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Three of America’s largest cycling organizations — Adventure Cycling Association, Alliance for Biking & Walking, and the League of American Bicyclists — wish to thank the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) for the significant improvements the agency made last week in an important technical advisory (TA) regarding the application of rumble strips on U.S. roadways.

Rumble strips are raised or grooved patterns in a road’s shoulder designed to alert drivers with noise and vibrations that they are drifting off the roadway. Properly applied, rumbles can serve as a safety device for motorists. However, if applied on narrow, shoulder-less roadways or in a way that covers a paved shoulder, rumble strips can make it difficult or impossible for cyclists to use a roadway.

The FHWA issued a revised TA on rumble strips in May 2011, the first such revision in 10 years. The TA is important because it provides official national guidance on the use of rumbles and influences state and local agency action in their use of rumbles on roadways of all types. FHWA had indicated that this new advisory would substantially improve the TA’s guidance on the application of rumble strips and how they affected bicyclists.

Unfortunately, the May 2011 TA went backwards from the 2001 TA in its lack of inclusion of cyclists’ safety issues. There was little mention of the needs of cyclists or the need for a public process regarding the application of rumble strips during road reconstruction or paving. These three national cycling groups contacted FHWA and the US Department of Transportation with many specific concerns and technical advice about revising the TA, and agency leaders indicated they would revisit the document.

The newly revised TA (Shoulder and Edge Line Rumble Strips, Technical Advisory T 5040.39, Revised 1), released on November 16 is a substantial improvement. It includes a new section about the accommodation of all roadway users (Section 9), with a special emphasis on the needs of cyclists, and lays out “a number of measures that should be considered to accommodate bicyclists,” including wide shoulders, bicycle gaps (intervals without rumble strips that allow cyclists to safety cross back or forth), and customized rumble treatments to allow more space for cyclists. The new TA also includes a significantly improved section on public outreach and involvement.

There are still sections of the new TA that raise concerns for cyclists, including Section 7b, which identifies the optimal “length” (or width) of rumble strips as 16 inches, a dimension which can make it more likely that these strips will cut into useable road shoulder space for cyclists.

The three national organizations reiterate the importance of local citizens and organizations in paying close attention to the proposed addition of rumble strips on existing roadways or added when roads are being built, reconstructed or repaved. In addition to FHWA’s new advisory, further background and guidance can be found in a report by the League of American Bicyclists (Bicycling and Rumble Strips) and a report on state-by-state use of rumbles prepared by Adventure Cycling Association (State Rumble Strip Policies). Adventure Cycling has also developed a Flickr page where people can share photos of well-designed and poorly-designed rumble strips.

For more information, contact:

• Ginny Sullivan, Special Projects Director, Adventure Cycling, 800-755-2453, x229, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
• Walter Finch, Advocacy Director, League of American Bicyclists, 202-822-1333, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

In most cases, new transportation infrastructure is christened by cars. But, this month in Manchester, bicyclists were the first vehicles to travel a new bridge.

The primacy of two-wheeling transportation at the November ribbon-cutting ceremony was the result of behind-the-scenes work from advocates at the Bike-Walk Alliance of New Hampshire.

The effort dates back to 2009, when the BWA-NH got wind that a $175 million bridge connecting Bedford and Manchester over the Merrimack River was designed without accommodations for bicyclists on the main roadway. Because the project also serves as an access road to the Manchester airport, that omission was particularly troublesome to Granite State cyclists.

According to BWA-NH: “A side path, not to be illuminated at night, cleared of snow in the winter, or providing a direct connection to local roads, was part of the design but that would not accommodate vehicular cyclists requiring a 24 x 7 x 365 transportation corridor. Mopeds and electric bicycles were also to be prohibited from using the bridge to access local roads where they are commonly used.”

So the advocates got to work. They determined that the Sagamore Bridge, connecting Nashua and Hudson downstream on the Merrimack, had the same restrictions regarding bicyclists and mopeds — restrictions that are in contradiction to federal law. Partnering with the Granite State Wheelmen, BWA-NH held a series of high-level meetings with the New Hampshire DOT and the Federal Highway Administration.

The result? In March 2010, the DOT removed the restrictions from both bridges. On November 10, bicyclists and pedestrians got the chance to savor the victory at the celebration for the completion of the project.

According to BWA-NH: “The public was invited to attend and the first vehicles to cross the bridge were bicycles! Members of BWA-NH and the GSW attended, pedaled the roadways and the sidepath for a comparison, and attended the ceremony. The road was open for general traffic on Veterans Day, Friday, November 11. Again, without the advocacy efforts of BWA-NH and the GSW, the MAAR bridge would just be a link for motorists with vehicular bicyclists and moped users having no way to access the local roads by crossing the new bridge.”

Read more about the campaign and victory on the BWA-NH website.

This week, the Federal Highway Administration announced a huge pot of money won’t be doled out by Congressional earmarks, but rather by a competitive, merit-based process that will direct dollars to the most effective projects. And the best news: Bicycle and pedestrian projects are eligible for virtually every dime.

The $422 million is coming from 11 funding programs and applications are due June 3. The programs include:

• Delta Region Transportation Development – $10 million
• Ferry Boat – $47 million
• Highways for LIFE – $20 million
• Innovative Bridge Research and Deployment – $4.5 million
• Interstate Maintenance – $100 million
• National Historic Covered Bridge Preservation – $9 million
• National Scenic Byways – $43.5 million
• Public Lands Highways – $98.5 million
• Rail Highway Crossing Hazard Elimination in High Speed Rail Corridors – $21 million
• Transportation, Community, and System Preservation – $61 million
• Truck Parking Facilities – $7.5 million

How do ferry boats and Highways for LIFE relate to bike/ped projects? Darren Flusche, policy analyst for the League of American Bicyclists and Advocacy Advance team member, spells it all out on the League’s blog. “Bicycle and pedestrian projects are eligible for almost all federal-aid transportation programs,” he notes, but, perhaps the most promising pot is the $61 million available through the Transportation, Community, and System Preservation program.

“TCSP could potentially be a significant opportunity for bicycle and pedestrian projects, an FHWA official told me,” Darren writes. “Many previous TCSP projects have benefited pedestrians and bicyclists. States, MPOs, and local governments can receive grants for projects that will ‘improve the efficiency of the transportation system, reduce environmental impacts of transportation, reduce the need for costly future public infrastructure investments, ensure efficient access to jobs, services and centers of trade, and examine development patterns and identify strategies to encourage private sector development patterns which achieve these goals.’ Livability is the first criterion listed.”

We know May is a busy month, not just with Bike to Work events, but with federal asks, too. We also understand that a June 3 deadline for applications is a tight window. But this is a huge opportunity to draw down federal dollars for bike/ped projects. As Darren points out on the blog: “If advocacy groups are aware of eligible projects, they should work with the appropriate elected and agency officials to develop a proposal.”

If there’s a project in your area, please take advantage of the knowledge and resources available from the Advocacy Advance program and its staff. Also, check out the description of our Rapid Response Grants if you need quick, short-term funding to get an application together.

For questions or assistance, contact Brighid O’Keane, the Alliance’s Advocacy Advance Program Manager, at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

We knew in August that federal funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects was in jeopardy.

Now, the results of the latest round of rescissions are in — and programs that benefit biking and walking were, in fact, first on the chopping block in many states.

This summer, Congress passed a jobs bill that contained a $2.2 billion rescission of transportation funds from state Departments of Transportation. Just-released data from the Federal Highway Administration shows that many states cut disproportionately from programs that fund biking and walking when they determined what funds to send back to Washington. (For data on each state from the FHWA, click here.)

The Transportation Enhancements program, for instance, was heavily tapped. According to the National Transportation Enhancements Clearinghouse (NTEC): “In most states, TE is between 2 percent and 3 percent of all federal aid for highways. However, in this most recent rescission, funds from TE funding codes composed 26 percent of the total rescinded funds nationally.” Thirty-three states returned a disproportionately large amount of funds from TE and four states (Arkansas, Nevada, Nebraska, and Texas) used TE funds to make up more than half of the total rescission. In total, $580 million came from TE - more than from any other single program. There was some good news, though: The District of Columbia and nine other states didn’t send back any money from TE. (Read the full brief from the NTEC here.)

But, as Darren Flusche, policy analyst for the League of American Bicyclists points out, TE wasn’t the only program affected. “CMAQ [Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality improvement program], an important source of bicycle and pedestrian funding, was hit hard,” Flusche writes on the League’s blog. “States rescinded $388 million from CMAQ. In addition, $116 million is now gone from statewide planning and research.”

So what now?

“The only way to avoid these losses in the future is to make our voices heard and urge the DOTs to spend money on biking and walking as aggressively as they spend on highways,” Flusche suggests. “See our reports on rescissions, CMAQ and HSIP for advice on how to do that.”