What the $800-Million FAST Act Means for Cyclists
Last week, Congress passed the FAST (Fixing America’s Surface Transportation) Act—a five-year transportation bill that lays out the blueprint and funding for federal transportation-related spending until the end of 2020—which President Barack Obama then signed into law. Among the beneficiaries of the rare bipartisan success are cycling-related projects like bike paths, on-street bike lanes, and protected lanes. We spoke with People for Bikes President Tim Blumenthal about what’s great—and not so great—about going FAST.
BICYCLING: What makes this particular transportation bill such a big deal?
Tim Blumenthal: I think it’s primarily that it’s for five years, so there’s that funding certainty. This is the first really long-term transportation bill passed since 2004. The second thing is it’s an answer, albeit a small one, to the criticism that Congress can’t get anything done that requires bipartisanship.
So how much funding are we talking about for bikes?
It’s actually kind of technical. Bicycling and pedestrian projects are eligible under a bunch of different categories; the one set aside for bike funding is the Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP), but half of it can be “flexed” or diverted to other purposes by state and local governments. And that means diverted to whatever you want, so pinpointing the dollars is nearly impossible task.
But the new chart just came out about federal funding for fiscal year 2015 and the government lists $833.7 million total in bike and pedestrian projects. That’s more than [the $820.5 million set aside in] 2014 and roughly in the ballpark of what Congress and People for Bikes has said this new bill means in per-year funding. Any way you look at it, bike and pedestrian funding will be $800 million a year, or more, for five years. The other thing is that this only counts for projects specifically coded as bike and pedestrian projects. There are a ton of projects that are billed as part of highway projects or other improvements.
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So are there any drawbacks to the new bill?
Well, the one thing the federal government does not do a good job of is measurement. So they invest the money to build a project, but they don’t do anything to count who’s using it or compare safety from before the project was built to after. There’s a lot of safety money in there outside of TAP, but we’re continuously pushing the government to measure better.
The other drawback I’ll mention might not be what you’d expect: As a percentage of per-capita GDP, the US is now ranked in the mid-20s among developed nations on what we spend on infrastructure and transportation. So even though Congress mustered the courage to pass a five-year bill at $60 billion per year, we’ll end up suffering as a country, independent of the bike issues, if we don’t increase our investment. What is transportation all about? It’s about moving people and goods. And if we aren’t spending as much as other countries and it’s getting more complicated and crowded as the population grows, that hurts business and quality of life and communities.
Several amendments that were ultimately not attached to the FAST Act could’ve done major damage to bike funding. How did PfB help to protect bike funding?
About two or three years ago, we changed our approach to lobbying in DC. We decided you couldn’t just do the National Bike Summit. We had to be there all the time.
We deepened our connection and contact with key members of Congress. We had to be willing to make some financial commitments to Congress, and our message led with the voice of business: about jobs created and taxes paid by cornerstone businesses like bike shops. We made it less about what the government should do for bicyclists and more about what bicycling does for communities. We got more sophisticated and had more regular contact, and so when we came in at crunch time, they knew us; it wasn’t like, “And your name is?”
People like Bicycling readers wrote 9,000 really good letters to their Representatives and Senators asking to keep bike funding in the bill. The consistent messaging about the business benefits helped. Ultimately, we got bicycling off the list of frivolous spending projects.
The people who are against it have said historically it’s like highway beautification; it’s nice but not essential. This time around, some of those people were saying, “Yeah, I don’t want to spend a ton of money on this, but I see the benefits.”
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So what can we expect to see as a result of the bill, and when might we start to see it?
This is the biggest challenge for our work every day: This stuff takes a long time to come into being. There’s money being spent on bike paths and singletrack and parks and bike share systems that was approved 15 to 18 years ago. It’s not like $835 million gets divided 50 ways and you have to spend it in the next six months. Fortunately, mayors and county executives, especially, are committed to bikes more than ever. If you got the mayors of the top 100 cities in the US together, gave them truth serum, and asked them: “What do you think of cycling?” They would say, “It provides a variety of benefits and is good for the community and I want to do more.”
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