Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Update 7/20: It has come to our attention that the complete draft of the Senate bill will include a hard commitment to bike-ped programs. Senate staff tells us that Sen. Barbara Boxer worked hard and was able to maintain her priorities in the bill, including dedicated federal support for bike infrastructure. More details will come out at tomorrow’s hearing on transportation in Boxer’s Environment and Public Works Committee, and we look forward to seeing a complete legislative draft soon. The rest of this article was written yesterday, before we received these assurances from staff.

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.”

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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.

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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.”

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According to Congressional insiders, members of the Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works are meeting today and tomorrow to hash out the details of their proposal for a multi-year transportation reauthorization bill. Hanging in the balance of these negotiations may be the federal government’s only programs dedicated to funding infrastructure for biking and walking.

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.”

The Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials is withdrawing its opposition to an important federal policy change that puts cyclists and pedestrians on a more equal footing with motorists.

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.”

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For years, state DOTs have exploited a loophole of federal government policy that allowed them to build massive, publicly funded projects without accommodating non-motorized users as long as they could show that “due consideration” had been given to bicyclists and pedestrians.

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.

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It looks like the Houston region still has a long way to go in balancing the needs of cyclists and pedestrians with those of drivers. The region’s Transportation Policy Council came down largely on the side of auto infrastructure Friday in deciding how to allocate tens of millions of dollars in federal funding. On the bright side, an all-out push from local cycling and pedestrian advocates successfully preserved a chunk of funding for biking and walking that had been under threat.

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.”

The first time Adolfo Hernandez went to the National Bike Summit, he got a sense of just how monochromatic the livability movement can be.

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.’”

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People tend to identify most strongly with things that set them apart. If everyone’s doing something, it hardly seems worth calling attention to the fact that you do it too.

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]

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Via the League of American Bicyclists, new information is out about how much the feds are spending on bike-ped  projects. While federal funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects is down a bit from last year’s all-time high, it still comes in at more than a billion dollars. A third of the money is from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), which begs the question of what will happen to bike-ped funding once the stimulus funds dry up. We got some somber foreshadowing last week of what could happen to bike-ped funding if Republicans cut the transportation bill to the “core program.”

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.