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2005 |
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Big Bucks. Big Challenges, Too Safe Routes to School Wins Federal Funding Durbin's 'Conserve By Bike' Will Convert Car Trips to Bike Biking Builds Relationship with Ward for New Generation of Aldermen Record Turnout for Chicagoland Commuter Challenge Gala Art Show a 'Gallery in Action' Miles and Miles of Fun, Every Sunday |
Big Bucks. Big Challenges, Too On August 10, President Bush stopped at our local Caterpillar plant to sign the long-awaited six-year, transportation bill. If he had ridden his bike there, he could have taken the Virgil Gilman trail out of Aurora to Orchard Road. Most of the 2 miles south on Orchard present a hazardous ride for cyclists. Hopefully a tiny piece of the $286 billion committed by the president’s signature will help Kane County finish the trail.
The transportation bill is 1227 pages with a lot of big numbers and policies.The Chicagoland Bicycle Federation has been working with Illinois’ U.S. senators and representatives, the League of Illinois Bicyclists and a national coalition, America Bikes, for about three years on the specifics of this bill. Thank you to all CBF members who have contacted your U.S. House representatives about various projects and provisions. We did pretty well (see the $32.5 million in projects that benefit Chicago area cyclists and pedestrians in the graph on page 2). The big new win is the Safe Routes to School Program. Illinois will see $4 million annually for the next five years to encourage safe cycling and walking to school. Tell your local PTA to contact CBF! Most importantly, the core federal transportation programs and policies held firm. The Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program and the Enhancements programs were both renewed. These are the main sources of the big-ticket bicycle projects and programs. They will now continue to be open to competitive applications through 2009. Not all the news is good. In the final days of House-Senate negotiation
the Senate’s Fair
Share for Safety provision was removed. It would have required
states to spend their safety funds in proportion to bicycle and
pedestrian deaths. Illinois spends only a tiny fraction of those
funds on non-motorized safety, despite a bicyclist and pedestrian
fatality rate of 15 percent. Another disappointment was the Senate’s defeat, by a slim margin, of a provision that would have required the construction of complete streets - roads that safely serve all users. This defeat makes it imperative that we re-energize our efforts to pass our stalled Illinois complete streets bill, SB508. The federal transportation bill represents about a billion dollars per year of changes to Chicago-area transportation. It sets the stage for another $4 billion per year in state and local investment. Frankly, the lion’s share of that funding is not going to make it easier to bicycle or walk. But, we won some cool projects. Most all, we held on to the opportunity to change the way state and local officials view the big bucks. To succeed we need to focus them on one question: after all the money’s spent, will our communities be better places to live? Randy Neufeld is chief strategy officer of the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation and director of the Healthy Streets Campaign Below is a run-down of bike and pedestrian projects earmarked for Northeast Illinois under the new federal transportation bill:
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