Missouri Bicycle News

Day 1 of the National Bike Summit was mostly just check-in and the opening banquet.

But what do you know--we have highlights already . . .

The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy held a meeting this afternoon to educate cities about its proposal to spend about $2 billion dollars in 50 communities across the country that are ready to move forward with active, effective bicycling and walking programs.

This is called the 2010 Campaign for Active Transportation. Kansas City and Columbia are already working on plans to submit for consideration in this campaign.

The current mood in Washington is moving strongly towards the need to fix problems with the country's transportation infrastructure, and at the same time address the serious problems of pollution, congestion, and greenhouse gas emission.

The Campaign for Active Transportation is such a cost-effective way to deal with these problems that the Rails Trails folks are optimistic that it will receive serious consideration

A few tidbits:

• Portland had 0.9% bicycle mode share in 1990, now has 5% mode share.
  
  
• Portlands Department of Transportation spends only 0.7% of its budget on its bicycle program
  
  
• Roger Geller, PDOT's bicycle/pedestrian coordinator, made the point that this is the most cost effective transportation solution they have found--handling 5% of trips (and growing) with less than 1% of the budget. "Our Bicycle Program is a great transportation value."
  
  
• $2 billion sounds like a lot by normal human standards, but by federal transportation standards it is small potatoes.
  
  
• On the national scale as with Portland, spending this money to make cities friendlier for bicycling and walking is one of the most cost-effective possible solutions to the nation's current transportation problems.
  
  
• There is no other program that would cost as little as $2 billion that has the same potential to make the reduction in pollution, greenhouse emissions, congestion, and help get more people to more destinations they need to. Every other possibility for achieving these same results will cost far, far more.
  
  
• St. Louis, Kansas City, Columbia, Springfield and potentially other Missouri cities could be part of this plan. However they will need to have their ducks in a row as far as having a plan, priorities in place, the know-how and staff in place to effectively spend money to achieve measurable results, and other sources of funding on tap so that this federal funding can be a supplement rather than sole source.
  
  For this program they are looking for metro areas that already have the foundation in place to quickly spend these proposed federal funds effectively and get real results. If Missouri cities are not ready to take advantage of this opportunity, other cities around the country will take advantage of this first round of funding and Missouri will be left behind.
  
  
• Several other cities we heard from today already had all this in place. Our Missouri cities have some real catching up to do.

More about the 2010 Campaign for Active Transportation and how to get your city or metro area involved. permanent link to article: "MoBikeFed at the National Bike Summit--Day 1 highlights"
posted by Brent Hugh at 3/04/2008 09:22:00 PM |comment on this article