{"id":14394,"date":"2012-05-04T10:48:17","date_gmt":"2012-05-04T16:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=14394"},"modified":"2012-05-04T10:48:17","modified_gmt":"2012-05-04T16:48:17","slug":"bike-paths-sidewalks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/bike-paths-sidewalks\/","title":{"rendered":"Bike Paths and Sidewalks: Transportation Investments that Work"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/bike-walking-path.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-14395\" title=\"bike walking path\" src=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/bike-walking-path.jpg\" alt=\"a pedestrian on a path for biking and walking\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/bike-walking-path.jpg 500w, https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/bike-walking-path-300x199.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Bicycling and walking infrastructure has definitely become hip&#8230; so hip that we&#8217;re even seeing a lot of it going in here in St. Louis! \ud83d\ude09 Both environmental and health concerns (as well as gas prices, I&#8217;m sure) have gotten people out of their cars and onto their bikes or their feet. Such infrastructure costs money, though, and no doubt some think it such investments don&#8217;t pay off (or think they&#8217;re a part of some <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sundancechannel.com\/sunfiltered\/2012\/02\/agenda-21\/\">radical United Nations sustainability plot<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fhwa.dot.gov\/environment\/bicycle_pedestrian\/ntpp\/2012_report\/page00.cfm\">new report out from the\u00a0Federal Highway Administration<\/a> shows that these investments do work, though: essentially, build it and they will come. The\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fhwa.dot.gov\/environment\/bikeped\/ntpp.htm\">Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program<\/a> started in 2005 in four communities:\u00a0Columbia, MO; Marin County, CA; Minneapolis, MN; and Sheboygan County, WI. Each community received $25 million dollars to build biking and walking infrastructure: bike paths and lanes, sidewalks, trails, etc. According to <a href=\"http:\/\/fastlane.dot.gov\/2012\/05\/bike-month.html\">Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood<\/a>, those investments produced some impressive numbers:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Over four years, people in these four communities alone walked or bicycled an estimated 32 million miles they would have otherwise driven;<\/li>\n<li>The communities saw an average increase of 49 percent in the number of bicyclists and a 22 percent increase in the number of pedestrians;<\/li>\n<li>The percentage of trips taken by bike instead of car increased 36 percent, and those taken on foot increased 14 percent;<\/li>\n<li>While each pilot community experienced increases in bicycling and walking, fatal bicycle and pedestrian crashes held steady or decreased in all of the communities; and<\/li>\n<li>The pilot communities saved an estimated 7,701 tons of CO2 in 2010.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I poked around through the report, and was disappointed to not find any mention of the economic impact of these investments &#8211; based on previous studies in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sundancechannel.com\/sunfiltered\/2011\/01\/bike-lanes-jobs-baltimore\/\">US<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/2011\/08\/bicycling-benefits-economic-growth\/\">the UK<\/a>, I&#8217;m guessing these investments also resulted in economic growth in these communities. That kind of information would be great for countering the &#8220;government spending&#8221; narrative surrounding such investments: show that building such infrastructure pays off literally and qualitatively.<\/p>\n<p>Take a look at the report &#8211; if you find something interesting, share it with us.<\/p>\n<p>via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.planetizen.com\/node\/56527\">Planetizen<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Image credit: <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/splityarn\/3025781488\/\">splityarn<\/a> via <a href=\"http:\/\/photopin.com\">photo pin<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/2.0\/\">cc<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new report out from the Federal Highway Administration shows that investments in &#8220;nonmotorized transportation&#8221; &#8211; bike paths, sidewalks, trails, etc. &#8211; works: more people use this infrastructure when it&#8217;s available to them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":14395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,13],"tags":[823,5724,10,5290,519,5725,5726,68,852],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Building Bike Paths &amp; Sidewalks Works<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A new report from the Federal Highway Administration shows that spending on infrastructure like bike paths and sidewalks results in more biking and walking.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/bike-paths-sidewalks\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" 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