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.
Six months into fiscal year 2018, Congress has finally set spending levels for federal agencies and programs. The $1.3 trillion omnibus appropriations bill includes great news for many programs for which the Trump administration proposed elimination or significant cuts.
On January 30, President Trump delivered his state of the union. A few sentences in his speech referenced the long-delayed infrastructure package, as he called on Congress to pass a bill that would pair any Federal dollars with state, local, and private investments to “build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways.”
There was a pile-up of legislative priorities in December, and Congress ended up getting a tax bill through but punted action on spending levels, the DACA immigration policy, and stabilizing the health insurance market to 2018. This means that January is now full of deadlines.
We have been beating the drum for several months now to encourage states to fully spend their Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) funds before the critical deadline of September 30, 2017, when any unused FY2014 funds would expire after four years.
