The latest effort to reauthorize surface transportation could be better for bicyclists — but it could have been worse.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved the five-year Building Unrivaled Infrastructure and Long-term Development for America’s 250th Act, or BUILD America 250 Act (H.R. 8870). The bill passed committee by a bipartisan vote of 62-2.
Surface transportation law expires Sept. 30. Congress may not pass a new bill by then and may simply extend current law in the meantime, as it has done before. The Senate has not moved a version yet.
According to an analysis by the League of American Bicyclists, the bill allows up to a 10 percent increase in funding for Transportation Alternatives, which has been authorized at slightly less than $1.5 billion a year. But the bill also allows states to transfer money from Transportation Alternatives to other programs. The bill would keep the Recreational Trails Program funded at $84 million a year.
The Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Program, funded at about $2.746 billion in FY 2026, would get a slight bump to about $3 billion a year. The program funds projects to reduce air pollution, including some bicycling projects.
The Safe Streets and Roads for All Grant Program, which provides planning and implementation grants for safety projects, would see its funding cut from $1 billion a year to $500 million in FY 2027, $625 million in FY 2028, $750 million in FY 2029, $875 million in FY 2030, and back to $1 billion in FY 2031.
Further on the downside, the bill would end the Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program, which provided competitive grants for safe and connected active transportation facilities. The program had been funded at $200 million a year and provided about 14 grants annually, largely to build bicycle and pedestrian networks in low-income communities.
The bill would also clarify that e-bikes are allowed on federally funded trails, subject to state or local government approval.
State highway safety education programs would have to include bicycle safety provisions if more than 15 percent of the state’s traffic fatalities involved non-motorists. This would include bicycle safety education in elementary and secondary schools. Within a year, the National Highway Safety Transportation Institute would have to revise the highway safety program guidelines to “encourage on-bicycle training that promotes bicycling skills and safe practices.”
Details are available from Congress.gov at https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/8870. The League of American Bicyclists’ analysis is available at https://bikeleague.org/our-first-look-at-transportation-reauthorization/.
