Thanks to commenter Stephen for prodding us to post on the new report from the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, “Active Transportation for America” (download the PDF here).
What
makes the report notable are the numbers it contains. It’s jam-packed
with quantifiable benefits that would result from increased investment
in infrastructure that encourages and supports pedestrians and
cyclists.
For instance, the report’s authors write:
- Increasing
the bicycle and pedestrian share of trips of one mile or less from
currently 31 percent to 40 percent under a Modest Scenario, and to 70
percent under a Substantial scenario, would result in 28 billion or 49
billion miles driven avoided, respectively. - Modest
increases in bicycling and walking for short trips could provide enough
exercise for 50 million inactive Americans to meet recommended activity
levels, erasing a sizeable chunk of America’s activity deficit. - For
the price of a single mile of a four-lane urban highway, approximately
$50 million, hundreds of miles of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure
can be built, an investment that could complete an entire network of
active transportation facilities for a mid-sized city. - The
financial value of improved mobility, fuel savings, greenhouse gas
reductions, and health care savings amounts to more than $10 billion
annually under our Modest Scenario. For the Substantial Scenario,
benefits would add up to more than $65 billion every year. These
benefits dwarf historic spending for bicycling and walking, which was
$453 million per year for 2005–2007 under SAFETEA-LU, and a mere $4.5
billion cumulative federal investment in these modes since 1992, when
bicycling and walking first received documentable federal funding.
