Bikeways and pathways: accommodating bicyclists and walkers will promote a healthier transportation system, a healthier environment—and healthier Americans

Public Roads, July-August, 2003 by Andy Clarke

"Today's transportation professionals face a daunting challenge," says Associate Administrator Cindy Burbank, head of Planning, Environment, and Realty at the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). "We are expected to provide a world-class transportation system that moves freight and passengers efficiently and safely, while protecting the environment, complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act, guarding against earthquakes and terrorism, supporting economic development and livable communities, involving all parts of the community, creating jobs, improving intermodal connections and accommodating bicyclists and pedestrians. All with limited resources."

Intuitively, most people recognize that bicycling and walking are good for the environment--energy-efficient, clean, quiet, low-impact--and both require little space. Yet as recently as 1990, former Federal Highway Administrator Tom Larson said, "In this country we have practically written [bicycling and walking] off as a means of transportation." In the same speech to the National Conference on Highways and the Environment, Larson noted the contrast between "what I see here with what I've observed firsthand in European cities, such as Amsterdam, where the idea is to accommodate bicyclists."

The Numbers Tell the Story

Even today, after unprecedented levels of expenditures on bicycling and walking under the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA) and the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), the percentage of commuter trips made by walking has fallen to less than 3 percent, and bicycling to work remains stubbornly at 0.4 percent of journey-to-work trips. So the tough question that needs to be answered is: Should we continue to accommodate bicycling and walking?

Arguing the question on numbers alone is problematic. To begin with, the usage data are limited, especially at the local levels. The journey-to-work data from the census, for example, ignore partial walking and bicycling trips made to access transit. Even more significant, only one-fifth of all the trips that people make are for commuter trips to work.

Recent Omnibus Surveys by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics reveal that there are a lot of people out walking and bicycling. An average of 33 million adults rode a bicycle an average of 6 days during the 30 days prior to the survey, and approximately 140 million adults made walking trips in the month prior to the survey. Although the data do not fully capture the situation, the one number that everyone can agree on is that crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists routinely account for some 13 percent of annual traffic fatalities in the United States. In 2001, almost 5,000 pedestrians and more than 700 bicyclists were killed in incidents involving motor vehicles. This figure alone should focus our attention on the vulnerability of nonmotorized travelers in the current transportation system.

Good Public Policy

Leaving the numbers aside, there are many other compelling reasons why bicycling and walking should be an integral part of the transportation system. An increasing number of agencies and communities are accommodating bicycling and walking as a routine component of their transportation projects and programs.

"Achieving higher levels of bicycle and pedestrian use would have profoundly beneficial effects on a broad spectrum of public policy areas," says Martha Roskowski, executive director of America Bikes. "Congestion and parking problems would be reduced; air quality and energy independence would improve; run-off, noise, community fragmentation, and other motor vehicle-induced environmental impacts would diminish."

Improving public health and overcoming a national epidemic of obesity and lack of physical activity have emerged recently as powerful arguments for encouraging bicycling and walking. Even homeland security would benefit from a more diverse travel mix that would include the capability to evacuate urbanites quickly on foot and by bicycle, as was demonstrated on September 11, 2001.

Existing Federal And State Policy

Two documents published by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) make it clear that Federal policy is to promote bicycling and walking as a matter of routine. In 1994, USDOT delivered the National Bicycling and Walking Study to Congress containing the ambitious goal of doubling the percentage of trips made by foot and bicycle while simultaneously reducing crashes involving the two modes by 10 percent. These objectives remain a national policy goal today.

In February 2000, again under direction from Congress, FHWA issued a statement of policy on accommodating bicyclists and pedestrians. According to the policy, provision for bicycling and walking should be integrated into all transportation projects unless any of three reasons exist for not accommodating them. The three reasons are excessive cost, clear absence of need, or roads where bicyclists and pedestrians are not permitted to operate.