(via Fast Company) An infographic courtesy of GOOD and Part & Parcel shows how U.S. Department of Transportation spending on walking and biking has resulted in a lot more walking and biking going on.
It seems hard to believe, but the DOT budget for bicycles and pedestrian programs in 1990 was just $6 million. By 2009, that had grown to $1.2 billion (still a laughably tiny number). But bike trips had more than doubled, from 1.7 billion trips to four, and walking trips had grown from 18 billion to 42.5.
It may seem crushingly obvious–that making it easier, or even possible, for people to walk and bike results in more walkers and bikers–but the 15-year infographic also shows the importance of sustained funding when it comes to breaking a habit like hopping in a car.
In Seattle, the $240-million Bicycle Master Plan calls for a 450-mile network of paths, lanes, and sharrows. SDOT estimates that “between 4,000 and 8,000 people bicycle commute in Seattle each day,” and that, recreationally, 36 percent of Seattle bikes. As proof of the force of the “what’s measured is what matters” mindset, SDOT’s progress on this front is trumpeted in terms of miles implemented, rather than usage.
Given all this, you might be surprised to learn that the Northwest’s gasoline consumption rose last year (both in absolute and per capita measures). Sightline’s study of gas consumption notes we broke a decade-long decline of 15 percent–they chalk the increase up to lower gas prices. (Really, the big gas hogs turn out to be Idahoans; for Washington it’s a slight uptick.)
Revisiting the lesson learned at the outset of this post–if you fund it, they will come–Sightline’s Eric de Place and Clark Williams-Derry write with concern that:
At present, each of the Northwest’s three major metropolises is moving forward with expensive highway expansions, including a new Port Mann Bridge, east of Vancouver, BC (Can$2.4 billion), the Highway 520 floating bridge replacement between Seattle and Bellevue ($4.6 billion), and the Interstate 5 Columbia River Crossing between Vancouver, Washington and Portland ($3.2 billion)
Fascinating, isn’t it? The cost of the 520 floating bridge is roughly four times the U.S. DOT expenditure on bicycling and walking programs of $1.2 billion, an amount only made possible by the “Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users.” Equity seems not, in the words of Inigo Montoya, to mean what I think it means.
