House version of federal transportation bill maintains bike/ped funding--now to conference with the Senate!

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a transportation bill that will allow them to go to conference with the Senate on the long-delayed federal transportation bill renewal--and which preserves key bicycle and pedestrian funding.

After months of trying, House leadership was ultimately unable to put together a version of the transportation bill that would pass even the House--let alone both House and Senate.  

The House's move this week is essentially an acknowledgement of defeat by House leadership--they simply can't get the votes, on either side of the aisle, to move their vision for transportation forward. So now they have surrendered and agreed to move forward with the Senate's vision for the overall transportation bill as the basis--and a few hotbutton political issues thrown in to distract from their overall policy failure.

A return to bike-partisanship?
For supporters of bicycling and walking, the failure of House leader's transportation policy is almost all good news, because a big part of that policy--and a big part of the reason it failed--was to severely weaken or eliminate of almost all transit, bicycle, and pedestrian funding.

The proposals, pushed long and hard by a few in top leadership positions in the House, now appear to be dead. Support from citizens like you has been very important in getting us to this point.

It is very unfortunate that bicycle, pedestrian, and transit funding have become so politicized in the current environment at Capitol Hill.  By nature--and in states across the country both "red" and "blue"--bicycling and walking have been very bipartisan in nature.  Both red and blue states have been making large improvements in bicycling and walking infrastructure and programs.  Members of Congress of both parties of spoken and acted in support of bicycling and walking.  So it is particularly unfortunate that a very small cadre of top House leaders has been able to politicize this issue so thoroughly.

Perhaps the collapse of House leadership's regressive vision for transportation will signal the end of these unproductive attacks on bicycle and pedestrian funding and the return to real "bike-partisanship" that we saw in the prior two decades in Washington.

What happened this week
What happened this week, and what is likely to happen next?

House and Senate have been talking about renewal of the federal transportation bill for years, and working seriously on it since last fall.

Last month the Senate passed its version of the federal transportation bill, MAP-21, which retained funding for bicycling and walking--in large part thanks to a huge amount of support generated by bicycle and pedestrian supporters from across the U.S.

The House, which has had a far different vision for federal transportation funding--complete elimination of bicycle and pedestrian funding has been pushed hard by a few top leaders in the House--has tried several times over the past few months, but has not been able to pass a bill of its own.

Now the House has passed an extension of the current federal transportation funding, and House leadership has turned that into an opportunity to go to conference with the Senate on MAP-21.  That means that Congress is likely to pass a transportation bill largely based on the Senate's MAP-21 with a few additions or changes as outlined in the House's recent bill.

The public debate on the bill is likely to move from the core transportation provisions--which are likely to follow the Senate's model for the most part--to the controversial political issues added to the House's version of the bill.

What this means for bike/ped funding
The good news--House leadership saw the huge amount of bi-partisan support the bicycle and pedestrian funding has been able to generate over the past few months and years.  So the idea of eliminating bike/ped funding from the House bill was quietly nixed--it was not even put to a vote.

With bike/ped funding in both the House and the Senate versions, it will almost certainly remain in the final bill, which by congressional rules must be a compromise between the two bills--or adopt the position of one or the other--but can't go outside those limits.

The League of American Bicyclists summarizes the situation:

Yesterday, the House passed a 90-day extension of the current transportation authorization law. . . .

[T]he news for cyclists is what didn’t happen.

There had been fear that the Republican leadership would strip out bicycling and walking funds, like Transportation Enhancements. That did not occur. Nor did they gut the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program, another important source of bicycling funds. These cuts, proposed in H.R. 7, had become controversial among Republicans as well as Democrats. Bicyclists at the National Bike Summit also sent a strong message to Congress about the importance of these programs.

The passage of the extension now sets up the possibility that the House and Senate will conference in an attempt to reconcile the differences, which are many, between the House’s extension and MAP-21, a two-year bill that was passed by the Senate in March. . . .

Missouri delegation at the 2012 National Bike summit
Missouri delegation at the 2012 National Bike summit

The League and America Bikes are asking Congress to maintain dedicated funding for biking and walking, such as Transportation Enhancements, Safe Routes to School, and the Recreational Trails Program.

What's in the bill and what's next?
More info about the federal transportation bill and what will happen next:

See our previous coverage of the years-long effort to renew the six-year federal transportation bill here.  Your outreach to our elected leaders and support in sending a strong delegation to the National Bike Summit each year has made a real difference in the  national debate on transportation!

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