Safe Routes to School, Pedestrian and Bicycle Funds at Risk Despite Proof of Benefits

A recently-released study on the effectiveness of Safe Routes to School (SRTS) interventions in New York City found that there was a significant reduction in school-age pedestrian injuries in the areas where the City had made improvements, and that incidents in areas without improvements were virtually unchanged (Streetsblog provides more detail here). This study comes on the heels of NYSDOT’s announcement that $26.5 million in SRTS funds will be released for 64 projects across the state.

These are significant findings, but unfortunately, New York—City and State—will need to get creative if they want to continue these efforts because Congress has changed the rules of the game. With MAP-21, the new federal transportation law, Safe Routes to School is no longer a stand-alone program—it has been subsumed into the Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP), where walking and bicycling programs have seen a 30 percent reduction.

In order to assure that efforts to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety across the state continue, a new coalition (that Tri-State is helping coordinate), New Yorkers for Active Transportation (NY4AT), is working hard to make sure all funding options remain on the table.

The Transportation Alternatives Program is not the only source of federal funds that can be used for pedestrian and bicycle safety. In order to make up for the 30 percent reduction in this TAP pot, states will need to fund projects through other federal programs, such as the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) and the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program (CMAQ). NY4AT recently sent a letter to Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) across the state—which help to decide where and how federal funds are spent—reminding them that they have the power to dip into these flexible sources of funding.

A lot depends on New York State Department of Transportation though. It is imperative that the agency move quickly to make TAP and  Transportation Enhancements (TE) funding — leftover from the last federal transportation bill (SAFETEA-LU) — available to the MPOs. Unfortunately, NYSDOT’s recently updated State Transportation Improvement Program process clearly states that new pedestrian and bicycle facilities will not be a priority, making it harder for local governments to meet state match requirements for these federal grants.

NY4AT has responded by going right to the top. While Governor Cuomo supported the statewide Complete Streets law, the Draft NYSDOT Capital Plan, presented to the Governor’s NY Works Task Force, indicates that implementation of this law is not a priority. In a recent letter, NY4AT requested that the Governor establish a dedicated line in the executive budget to help assure these projects don’t suffer.

Albany has another parallel path that won’t cost them a dime — and it’s one that will help save lives. The State can authorize New York City to begin a speed camera demonstration program which would help to slow drivers down, especially in school zones.

The 2013-14 Executive Budget is an opportunity for Governor Cuomo to bring New York’s transportation infrastructure into the 21st century. | Image: NYTimes.com

Governor Cuomo will give his State of the State address on January 9, providing the first peek at his 2013-2014 Executive Budget. In case he’s looking for suggestions, Tri-State Transportation Campaign has developed a wish list that will help move New York towards a more sustainable transportation future.

A dedicated budget line to fund bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure

Communities across the state are eager to provide citizens of all ages and abilities with safe, healthy and low-cost active transportation options. Now, post-Sandy, there is a heightened awareness of the importance of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. Safe cycling infrastructure helped keep New York City’s economy moving in the aftermath of Sandy, with NYCDOT reporting a 150 percent increase in cycling over the East River Bridges in the days after the storm. Unfortunately, at the same time that demand is expanding, the pot of money for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure is shrinking. The new federal transportation law, MAP-21, has reduced dedicated funding for this type of infrastructure by 30 percent, and the state spends only 2 percent of its capital program to support safe cycling and walking.

A Speed Camera Demonstration Program for NYC A7737/S7481 

New York has a pervasive speeding problem, and speeding kills. If a driver strikes a pedestrian at 40 mph, there is a 70 percent chance that a child will be killed; at 30 mph (NYC’s speed limit) they’ve got an 80 percent chance of surviving. Speeding not only costs lives; it costs money too. In 2009, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated that the economic cost of speed-related crashes in the US is $40.4 billion each year—that’s $76,865 per minute.

Under the Bloomberg administration, NYC Department of Transportation has embarked on significant initiatives to reduce speeding in the City, including Neighborhood Slow Zones, traffic calming projects and an ad campaign highlighting the importance of obeying the 30 mph speed limit. But the city needs more tools. Research shows that speed enforcement cameras reduce injuries and fatalities by 40-45 percent, and reduce speeding by 71 percent.[1]

Transit Commuter Benefits  S2728-C/ A 6175-B

Today, an estimated 15,000 employers with more than half a million employees in New York State offer tax-free commuter benefits to their employees.  Because New York State has chosen to have its tax code mirror federal tax provisions in this regard, New York workers taking advantage of pre-tax commuter benefits receive savings in terms of not only federal, but also state income taxes. Employers save as well through the reduction of taxes on their payrolls.

Unfortunately, on December 31, 2011, as a result of Congress’ failure to act, New York’s transit commuters got hit with a tax hike. This year, a commuter earning $50,000 a year and spending $230 per month on transit will pay more than $400 extra. This bill, championed by Senator Charles Fuschillo, will permanently restore the commuter’s pre-tax deduction benefit on their state taxes, whether or not Congress acts in the future.

MTA Funding and a Permanent, Statewide Redistribution of the Long Lines Tax 

It will also be crucial that the Governor protect dedicated funding for the MTA. This would include making sure the budget does not sweep any of the dedicated funds for transit and that the Governor keep his promise to make the MTA whole for the funds lost in the partial repeal of the Payroll Mobility Tax. Running a transit system requires steady and predictable sources of revenue each year. Transit providers need to plan ahead and take a long-term look at their systems and service. While the MTA has a variety of dedicated revenue sources (although inadequate and volatile), non-MTA systems only have one dedicated source: State Transit Operating Assistance, known as “STOA” funding.

Last year, the NYS legislature provided a second source for non-MTA transit systems: the Long Lines Tax, which is a tax that is collected statewide, but has historically flowed into the downstate MTA account. On average, this redistribution gave Long Island, the Hudson Valley and upstate bus and rail systems a much-needed boost in their operating funds, and helped to stem some troubling service cuts, particularly in Buffalo, and prevented deeper cuts in Nassau County. The state needs to permanently redistribute this tax statewide, in order to assure that these systems can better predict their funding futures.

[1] Wilson, C., Willis, C., Hendrikz, J.K., Bellamy, N. “Speed Enforcement Detection Devices for Preventing Road Traffic Injuries,” The Cochrane Collaboration (2006).

Bicyclists and pedestrian fatalities were up nationally in 2011, according to newly released data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) 2011 annual report on traffic fatalities. This increase in fatalities comes as cycling and walking modes have increased over the past decade, but also as investments in safe street infrastructure haven’t kept up with these changing travel habits.  A recent TSTC analysis, found that state departments of transportation only spend an average of 2 percent of their federal and state dollars on bike-ped infrastructure, even though twelve percent of trips in the United States are on bike or foot.  As a result, cyclists and pedestrians make up a disproportionate amount of total traffic fatalities (16%).

But how much should federal and state governments spend on this type of infrastructure?

One could argue that the share of transportation dollars directed toward each mode should match each mode’s share of trips. Or, morbid as it may seem, government agencies could use its “value of life” metric that determines how much money they should spend on safety. The U.S Department of Transportation has valued a life at around $6 million. With 5,109 bicyclist and pedestrian fatalities in 2011, one could make the argument that states should be spending roughly $4 billion on traffic calming infrastructure like bike lanes and pedestrian islands. Yet, according to the Alliance for Biking and Walking’s 2012 Benchmarking Report, states are only spending about $2.17 per capita, or only $700 million nationwide.

Ivan Vamos of the New York Bicycling Coalition has proposed another method of aligning infrastructure spending with how much these crashes cost the health care system. Using New York State Department of Health data, Vamos estimates that annual hospital and health care costs for bicycle and pedestrian traffic injuries and deaths in New York State are $5.39 for every dollar spent on bike-ped improvements. NYS Department of Health data shows that cyclists and pedestrians have higher average medical costs than vehicular accidents, and that a good portion of those costs (12 percent or $60 million) are picked up by Medicaid, Medicare, Veterans Affairs health care, and correction facilities.

Regardless of the cost-benefit determination, at a time when bicycle and pedestrian fatalities are increasing, states must do more to improve safety for all users of the roads. Doing so will not only save lives, but save money in the long run.