Has Obama Done Enough for Cyclists?
When you’re the President of the United States, you can’t even take a simple bike ride without the press tagging along. So when photos surfaced of the First Family taking a spin while on vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, it reminded us: In 2008, Obama was the bike candidate, even during the primaries.
But how has cycling—particularly things like bike paths, protected lanes, and other important infrastructure—fared under his leadership? As we enter the last year of Obama’s presidency, and as the 114th Congress embarks upon the last legislative session before the 2016 elections, we decided to find out what’s gone right, what hasn’t, and why now is a crucial time to make your pro-pedaling voice heard in government.
Obama finished up his first term with a transportation bill called MAP-21, which he signed into law in October 2012. The first multi-year transportation bill in seven years, MAP-21 created the so-called Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) specifically for funding bike and pedestrian projects, says Katy Hartnett, director of government relations for bike advocacy organization PeopleforBikes. To date, Hartnett says, “TAP has funded 342 bike and pedestrian projects in all 50 states.”
It’s not the only source of federal bike transportation funding, but it is a vital one—one that expired this past July, kept alive only with temporary budget reauthorizations.
A successor, called the DRIVE Act (Capitol Hill does love cutesy acronyms), passed the Senate in late July, but the House has yet to take up the version the Senate passed. What’s in it? Good and bad.
On the bad side, TAP funding is a flat $850 million dollars a year over its six-year term (it would start in 2016). Also: The Senate only came up with enough funding for three years of the project, so at this point we should really consider it a three-year bill, says Caron Whitaker, vice president of government relations for the League of American Bicyclists—the original national advocacy group for cyclists in the US.
“Long-term, it’s not great,” Whitaker says of the flat-funding provision. “We prefer to be a percentage of overall spending so that if funding increases we get more, too. Now, to specifically raise more funds for TAP, we have to have an amendment, and that’s more difficult.”
But, Whitaker adds, the flat funding represents an increase in total funding over the previous version, which dropped 30 percent in 2014. And for the first time, Hartnett says, the DRIVE Act includes a “complete streets” provision. “That requires federal-funded projects to take the needs of pedestrians and cyclists into account in planning, design, and implementation,” she says.
Another win: Previously, half of the TAP money went to state-run grants programs, where it could be—and often was—diverted to non-TAP projects. The DRIVE Act mandates that 100 percent of TAP funding be distributed to communities based on population. States can still grab 50 percent of it back, but in practice it makes that process harder. And non-profits, who couldn’t apply for TAP funding previously for projects like Safe Routes to School programs, will be able to if the bill passes as written.
As with any legislation, those details are far from set. Several representatives on the House Transportation Committee “don’t think that transportation funding should be spent on anything but highways,” Whitaker says. “We are on our guard in case they try to strip funding for the Transportation Alternatives Program.” That’s not a hypothetical; an early House version of the bill attempted to do just that.
All of which means that, ultimately, it comes down to strategic vigilance on the part of Obama's camp and multi-modal transportation supporters. Both Whitaker and Hartnett praised the Obama administration for championing cycling. “The President has done a lot of good things,” Hartnett says, citing efforts by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to create design guidelines for transportation projects that incorporate cycling infrastructure.
That guidance, Whitaker and Hartnett say, came chiefly from the Secretary of Transportation—Ray LaHood from 2009 to 2013, and Anthony Foxx since then. “The biggest thing Obama has done is with those appointments,” says Whitaker. “When you deal with people in federal agencies and ask them to do something different, the reaction is commonly to push back. But when the person asking is, first, your boss and second, very insistent, we’ve seen that the FHWA does it and does it well.”
In addition to Obama and his secretaries, we have inter-party collaboration to thank for headway. Hartnett says Senators Ben Cardin (D-Maryland) and Thad Cochran (R-Mississippi) have “championed” the Transportation Alternatives Program. On the House side, Whitaker notes that Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Sarasota, Florida) is a co-chair of the Congressional Bike Caucus, along with longtime cycling supporter Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Portland, Oregon).
Whitaker expects to see Congress pass some version of the DRIVE Act, possibly as soon as this fall. With the bill in the house, that means it’s a crucial time to contact your representatives. If you don’t think your voice makes a difference, think again; Whitaker says that she’s seen a shift in Congress the past few years where “what members see in their district really makes a difference.
“Legislators have so many things to think about, and many of them aren’t on a committee that deals with transportation,” she adds, “but if you can make the connection for them [from cycling to transportation], then they see it all the time. If a developer wants to build a property because it’s near a trail or path, then [members] see that connection and can apply it to policy.”
So local changes—ride- and walk-to-school programs, or roll-on bike service on Amtrak routes, or even new bike lanes that are heavily used—resonate with officeholders. “We think about Congress in terms of this big bill that passes and then things change,” Whitaker says. “Right now, we’re in an era where things happen and then Congress gets on board.”
You Might Also Like
