Building Bike Commuters One Bike Lane at a Time

It’s that time of year: Bicyclists young and old are lubing chains and dusting off cheap supermarket bikes, top-of-the line Treks and everything in between.

A bike, of course, offers a way to get exercise, reduce your carbon footprint or just have fun. But biking activity, in large part, is driven by the pedaling opportunities available in your community. And just about no matter where you are in the United States, the opportunities available aren’t going to change much in the near future, according to a cycling group’s analysis.

“States are not planning to spend all that much on biking and walking over the next four years,” said Ken McLeod, a legal specialist for Advocacy Advance, a partnership between the League of American Bicyclists and the Alliance for Biking & Walking. 

The group assessed transportation spending in all 50 states, looking at projects on the books over the next four years and costing a total of $697 billion in mostly federal money. Bike and pedestrian-only projects slated for the next four years account for $5.5 billion of that total, less than 8 percent.

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Something for bikers

The 112-page report, Lifting the Veil on Bicycle and Pedestrian Spending, also cast a wider net, looking at road projects that included a bike or pedestrian element, such as a bike lane.

Washington, Maryland, Alaska, Massachusetts and New Jersey lead the nation in that category. Washington tops the list, with 27.1 percent of all planned project spending offering something for bikers or pedestrians, according to the 112-page analysis by the cyclists’ league.