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The need for dedicated bike funding: Why “eligibility” is not enough
The following is a white paper written by the League of American Bicyclists and America Bikes, a coalition of national bicycling advocacy groups. Download the PDF of ”Why Eligibility Isn’t Enough.”
Why “Eligibility” Isn’t Enough
The case for dedicated bicycle and pedestrian funding in the federal transportation bill
Representative John Mica (R-FL), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, recently introduced an outline of his proposed transportation bill. The proposal eliminates all dedicated funding for bicycling and walking – programs such as transportation enhancements, recreational trails and safe routes to schools program – and maintains “eligibility” for these activities only if states choose to spend their funds on these kinds of activities and these meet [undetermined] performance measures and are in the national interest.
As supporters of these programs attempt to preserve dedicated funding for bicycling and walking, they may well hear an argument along the lines of “don’t worry, these are still eligible activities, so if States think they are important they will continue”. While it is true that basic eligibility for federal transportation funds is important (it at least removes the argument that “we aren’t allowed to use these funds for bicycling and walking projects”), all the evidence of the past 20 years and beyond suggests that mere eligibility is totally insufficient: most states will simply stop spending any of their Federal transportation funds on anything related to bicycling and walking.
1. It didn’t work before. In 1991, the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) created the Transportation Enhancement (TE), Recreational Trails (RTP) and Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality programs (CMAQ), all of which have become major sources of funding for bicycling and walking projects. Before ISTEA, states had the option of spending up to $4.5 million of their highway funds each year on independent bicycling and walking projects (up to a national cap of $45 million), and the funds required NO state matching funds. In the 18 years before 1991, a total of $40 million was spent by all 50 states combined – approximately $2 million a year. Most states spent nothing between 1988 and 1991.
2. States seem to wait for programs to end. The chart below shows how spending on bicycling and walking projects and programs has increased since 1991. Notice the dips in spending when transportation bill expires. While this lack of planning for bike/ped projects may partly be explained by the general level of uncertainty caused by numerous short-term funding fixes (continuing resolutions), there is also a strong possibility that States are hoping these programs will go away in the new bills – and in 1995-96 and 2003-04 there were active efforts underway to eliminate the Transportation Enhancements program.
3. States don’t spend available bicycle and pedestrian program funds as quickly as other highway funds. The obligation rate (percentage of available funds actually spent by states) for the Transportation Enhancements (see page 13 – 15) and Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programs, and even the CMAQ program, are historically much lower than for “traditional” highway construction programs.
4. States disproportionately target Transportation Enhancements (TE) and Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) when sending funds back to Washington. Several times in recent years, states have had to return “unspent” funds to Washington. These rescissions have affected all the major transportation funding programs, but the TE and CMAQ funds have suffered disproportionately – for example, in 2010, 44 percent of a $2.2 billion rescission came from these two funds even though they comprised just 7.3 percent of the total. States are able to choose which funds are returned – they are clearly choosing to send back more funds from bike/ped programs than any other.
5. It’s not for lack of demand for bicycle and pedestrian projects. Funding requests for TE, RTP, and SRTS typically outstrip available funding by a factor or three or more. Because of the unique “application” process established for these programs, and the active constituencies that surround non-motorized projects, the TE, SRTS and RTP programs generate remarkable levels of popular support and positive media – they are also very popular with local elected officials. Sixty percent of our Nation’s Mayors cite the lack of funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects as one of their biggest challenges in using transportation as part of their city’s broader strategies to reduce congestion, improve livability, and increase economic competitiveness.
6. Demand for bike/ped projects has had to be met other ways.
There is a huge demand for and backlog of non-motorized projects and programs in part because of the reluctance of State DOTs to fund these things through the current programs:
- A significant percentage of “high priority projects” requested by individual members of Congress over the years are bicycle/pedestrian projects – often legitimate, ready-to-go projects that state DOTs have refused to fund through the regular planning process. In 2010, $90 million in bicycle and pedestrian projects were requested as high priority projects.
- The amount of funds spent on bicycling and walking increased by 50 percent with the ARRA funding that focused on “shovel-ready” projects.
- More than half of the TIGER grants went to projects that included significant non-motorized components.
7. The more discretion states have, the less they spend on bike/ped projects. The largest source of funds for non-motorized transportation projects has been the TE program – a program that is limited to 12 specific activities, including three bike/pedestrian categories and several others that State DOTs appear to like even less than trails, bike lanes and sidewalks. More than half of TE funds have been allocated to bicycling and walking. All the Safe Routes to Schools funds and one-third of the RTP funds have to go towards non-motorized projects. The CMAQ program, which can be used for wide variety of activities including signal timing, the addition of turn lanes, car-pool and ride-share programs, transit, etc. has seen only 5 percent of funds go towards bicycling and walking – even though these are clearly eligible and effective activities. An even smaller percentage of very flexible Surface Transportation Program funds have gone to bike/ped, and virtually no Highway Safety, National Highway System, Bridge and other “highway” program funds have been spent on bicycling and walking…in twenty years.
8. States readily admit they don’t want to spend on bicycling and walking. In recent testimony to House and Senate committees considering reauthorization, state DOTs such as Florida, Oklahoma, Utah and Nevada have all specifically said they don’t support these programs and don’t want to be required to spend any funds at all on bicycling and walking. Their association, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials recently withdrew under pressure a request to significantly weaken current Federal policy on routinely accommodating bicyclists and pedestrians in transportation projects, programs and plans.
Why Should States Care About Bicycling and Walking?
Since 1991, states have spent just over 1% of their transportation funds on bicycling and walking – even though these two modes now account for 12% of all trips and 14% of all fatalities in traffic crashes. These critical transportation modes connect people to jobs, friends and family, goods and services; they provide healthy, clean, efficient, and sustainable ways for kids to get to and from school; and they are increasingly popular and economically vital forms of recreation. Recent studies show that in addition to providing these benefits, investing in bicycling and walking infrastructure is very cost-effective and creates more jobs than traditional highway-only projects.
As our population continues to grow in rural and urban areas alike, providing real transportation choices – especially for short trips – is essential to reducing congestion, improving air quality, achieving energy independence, increasing physical activity levels, and improving traffic safety: critical goals that are squarely in the national interest, and goals that cannot be left to the whim of state Departments of Transportation who have proven unwilling to make these choices unaided.
Darren Flusche
League Policy Director
Flusche joined the League in April 2009 and has a B.A. in history from Syracuse University and a Masters of Public Administration with a concentration in public policy analysis from New York University.
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August 2nd, 2011 at 10:34 am
GREAT summation. I would add the rhetorical question, what value are the states adding? Bike/ped investment is appropriate for everywhere, but the most innovation, interest, and need is in urban areas.
That Brookings case study on Ohio from a few years ago starkly shows how the states have a systemic bias against the transportation needs of cities in general. Combined with their demonstrated bias against bike/ped investment, i’m left wondering why this money goes to the states, and not directly to regions/cities.
August 2nd, 2011 at 1:53 pm
Do you by chance have a listing of all of the states that don’t support these programs? Could you share it with me? My mother and I are going to be relocating to another state from NM and I want to make sure that we relocate to a state that has the foresight to understand that all of us have different needs and that as people get older their needs change for different types of transportation and exercise. We are looking at relocating, and probably her buying a residence, and be able to make our lives more convenient in a lot of different ways, transportation, being one of them.
August 2nd, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Hi Karen,
The League’s Bicycle Friendly States ranking and the Alliance for Biking & Walking’s Benchmarking report can help answer that question.
Darren
August 2nd, 2011 at 11:12 pm
Don’t worry, these are still eligible activities, if States think they are important they will continue. All of these programs become redundant or obsolete under a Complete Streets policy. Eliminating the bureaucracy will free up additional time and funding.
It’s important to point out how the current programs work. Most of the articles related to this issue lead people to believe the feds hand the states a wad of cash and say ‘your choice, spend this on bike/ped projects or not”. And, the states say we hate bike/ped so take your money back. In practice, the feds “allocate” funds – they keep the money set aside for the projects. For a state to use the allocated funds they (or City or someone) need to fully fund a project before the feds hand over any percentage they will cover. For that reason the bike/ped projects have to compete on equal grounds for funding with all other transportation projects. –bridge or trail, sidewalk or bike lane- The most important and or practical project wins or it may just come down to what you can afford. Now you can see why a large amount of rescission money is from bike/ped projects. Major infrastructure is in need of repair, governments are operating in the red or making drastic cuts to stay in the black.
What’s the direction to take, keep programs that didn’t live up to their ability or advocate for something better? I think any chance of 1991 continuing ended in 2001.
August 3rd, 2011 at 9:31 am
[...] The need for dedicated bike funding: Why “eligibility” is not enough [...]
August 3rd, 2011 at 10:49 am
[...] Raleigh Connoisseur reports the city is moving forward with light rail plans for downtown. And the League of American Bicyclists explains why, for bike and pedestrian infrastructure, simply being eligible for federal funding [...]
August 3rd, 2011 at 11:31 am
I ride bicycles myself, yet I continue in amazement at how bicycle organizations want to demand money for their own selfish interests without paying anything into it themselves. The transporation trust fund accumulates from *drivers* purchasing gasoline and their isn’t enough to go around for all the highway needs.
Bicyclists pay nothing, nothing at all. If they want all these cool facilities for their exclusive use, they should develop a way that *they* pay for it, instead of constantly whining about how everybody else should buy them what they want. Nobody could stop that.
August 3rd, 2011 at 11:37 am
I am all in favor of bike paths and trails. I am not in favor of using any federal funds to provide funding for them. If local communities have the desire to build them based on local demand than the local taxpayers should be willing to shoulder the cost. Federal funds are for projects that affect the nation as a whole, not for community projects such as bike paths and sidewalks.
August 3rd, 2011 at 12:11 pm
Alfred, please provide an example of a road project, not part of the interstate system, that affects the nation as a whole.
August 3rd, 2011 at 2:10 pm
localities can’t afford bike facilities, because they’re too busy taking this freeloading bicyclist’s income/sales/property taxes and diverting them to highway spending.
http://www.governing.com/columns/eco-engines/Not-Just-Semantics.html
August 3rd, 2011 at 5:39 pm
Where do we purchase the cool bike pins? Let’s spread these all over the country~
Many thanks!!
August 4th, 2011 at 9:17 am
[...] via Bikeleague.org Blog » Blog Archive » The need for dedicated bike funding: Why “eligibility” is…. [...]
August 4th, 2011 at 6:38 pm
The various uses of Highway Trust Fund (HTF) moneys continues to be debated, but the bottom line is Congress decides on what to spend HTF money. Interesting history here:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/reports/fifahiwy/fifahi05.htm
One can define the national interest in various ways. Back when I was starting school, President Eisenhower had defined the appalling state of our kid’s physical fitness as a national issue worthy of national attention and created the President’s Council on Youth Fitness (later renamed The President’s Council on Physical Fitness). That led to all the Phys Ed classes that whipped our sorry little backsides in shape. So our “epidemic of obesity” is old news to geezers like me.
http://www.fitness.gov/about-us/what-we-do/council-history/council-history-1953-1963/
One can make a similar case that the current state of obesity in the U.S. and our dangerous dependence on huge amounts of imported oil are national issues that must be addressed in part on the Federal level. These can be addressed in part by providing funds for Federal highways and state highways that receive Federal allocations so they accommodate carbon-lite transportation that stresses exercise. In the same way the original Interstate Highway system was justified in national security terms, one can justify both the health and conservation aspects of cycling in national security terms.
That is not to say that cyclists should be powerless to ride their bikes without Uncle Sam constantly handing them Federal training wheels. But one has to be careful about defining national interest: its in the eyes of the beholder. I think Federal funds are but a small part of what should be a national, state, local, and individual effort. But I’d not leave the Federal government out simply because I think there are national level issues to address here.
cheers to all my bicycling colleagues on the Right from this crotchety old socialist,
Khal Spencer
August 5th, 2011 at 11:59 am
Here’s a link to the Krauss-Prudden report that got Eisenhower started. Funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same: This is a 1955 report.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1130060/index.htm
Excerpt:
“…Miss Prudden, who as the former Mrs. Richard Hirschland herself mothered two children, put it this way: “Many youngsters today have no bodies. To get a body, you’ve got to start way back when the child is still a baby. Keep the babies out of playpens and carriages. Let them go out and move about. Let youngsters climb trees and fences to develop their muscles.” Miss Prudden reflected, ‘American mothers are afraid of their children hurting themselves. This is a Band-aid society. If a child breaks an arm, the arm may be in a plaster cast six weeks. That is not a catastrophe. The catastrophe is that so few opportunities for adventure remain to children—and the few that do remain are often curtailed by overanxious parents.”
“We’re paying the price of progress,” says Dr. Kraus, who states the case in somewhat different terms. “The older generation was tougher because it had to undergo adequate physical activity in the normal routine of living. We have no wish to change the standard of living by trying to do away with the automobile and television. But we must make sure that we make up for this loss of physical activity. In other words, let’s take the sting out of the benefits…”
September 13th, 2011 at 9:01 am
[...] The League of American Bicyclists (LAB) argues that “all the evidence of the past 20 years and beyond suggests that mere eligibility is totally insufficient: most states will simply stop spending any of their Federal transportation funds on anything related to bicycling and walking.” (The need for dedicated bike funding: Why “eligibility” is not enough) [...]