We are sending out an alert to ask governors to work with their state DOTs to make sure bicycle and pedestrian funding programs are not disproportionately targeted, if at all.

Take Action now. (Go to this link and select your state from the drop down list.)

What are rescissions?

Periodically, Congress rescinds, or cancels, unspent transportation funds from State DOTs.  Rescissions are essentially a bookkeeping measure, which allows the USDOT to take long unspent funds off the books. However, some state DOTs have turned them into an opportunity to gut neglected bicycle and pedestrian funding sources in order to preserve favored programs.

The USDOT tells states how much money they have to give back – but state DOTs decide which unspent funds they will send back first. Historically, some of the strongest programs for bicycle and pedestrian projects – Transportation Enhancements (TE), Congestion Mitigation & Air Quality (CMAQ) – suffer dramatically higher rescission rates than other programs.

For example, TE and CMAQ made up just 7.3 percent of state DOTs’ 2010 transportation apportionments, but they made up a much larger share of what a state sends back. In August 2010, out of the $2.2 billion rescinded, $968 million (44%) came from CMAQ and TE. Not all these funds would have gone to bicycling and walking, of course, but based on historic spending rates, some $330 million would have.

The best way to protect bicycling and walking programs from disproportionate rescissions in the long run is to ensure that state departments of transportation are making full use of programs that most often fund bicycle and pedestrian projects. As advocates, we can help programs compete for priority by finding political and agency champions who will make sure these programs are expertly administered.

See the Advocacy Advance document, Understanding Rescissions – a Call for Proportionality, and AdvocacyAdance.org for suggestions and resources to increase spending on bicycle and pedestrian projects.

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.

It is disappointing to see states are still not aggressively tapping into these funds. FHWA’s analysis also shows that 16 states chose to transfer or “flex” these safety funds out of HSIP for use on other projects that may or may not have had any safety benefit. Nearly $400 million, or 20 percent of the available HSIP money in those states, was transferred over to these “traditional” highway programs – perhaps a further indication that states take every opportunity to shift funds to those things they have always wanted to do (i.e. build more, bigger, faster highways) and away from the things Congress, local agencies and the public are asking them to do.

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.

In fact, in many states, this is exactly what happened. CMAQ, an important source of bicycle and pedestrian funding (see our Advocacy Advance report), was hit hard: states rescinded $388 million from CMAQ. One hundred and sixteen million dollars are now gone from statewide planning and research.

One quarter of the rescissions – over half a billion dollars – came from the TE program.  The Rails to Trails Conservancy has identified 28 states that rescinded way more than a fair and proportional amount from Transportation Enhancements: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin. If you live in these states, you can send an alert to your governor asking that TE is spent quickly and not unfairly rescinded in the future. Some states are really dramatic. All of Nebraska’s rescissions came from TE. So did 78 percent of Texas’ and 54% of Arkansas’. Stunningly, the cuts in Texas were in addition to $300 million returned in a recent previous rescission.

On the other hand, nine states and the District of Columbia did not rescind any funds from TE: Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, and Wyoming. This shows the impact that advocates can have. For example, after the last round of rescission, Washington Area Bicycle Association (WABA) members sent almost 700 emails to the DOT director to express displeasure with bike/ped rescissions. This time DC was among those that rescinded nothing for TE. Thank you also to everyone who sent out a League alert.

The only way to avoid these losses in the future is to make our voices heard and urge the DOTs to spend money on biking and walking as aggressively as they spend on highways. See our reports on rescissions, CMAQ and HSIP for advice on how to do that.

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.

You can help prevent this by taking action! Visit our Advocacy Center and tell your Governor to require that these cuts be made proportionately across eligible programs. States must report which program funds are affected by August 25th — so action is needed this week!

For more information on how rescissions work, visit our Advocacy Advance report Rescissions and Restoration: Fighting for Priority. For more information on your state’s rescission amount see this chart.

Jeff Peel
State and Local Advocacy Coordinator

Peel joined the League in March 2008 as a Program Specialist for the Bicycle Friendly Communities program. Peel has a BA in American Studies from the University of Southern Mississippi.

As the USDOT prepares guidance to help state transportation agencies make these cuts, we will be preparing action alerts and resources to prepare  state and local advocates for the coming attacks on these funding programs that are critical to bike programs and infrastructure across the country.

Advocates can get a head start by reading the Advocacy Advance report: Rescissions and Restoration: Fighting for Priority.

Jeff Peel
State and Local Advocacy Coordinator

Peel joined the League in March 2008 as a Program Specialist for the Bicycle Friendly Communities program. Peel has a BA in American Studies from the University of Southern Mississippi.

Rescissions are essentially a bookkeeping measure when properly administered. They allow the USDOT to recoup unspent funds from state DOTs. However, some state DOTs have turned them into an opportunity to gut neglected bicycle and pedestrian funding sources in order to preserve favored programs. (Read page five of the full report to see what was rescinded in your state.)

Let’s dive right in. It is important for advocates to understand how much money is available in funding programs like Enhancements and CMAQ so they can help bicycle and pedestrian projects compete. Unfortunately it is complex.

Source: National Transportation Enhancements Clearinghouse / www.enhancements.org. Click for larger version in the report, page 3.

There are two things that limit the money available in a program: apportionment and obligation  authority.

Apportionment is the amount annually allotted to each spending program based on the transportation authorization bill and annual appropriations approved by Congress.

Obligation Authority is a limit on total spending by a state in a given year across all programs. Because Congress doesn’t have enough money to fully fund all apportionments, they limit the total amount that a state can spend. This is the actual maximum that can be spent overall; it is not program specific.

This is where the trouble begins. This means that the balance for many programs keeps growing and states will never have enough obligation authority to spend the balances in all their programs (see Figure 1 above) Ideally the obligation authority should be spread proportionately among programs, but this never happens. States favor some programs over others and the programs that provide greatest opportunity for bicycle and pedestrian projects often get the least priority for obligation authority.

Rescissions simply take away portions of unused program balances. When rescissions are reversed those balances are restored. This is good news but advocates still need to help critical programs compete for obligation authority.

In September 2009, Congress rescinded, or cancelled, $8.7 billion worth of unspent transportation funds from State DOTs. In March 2010, the HIRE Act restored those funds. Bicycling and walking advocates should strongly encourage Departments of Transportation to make bicycling and walking projects a priority and quickly spend the restored funding.

Confusing, right? That’s ok. The important thing to know right now is that some rescissions have been restored. And we need to make sure that DOTs spend the restored funds.

The rescissions unfairly targeted bicycle and pedestrian programs. The funds have been restored to the programs from which they were rescinded. Now DOTs should prioritize these programs and use them to implement bicycle and pedestrian projects.

So, what do we do? Work with your state or local bicycling advocacy group to:

1) Identify cities, towns, and Municipal Planning Organizations (MPOs) that have benefited from

TE, CMAQ, Safe Routes to Schools, and Recreational Trails projects and highlight them to show the DOT, the state legislature, and the governor’s office their importance

2) Urge the head of state DOTs and governors to ensure bicycle and pedestrian projects get their fair share of funding from these funding sources quickly. In some case, state legislatures can be helpful as well. If you are doing any public events, such as ribbon cuttings, you can use that opportunity to encourage elected officials to invest more in bicycle and pedestrian projects
3) Meet with state DOT personnel4 to review USDOT guidance on each funding source as it relates to bicycle and pedestrian projects and make sure they are implementing good projects and programs. Most states should have eligible projects already in the pipeline. For example, the MPO in Chicago has a waiting list of CMAQ projects that are pre‐selected to receive funding made available by dropped or delayed projects or additional available obligation authority. If your state does not have such projects lined up, ask them why they haven’t prepped these popular projects. In those states that don’t have new projects ready, current projects should be expanded. States could also use this funding education programs, or for planning and engineering of projects to make them ‘ready to go’ for next year’s funding.

Help programs compete for obligation authority by finding political and agency champions who will make sure these programs are expertly administered. Push for these signs of excellence:

1. Timely and regular call for projects and selection of projects

2. Selection of projects that are as ready‐to‐go as possible

3. Multi‐year project programming so complex projects can be staged to use appropriation and obligation authority when ready (to see how this is managed well, look at any of the big highway funding programs, like NHS and state STP)

4. Transparent decision‐making process with meaningful public involvement

5. Clear criteria for selecting the best projects

6. Project sponsors (local governments) offering good cost‐effective projects that invest in proven

facilities and programs that will grow cycling and walking (and project sponsors being forthright and accurate about project implementation timetables)

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.

However, as we were discussing the details and implications of the rescission with our colleagues at America Bikes and the Alliance for Biking and Walking, we eventually found the catch and the reason why we needed the Alliance to get the word out to their member groups ASAP. It turns out that the amounts shown in the table are shown irrespective of whether or not those funds have already been spent on a particular program. If a state has indeed obligated or spent all its funds in one program area, it has to make up the amount that needs to be rescinded from other programs where they still have a balance of unspent funds. Lo and behold, even after years of exhorting states to spend their transportation enhancement and congestion mitigation funds up to the maximum allowed, many have dragged their feet and it those funds – the funds most likely to ever be used for bike projects – that are now potentially going to make up the shortfall in funds that have to be sent back to the US Treasury!

Check the League’s advocacy page, and stay in touch through the America Bikes and Alliance websites. This is an issue that won’t go away, and isn’t going to get any simpler as time goes by.

~Andy Clarke, League President