"new" US DOT bike policy

[shootingstar]

Star:

The Surface Transportation Authorization Act typically covers a 5-year window, and has to be replaced ("reauthorized") at that time. The new bill was passed out of the House committee last June, but it currently only covers policy issues, there's no funding or budget attached to it yet. And that's the rub -- the federal Highway Trust Fund is quickly going broke, and there's no kind of agreement yet on how to replenish and sustain it. For now, the old act, SAFETEA-LU, is being extended pretty much on a month-by-month basis.

We were at the National Bike Summit in DC last week, and the frustration in the current Congress is so thick you can see it hanging in the hallways like fog...

Tom

Interesting..so the speech by US DOT leader, was abit of hot air? Delegation of vision for others to carry forward.. Hmmmm yea.

There is no National Bike Summit equivalent in Canada.
We just tend to have municipal based cycling advocates that do their own thing in their various jurisdictions. At least in the last decade, I have never heard of national/federal funding specifically for cycling infrastructure. It is subsumed/buried in competition with other types of project funding either for road transportation, public transit or for community sustainability.

Just to organize municipal advocates at a provincial level takes serious effort and time.

[PscyclePath]

Interesting..so the speech by US DOT leader, was abit of hot air? Delegation of vision for others to carry forward.. Hmmmm yea.

I was about 20 feet away in the crowd when he made his speech, and heard the same level of commitment from him at last year's summit, so I believe the fellow is earnest.

But where Secretaries change with the administrations, the permanent staff doesn't, and can be fairly fixed in their world view. Based on timing, tone, and content, I'm of a thought that the memo is as much for internal consumption within DoT and the state agencies as it is for the general public, reminding folks that we've already got these sorts of policies in place... so pay more attention to them.

The Reagan Center is a pretty big place, and signage is not one of their better attributes ;-)