Have you been keeping up with the gains cycling would reap if the Infrastructure bill finally gets passed? I’ve been reading the re-cap that The League Of American Cyclists has been putting out. There would be major progress in bicycling and walking infrastructure, vulnerable road user safety, and complete streets. It passed the senate but has been awaiting a vote in the House of Representatives. The reconciliation bill includes transportation funding that focuses on climate, equity, and improving networks. These programs help bicycling and walking initiatives. Included are a bicycle commuter tax benefit, a tax incentive for e-bike purchases, business incentives to install e-bike charging stations, and a provision to help with financing rail-trail right of way. If the bill shrinks too much though, we could lose these provisions.
Most of the funding for bicycling and walking comes through the Transportation Alternatives program in the form of grants. The bill emphasizes the necessity of measuring and improving how well our transportation system works.
The bill provides money to fix areas known to be dangerous for bicycling and walking, and includes a vulnerable road user assessment. States with a higher percentage of fatalities would spend a higher percentage of safety funding to fix the problem. For the first time, the bill takes steps to address the safety of people outside of cars, such as testing car hood and bumper heights and automatic emergency braking.
Is your workplace interested in cutting it’s healthcare costs and having a healthier, happier workforce? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that physical inactivity contributes to 1 in 10 premature deaths. Studies also show that bicycle commuters are the happiest commuters. So you’re still working from home you say? Some bike commuters may never get their commute back, but others have invented a fall-back. They get ready and go at the designated time, ride a route of their creation, an arrive back home to work. At the end of the day they repeat the ride, or one could use a different route. I roll my grocery shopping into my commute, in smaller, quicker stops, so that could be another incentive.
Workplaces interested in becoming a Bicycle Friendly Business can go to the League of American Bicyclists and search for the Bicycle Friendly America program.