Angie Schmitt

Network administrator, Streetsblog, Nov 08, 11.

Tagged with transportation, bike, pedestrian

Last Friday, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee released its draft transportation reauthorization bill. With the GOP-controlled House contemplating a national transportation policy designed for maximum fossil fuel consumption, the best opportunities for reform reside in the Senate.

Senate EPW Chair Barbara Boxer said this summer that bike-ped programs would be preserved in the transportation bill, but they have been severely weakened.

While the 600-page draft that came out of Senator Barbara Boxer’s committee includes some key reforms and increases funding for the TIFIA loan program, it also eviscerates successful and popular programs to make biking and walking safer.

Called “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century” (MAP-21), the bill would streamline the existing eco-system of federal transportation programs. In addition, earmarks — set-asides for Congress members’ pet projects that have included famously wasteful items like the Bridge to Nowhere — would be eliminated once and for all.

But among the casualties are three key bike-ped programs: Transportation Enhancements, Safe Routes to School, and Recreational Trails. Those programs would be consolidated and listed as “eligible uses” under an $833 million subset of the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Program (CMAQ). That would represent a sharp drop from the $1.15 billion devoted to those programs in 2010. That year, Transportation Enhancements was funded at $878 million, Safe Routes to School at $183 million, and Recreational Trails at $85 million. MORE

More Commentary