White House Budget Sets Troublesome Tone for Trails | Rails-to-Trails Conservancy

Headlines are quick hits from media outlets from Missouri and around the world. Follow the headline link for the full story. The source of this headline says:

While White House budget proposals are little more than agenda-setting exercises—and many in Congress have said that this one is dead on arrival—the agenda it aims to set would not be good for trails, walking and biking.

The top line numbers for transportation don’t look all that bad in comparison to other agencies—just a spending cut of $2.4 billion or 13 percent. But the budget does outline principles that will guide the administration’s philosophy toward infrastructure and serve as warning shots.

First, it follows through on the White House’s earlier promise to gut TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) funding, eliminating a program that has provided critical funding for innovative trail network projects. Second, what’s buried in the budget narrative may re-energize Congressional opponents of active transportation programs.

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White House Budget Sets Troublesome Tone for Trails | Rails-to-Trails Conservancy

MoBikeFed comment: When a new administration or any new elected official comes into office, we find that we and our local and national allies almost always must do a significant amount of outreach and education to them about the importance of walking, bicycling, and trails to voters, to our communities, to our economy, and to the nation's health and welfare.

As we do this outreach, we find many allies and supporters. But until we do it, many leaders--especially at the state and national levels--have never even thought very much about the importance of walking, bicycling, and trails.

Nor have they thought much about the importance of federal and state support for walking, bicycling, and trails (short version: Federal and state governments fund such a huge percentage for roads and other transportation in America, that if these major routes and major funding sources neglect walking, bicycling, and trail connections, these modes are essentially left out of the system altogether. The federally funded roads and highways don't reach everywhere in America, but they reach all of the most important destinations. And if these major roads don't allow people to walk and bicycle along and across them, making a truly bicycle and pedestrian accessible community becomes impossible.)

This article from the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy outlines some of the issues with President Trump's budget, and with building Congressional support for walking, bicycling, and trails, that will need to be addressed going forward.

These are the same types of issues we have been working on at the federal level since the mid 1990s. So there is no reason to panic or fear--but there are plenty of reasons to steadily and persistently keep talking with leaders of every political party about our issues and why they are important.

Walking, bicycle, and trails truly are "bike-partisan" and we are always pleased with the support we receive from members of both parties in Missouri's congressional delegation and in Jefferson City.