Each quarter, we take a look at state progress with implementing the Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP). For the quarter covering April to June 2018, states obligated nearly $131 million in TAP funding, with all states except for three making forward progress. (Obligation means that the state DOT has committed funding to a local TAP project and is a key step towards actually getting the project built or implemented.)
Last month, the Safe Routes Partnership released the 2018 version of Making Strides: State Report Cards on Support for Walking, Bicycling, and Active Kids and Communities. The report cards rank states on their policy approaches on a range of areas, including Complete Streets, school siting, physical activity planning, and more.
The use of policing as a way to keep Black and Brown people under control is not new. Policing has long been used as a way to uphold racial segregation and to keep Black, Brown, Indigenous and other people of color in check. Policing has been applied as a way to keep white people seemingly safe and separate from ‘the other.’
The United Way of Central Alabama started work on Safe Routes to School as part of a pilot where community members identified student safety and walkability high on their list of priorities. After funding in 2012 through RWJF Healthy Kids Healthy Communities and the CDC Communities Putting Prevention to Work initiatives, they rolled out a walking school bus program and support other bicycle and pedestrian education and advocacy efforts.
After waiting until nearly halfway through FY2018 to set spending levels, Congress is out of the gate quickly on the FY19 appropriations process. The process of setting spending levels is easier this year, because the FY18 spending package included a two-year agreement on funding levels that were significantly more generous than what the Trump administration had proposed. As an example, the transportation-housing spending max spending level for FY19 is more than $1 billion higher than the FY18 cap, w
The US Department of Transportation has announced that the long-standing TIGER program, in which USDOT awards up to $25 million apiece to multimodal transportation projects across the country, has been renamed the BUILD program. The renaming of TIGER signals USDOT’s intention to put the Trump administration’s stamp on it.
