to fund these activities as they see fit” – which amounts to a revocation of the federal commitment to funding this work. Many states, absent a federal mandate, will spend virtually nothing on bike/ped infrastructure.

Bicycling advocates had asked for dedicated funding that doesn’t pit them against road projects, the same funding proportion as they had in SAFETEA-LU, and changes to Safe Routes to School. None of those features appear to be in this bill.

“It’s hard to know without seeing the details, but at first blush it doesn’t look good for bike and pedestrian issues,” said Andy Clarke, president of the League of American Bicyclists. “Perhaps it’s to be expected that there’s nothing upfront in the language about protecting dedicated funding, given that it was a topic of some contention among the protagonists. But it’s pretty troubling to see no reference to any of the issues that affect cyclists and pedestrians – nothing about complete streets, nothing about dedicated funding.”

The Senate bill expands and modifies the TIFIA loan program, as does the House bill, and does not mention an infrastructure bank. Boxer indicated in the fall that she was more friendly to an expansion of TIFIA than to a new entity, though more recently she has said that she supported the inclusion of an infrastructure bank in the bill.

On performance outcomes, the outline says:

MAP-21 focuses the highway program on key outcomes, such as reducing fatalities, improving bridges, fixing roads, and reducing congestion, in order to ensure that taxpayers are receiving the most for their money. States will set their own targets for improving safety, road and bridge condition, congestion, and freight movement.

Probably one of the greatest disappointments in the bill – or at least this outline – is the omission of emissions reductions as one of those performance goals. To set that as a national priority would elevate the importance of transit and active transportation programs. The emphasis here rests squarely with roads.

“Improving bridges” and “fixing roads” don’t really sound like performance outcomes, and bicycling advocates fear that, while safety is an essential goal, the fact that there are about 60 times more car fatalities per year than bike fatalities will translate into a far greater focus on car safety than bicycle safety.

By contrast, the Bipartisan Policy Center has suggested setting national transportation goals such as economic growth, metropolitan accessibility, energy security and environmental protection.

The bill does seek to improve state and metro planning processes “to incorporate a more comprehensive performance-based approach to decision making.”

The Banking Committee has not yet inserted its transit language, nor has the Commerce Committee come forward with its rail language, so this outline doesn’t say anything about those elements.

We understand that the full bill has not even been circulated to Democratic committee members yet, indicating that, despite the false hopes of last week, a formal bill introduction is not yet on the horizon. The committee is holding a hearing this Thursday on “issues” for the reauthorization. Boxer has promised to hold a hearing before marking up the bill, but the bill would have to be introduced a week in advance if the hearing were going to discuss actual bill text, and there is no longer time for that if the committee is going to mark up the bill before the August recess. So Thursday’s hearing will likely be a more general discussion of transportation issues, using this brief outline as a guide.

Pedestrian fatalities from 2000 to 2009 near the high school I graduated from, in Philadelphia's inner suburbs. Map your own neighborhoods at Transportation for America's website.

Over the last decade, nearly 48,000 people were killed in the simple act of walking. Many of them were on streets built only to accommodate fast-moving cars, without safe places for people to walk or cross the street.

Transportation for America’s new report, “Dangerous by Design,” includes rankings of states and metro areas, but you can zoom in even more precisely on your neighborhood or your kids’ school. Check out their interactive map to find pedestrian fatalities and identify trouble spots near you.

And don’t stop there. T4America is encouraging everyone who supports safer streets to take action and tell Congress to preserve funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects.

If a jumbo jet went down every month, Congress would pass laws left and right. If a consumer product injured someone every seven minutes, the feds would shut down production.

Well, that’s exactly how many Americans are being killed and injured in the act of walking pedestrian-unfriendly streets, according to our report, out today. But in the case of pedestrian safety, our federal tax dollars actually go to build streets that are designed to be perilous to children, the elderly and everyone else.

And yet, right now, some in Congress are trying to kill funding for projects to make it safer to walk and bicycle!

What can be done to reduce the number of deaths on the country’s roads? Barbara McCann of the National Complete Streets Coalition explained how safer street designs save lives.

Since adopting a “complete streets” approach in 2006, Seattle has seen a decline in overall traffic fatalities across the city, she said. All kinds of crashes, not just those involving pedestrians, dropped 21 percent after a street redesign on Aurora Avenue, a major north-south arterial, which was outfitted with new crossings, bus plazas, and other pedestrian facilities. Meanwhile, McCann said, on Stone Way, where trucks, cars and bicycles struggled to share the road, new designs resulted in a 75 percent decline in speeding, a 35 percent increase in bicycle traffic – and a decrease in the rate of bicycle crashes. Pedestrian collisions fell by 80 percent.

In New York City, the DOT has found that installing bike lanes is a boon for pedestrians, too: Serious crashes on streets with bike lanes are 40 percent less deadly than on other streets. Injuries to pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists have fallen steeply on corridors where innovative protected bikeways have been installed — in some locations, traffic injuries dropped more than 50 percent after implementation.

Meanwhile, the public health community, alarmed by the nation’s obesity epidemic, has been telling people to get out and get active. But in some places, walking for health could be more dangerous than staying sedentary.

“People have tried to say that obesity and diabetes are related to personal behaviors, that people don’t exercise enough and eat the wrong kinds of foods,” said Dr. Tony DeLucia, a leader in the American Lung Association and other public health groups. “But in public health, we’ve started to look upstream at how, since World War Two, the design of the transportation system has been inclined toward automobile, almost exclusively.”

So is this a national issue? According to James Corless of T4America, roads eligible for federal aid funds account for about 15 percent of lane miles in the United States, but 67 percent of pedestrian fatalities happen on those roads. Clearly these roads are being built wrong, using federal taxpayer dollars to engineer and construct a physical environment that put people’s lives in danger. The federal government needs to take note and prevent more needless deaths.

With sporadic sidewalks, seven lanes, and crosswalks spaced a half mile or more apart, this arterial road in Atlanta doesn't even allow residents of the apartment complex at right — perhaps including the pedestrian in the center lane — to access the store across the street. Photo: National Complete Streets Coalition

If you had to cross this road on your walk to work, wouldn’t you rather drive?

Millions of Americans live in communities without safe places to walk. And so they either don’t walk, adding to traffic congestion with every trip, or they do walk, risking joining the ranks of the 47,700 pedestrians killed and 688,000 injured in crashes with automobiles in the last decade.

Transportation for America’s new report, “Dangerous by Design,” highlights that these deaths could have been prevented with better street design. But despite the fact that pedestrians account for 12 percent of all road fatalities, pedestrian safety only gets 1.5 percent of safety funding. “Worthy efforts to improve vehicle design, encourage seat belt and child booster seat use, eliminate drunk driving and end distracted driving have helped save the lives of thousands of motorists and their passengers,” writes report author Michelle Ernst. “Unfortunately, pedestrian fatalities have not received the same kind of attention or response.”

T4America’s analysis of the national traffic safety database reveals that more than 52 percent of pedestrian deaths happen on arterial roads designed to accommodate many cars on many lanes at high speeds, with little to no accommodation for people on foot. Those roads often lack sidewalks, crosswalks, and medians for safe pedestrian crossings. “All too often, the consequences of this lack of basic infrastructure are fatal,” the authors note. “Of the 40,037 pedestrian fatalities for which the location of the collision was known, more than 40 percent were killed where no crosswalk was available.”

People with few transportation options are especially vulnerable. Low-income people and people of color are disproportionately victims of traffic fatalities while on foot. Children too young to drive are also at risk: “Pedestrian injury is the third leading cause of death by unintentional injury for children 15 and younger, according to CDC mortality data,” Ernst writes. “Nearly 3,900 children 15 years and younger were killed while walking from 2000 through 2007, representing between 25 and 30 percent of all traffic deaths.”

Seniors are nearly twice as likely to be killed while walking as people under 65, the report goes on to say. The higher rate is attributable to the fact that elderly people are more likely to die of their injuries and are more likely to “have physical impairments that decrease their ability to avoid oncoming traffic.” But it’s also an engineering flaw that puts them at greater risk: Older people can’t run across seven lanes of traffic in the time allowed by the crosswalk signal. Nearly two-thirds of transportation planners and engineers said in a survey that they do not consider the needs of older Americans in their planning.

Does the disproportionate vulnerability of senior citizens explain Florida’s abysmal rankings on pedestrian safety? The report ranks metro areas according to a variety of metrics, but by the most basic one – “most dangerous” – Florida takes the cake for the worst pedestrian safety.

The four most dangerous metro areas for pedestrians are all in Florida. Source: Transportation for America

Florida also has the worst pedestrian fatality rate of any state in the nation. But apparently, Florida pedestrians are not killed so frequently because a disproportionate number of them are seniors: Adults 65 or over accounted for 22 percent of the state’s pedestrian deaths — the same as the national average. There seems to be something especially dangerous about Florida’s roads. (Florida is also among the most dangerous states for bicyclists.)

Recently, lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been debating whether objectives like increasing pedestrian safety rise to the level of national significance. Many members of Congress have been assiduously working to limit the federal role in transportation, with only highways fitting under their definition of “the national interest.” But T4America counters that argument in its report:

Pedestrian safety is often perceived as a strictly local issue, but 67 percent of all 47,000+ pedestrian fatalities from 2000 to 2009 occurred on federal-aid roadways — major roads eligible to receive federal funding for construction and improvements with federal guidelines or oversight for design.

Taxpayer money that goes to the federal government and is distributed to the states for transportation should be used to build streets, roads and highways that are safe for all users. With millions of Americans walking along and crossing these federally funded roads each day, the billions in federal dollars spent on them each year must result in safer conditions for pedestrians.

Bike and pedestrian advocates are urging supporters to contact Senator Barbara Boxer today to tell her to retain dedicated funding for active transportation in the Senate transportation bill. Photo: CNN Politics

Advocates are rallying supporters to contact Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-California), and urge her and other senators to retain federal funding for bike and pedestrian programs.

Jeffrey Miller, president of the Alliance for Biking and Walking, says this marks an urgent opportunity to preserve funding for those important programs. “Senator Boxer is frankly our last hope,” said Miller. “If we don’t act now, dedicated funding for biking and walking programs may be written out of our transportation system for the next six years.”

The Senate occupies the key middle ground between the House GOP and the White House. House Transportation Chair John Mica (R-Florida) has indicated his desire to eliminate the federal commitment to bike-ped funding. While the Obama administration has repeatedly signaled its support for bike-ped programs under the banner of livability, if dedicated funding for bike and pedestrian projects isn’t preserved in the Senate version of the bill, there is little hope that they will reemerge in the conference committee process and get into the final bill, Miller said.

Biking and walking advocates are concerned that Boxer, who has generally been a supporter, is being pressured to compromise and eliminate the programs, said Miller. Both the Alliance and the League of American Bicyclists are calling on their members to email Boxer, thank her for her past support and urge her to continue federal support for bicycle and pedestrian programs.

“At this very moment, she is negotiating with other senators who don’t think bicycling and walking are an important part of the transportation bill,” said Miller. “She needs to know we have her back on this issue and she shouldn’t give up on these crucial programs.”

“Transportation Enhancements, Safety Routes to School, and Recreational Trails are important programs for transportation, safety, and health that have a huge impact on the funding available for bicycling and walking projects,” said Bike League director Andy Clarke. “It is critical that these programs are included in the Senate draft. Otherwise, it will be nearly impossible to add them later in the process.”

Should infrastructure like bike lanes come standard on transportation projects that receive federal funding? AASHTO is reconsidering its opposition to an FHWA policy that makes accommodating bikes and pedestrians the rule, not the exception. Photo: Agit Corp

Active transportation groups were outraged earlier this month when AASHTO requested that the FHWA revert to an old standard that required state DOTs show only that “due consideration” had been given to the needs of cyclists and pedestrians in federally financed transportation projects. A newer requirement increased the standard to “due accommodation,” shifting the burden on transportation agencies to demonstrate that extreme circumstances prevent the inclusion of bike and pedestrian infrastructure.

In his statement Friday, AASHTO Executive Director John Horsley said the agency’s request was meant “to streamline the effort and paperwork required to justify why bicycle or pedestrian facilities may or may not be appropriate on a given federal aid project.” But he added that the group would withdraw the request in light of opposition that emerged after the League of American Bicyclists, this blog and other bike advocates took up the issue.

Horsley said that since that time several state DOT chiefs also came out against the request, including Matthew Garrett of the Oregon DOT.

“In response to the concerns expressed by several members of AASHTO’s Board of Directors, President [Susan] Martinovich has directed AASHTO for the time being to withdraw its request that FHWA rescind its guidance on the meaning of ‘due consideration’ of bicycle and pedestrian needs,” said Horsley. “This will give AASHTO an opportunity to meet with bicycle and pedestrian advocacy groups on May 19 to discuss this issue.”

Andy Clarke of the League of American Bicyclists is planning to attend the meeting. He says he’s glad AASHTO is warming to the idea that all transportation projects should begin with the idea of including bicycles and pedestrians in the plan “rather than ‘we’re not going to include bike stuff unless someone makes us.’”

Clarke said AASHTO’s backpedaling is an important demonstration of the collective power of bicycle and pedestrian advocates.

“I’m glad we called them on it,” he said. “I’m glad they heard a good deal of dissent.”

But last year, USDOT gave that requirement some teeth. USDOT issued a directive specifying that “due consideration” should include “the presumption that bicyclists and pedestrians will be accommodated” in project designs paid for with federal government dollars.

AASHTO's John Horsley has complained that a new USDOT directive would make it too hard for state DOTs to ignore the needs of cyclists and pedestrians. Photo: Flickr, Commission for Environmental Cooperation

Well, surprise! State DOTs aren’t happy about it. In a supplement [PDF] to a letter [PDF] to USDOT yesterday, John Horsley, executive director of the Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, urged federal officials to reconsider the requirement. “This regulation presents an undue burden on states to justify exceptional circumstances when not including provisions for bicyclists and pedestrians in a project,” he said.

Someone should tell Horsley, that was sort of the point. USDOT is trying to make it hard for state DOTs — using money from both taxpayers who drive and those who don’t — to completely ignore the needs of non-drivers.

In its directive, USDOT states that walking and bicycling should be considered equal to other modes.

“The establishment of well-connected walking and bicycling networks is an important component for livable communities, and their design should be a part of Federal-aid project developments,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “Transportation programs and facilities should accommodate people of all ages and abilities, including people too young to drive, people who cannot drive, and people who choose not to drive.”

When asked about AASHTO’s objection to the new rule, spokeman Lloyd Brown said it was part of a list of recommendations that came from the organization’s members: state DOTs.

(Thanks to the Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling Blog for alerting us to this story.)

Houston planners justified their decision by saying more roads are needed and that pedestrian and cycling infrastructure benefits special interests. Photo: mrchriscornwell/Flickr

In a meeting packed with active transportation supporters, the TPC moved to dedicate 100 percent of its $80 million in federal discretionary funds to auto infrastructure over the next three years. Local advocates did keep the TPC from diverting an additional $12 million to roads that had already been dedicated to transit, walking, and biking.

“We did win something,” said Jay Crossley, of Houston Tomorrow, one of the groups that led the charge to secure increased funding for bike, pedestrian and transit projects. In addition to asking that the $12 million be preserved, they had also demanded that no more than 55 percent of the other $80 million be used for auto-oriented projects. Those funds come from two federal programs that often support non-automotive modes, including one dedicated to reducing congestion and air pollution.

“That’s $12.8 million that won’t be taken away from alternative modes, but we thought it could go farther,” said Crossley.

According to Crossley, 26 people spoke at the meeting in favor of increased bike and pedestrian funding. The four remaining speakers remarked on specific road projects, without entering the debate about how funding should be divided between different modes.

Ultimately, however, TPC members said expanding the region’s road network into sprawling and unincorporated areas was a bigger priority than “small-ticket things that are representative of individual communities’ values as opposed to regional values,” according to a report by The Houston Chronicle.

“We’re trying to provide the best mobility and alternative projects possible for the people of the entire region, not just some small part of this region,” said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett.

The TPC’s decision bowed to powerful real estate and development interests, despite popular outcry, Crossley said.

“There is no public uproar saying we need more roads,” he said. “They did not listen to the people.”

Crossley said the local advocacy community will turn their energy to new objectives in the coming year. They will be organizing to support a statewide Complete Streets bill and also working to support safe passing bills large cities.

“This movement can do a lot and change things,” Crossley said. “We can put Houston on the path for reasonable transportation choices this year.”

Chicago's Active Transportation Alliance serves as a model of how to integrate communities of color into livability programming. Photo courtesy of Active Transportation Alliance

“I think there were about 300 or 400 people,” he said. “And really, I could count on one hand people I thought were people of color.”

Hernandez is the director of outreach and advocacy for the Active Transportation Alliance in Chicago. His own organization has a predominantly white, affluent membership, he says, but that’s changing. And a new study by the Centers for Disease Control highlights the urgent need for smart-growth and livability organizations to diversify and include the full range of people who care about these issues.

The CDC asked people how “street-scale urban design policies” (read: sidewalks, lighting) affect their level of physical activity. Overall, about 57 percent of adults said these neighborhood features were “moderately” or “very” important – but people of color placed far greater importance on those factors in the built environment than the white people surveyed.

In fact, 50.5 percent of black respondents and 40.6 percent of Hispanic respondents said neighborhood features were “very important” in determining their level of physical activity. Only 26.9 percent of the white people surveyed gave that answer. A quarter of the white respondents said it wasn’t important at all, while only 12 and 13 percent of Hispanics and blacks, respectively, said that.

Hernandez says that low-income communities and communities of color “get” issues of walkability, though they may feel alienated by the jargon livability advocates use. “People want to be able to walk and feel safe; they want their kids to be able to play outside,” he said. “The instant you start talking to people about what they like and don’t like about their block, they might say, ‘I hate that it’s hard for my kids to walk to school’, or ‘It’s hard for my kids to play outside.’ ‘We’re worried about how fast the cars are going.’”

He said Chicago residents often say their block party is their favorite event of the year. “You ask them, What happens at your block parties?” he said. “‘Well, the instant all the cars move, all the kids go out and play. It’s one of the only times we really talk to all our neighbors.’”

Laura Barrett, director of the Transportation Equity Network, laments the “segregation” between community organizations and some transportation advocacy groups. “Some people pursue walking and biking as a ‘white’ issue,” she said, “but low-income people who are stuck in these neighborhoods and have to walk and bike everywhere are incredibly impacted” by neighborhood features like high-traffic streets, abandoned buildings, and lack of green space.

Photo courtesy of Active Transportation Alliance

According to the CDC’s survey, people of color are also more willing than white people to take civic action on neighborhood issues. It found that 58.8 percent of blacks said they were willing to write letters to elected officials about neighborhood livability issues, as well as 47.8 percent of Hispanics. Only 36.7 percent of whites were willing to write letters, though more of them were willing to pay more property taxes for better neighborhood design. Blacks were less willing to do that – but 6.3 percent of them (and 5.8 percent of Hispanics) were interested in running for office to support neighborhood improvements. Only 3.2 percent of whites were willing to go that far.

So if people of color are ready and willing to take action, why aren’t they prominent actors in most livability-focused organizations?

“We targeted five communities along Chicago’s west side,” Hernandez says. “And when we started this work, they were all pretty hesitant. At the time, we were the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation, so it sounded like some cycling club.”

But it wasn’t just the name change that helped build trust and partnership with these groups. Active Trans went to community members where they were – at PTA meetings and block parties – and engaged them on the issues that were important to them. They realized that violence, or the perception of violence, was at least as significant a barrier as traffic in encouraging community members to use parks and go outside. They partnered with them on issues like housing access and jobs. And they linked all of these issues back to changes in the built environment that would improve their quality of life. “Now we have African-American and Latino community-based organizations going to their councilmen and alderman and asking for bicycle and pedestrian improvements,” says Hernandez.

The CDC study is an interesting document, but more than that, it’s a wake-up call for livability advocates who need to do a better job of reaching out to people of color.

America Walks is the only national organization dedicated exclusively to walkability and pedestrian rights. Image: Post-Gazette

Which may be part of the reason it’s been hard for pedestrian advocacy organizations to build a strong identity around walking.

Urban cyclists are constantly aware of themselves as cyclists on streets that aren’t well designed for them. Folks walking the dog or going from the transit station to their office may not identify as strongly as pedestrians.

Maybe it’s the specialized equipment that builds a sense of identity. According to Jeff Miller, president of the Alliance for Biking and Walking, rates of association membership for snowmobilers in Maine, where he used to work, are far higher than rates of bicyclist association membership will ever be.

But walking is the default – it’s “the first and most fundamental form of transportation. Everybody is a pedestrian at some point in each day, even if it’s just walking from the car to the office.”

That’s how America Walks describes the challenge – and the purpose – of its campaign to foster walkability.

America Walks isn’t a new organization – it’s been around for 15 years. But it’s in the process of reinventing itself. It’s the only national organization dedicated exclusively to the rights of pedestrians. “It’s about people having places to walk to and using walking as their daily form of transportation, physical activity, and recreation,” says acting director Scott Bricker. “It’s about getting them up off couch and walking out the door.”

America Walks was created to support community-based pedestrian advocacy groups, but in their new draft strategic plan, released today for public comment, they acknowledge that it’s been slow going. [PDF]

Over the past fifteen years, however, only a limited number of pedestrian-only advocacy organizations have successfully staffed up and the America Walks membership has modestly increased to twenty-six organizations. Simultaneously, many other organizations have begun to integrate walking into their missions, including bicycle, youth, health, aging, business, development, equity, social justice, smart growth, and environmental groups.

So America Walks is making those lemons into lemonade. It’s transforming from a membership organization into a coalition of those groups that are beginning to recognize walkability as an important part of their own work. They include AARP, the American Heart Association, the Rails to Trails Conservancy, the Safe Routes to School National Partnership, the National Associations of Realtors, and the American Public Transportation Association. By 2012, America Walks hopes to increase its coalition from 70 current organizational members to 500, all coming to the table from a variety of perspectives.

Moving forward, America Walks is planning two national campaigns. One is aimed at reducing driving speeds and creating community speed-free zones. The other will work to increase pedestrian access to transit and jobs, especially for seniors, low-income people and people with disabilities.

The new strategic plan starts with a vision statement they’re hoping to get 25,000 people to sign onto:

By 2020, walking in everyday life is embraced across America. Streets and neighborhoods are safe and attractive public places that encourage people of all ages, abilities, ethnicities, and incomes to walk for exercise, recreation, and transportation. Walkable community policies promote health, economic vitality, environmental sustainability, and social equity.

If that’s the future, it’s also the past. After all, as America Walks points out, “In 1969 walking made up 40 percent of all transportation trips, but in 2008 walking trips decreased to 11 percent.” Although walking is good for our heart rates and waistlines, modern road design can make it hazardous to our health: in the past 15 years, 76,000 pedestrians have been killed.

“We need to create places where you feel safe and comfortable walking along the street and even in the street, playing in the street,” says Bricker. “Crossing the street needs to be easy, accessible and safe.” He points to simple additions like crosswalks, raised median islands, and countdown signals as innovations that immeasurably improve the pedestrian experience.

Funding for active transportation has risen dramatically from 0.1 percent of the federal transportation program in 1992 to 2 percent this year. Considering the fact that 11 percent of all trips are by foot, America Walks wants to make sure walking gets its fair piece of the pie.

And though creating a strong identity among walkers can be challenging, Bricker says, “We don’t hear people saying, ‘this is not important, walking is not part of the transportation system.’ People understand that walking is a fundamental part of life.”

To have your say on America Walks’ draft strategic plan, read it here. [PDF]

Bike-ped funding dropped off some after a bonanza year in 2009, but it still tops $1 billion. Bike League

The League of American Bicyclists says we’re already getting a sense of what could happen, as the drop from last year to this year reflects the push to spend stimulus money quickly, followed by a cooler period. The League’s response to this year’s figure:

The $1 billion spent on biking and walking projects is a great and welcome step. It is being used to create miles of bicycling facilities, countless bike parking spaces, hundreds of safer routes to schools for children, recreational trails, and other needed projects. However, it is still a drop in the overall transportation-bucket. Bicycling and walking make up 12 percent of all trips and yet receive less than two percent of federal transportation funding. To put the billion dollars in perspective, the amount of federal money spent on bicycle and pedestrian projects, nation-wide, in FY 2010 is equal to the cost of just one bridge in the Port of Long Beach.

You can also see the FHWA funding breakdown by year, by program, and by state.