The National Bicycling and Walking Study was a landmark report that ushered in a period of unparalleled progress for bicycling and walking issues. Soon after Congress commissioned the Study, it also passed the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA), which made available billions of dollars of transportation funds, which could be used for a range of transportation projects, including bicycling and walking improvements. These bicycle and pedestrian projects can access funding from Surface Transportation Program (STP) (including Transportation Enhancements and Highway Safety funds), Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Program, National Highway System funds, and Federal Lands Highway funds. Spending of Federal transportation funds on these two modes rose from $6 million in 1990 to more than $238 million in 1997. In 1998, Congress passed the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21). Spending of Federal transportation funds on bicycling and walking improvements declined briefly under TEA-21 as new policies were implemented, but then rose from $204 million in 1999 to $422 million in 2003. [4]

Many States and localities rediscovered bicycling and walking in the 1990s, and began devoting staff and financial resources to the creation of a more bicycle-friendly and walkable infrastructure. Buoyed by Federal legislation (ISTEA in 1991 and TEA-21 in 1998) that boosted support for walking and bicycling and the National Bicycling and Walking Study (NBWS), the number of bicycling and walking professionals has grown to the point that they have established their own professional association with more than 400 members. In 1990 only a handful of States and cities had bicycle coordinators and none had a pedestrian coordinator.

The National Bicycling and Walking Study also stands out as the first time the Federal government has ever committed itself to modal split targets, i.e. achieving a certain percentage of trips by specified modes. This lead has since been followed in both the United Kingdom and Australia.

The coupling of an increase in use with a simultaneous reduction in fatalities and injuries created a unique target that challenged the conventional wisdom that increasing use would increase crashes. Equally important, the twin goals were designed to ensure that gains in the apparent safety of the two modes were not achieved by discouraging use.

Implementing the National Bicycling and Walking Study was also made more challenging by the changing role of the Federal government in the early 1990s. ISTEA provided the States and local governments with significantly more control over transportation planning, funding, and decisionmaking than had been the case previously.

Therefore, in writing the National Bicycling and Walking Study, the USDOT had to identify an appropriate role to play in encouraging and promoting the two goals without requiring specific actions at the State and local level, even though many of the improvements necessary to achieve the goals had to be made at the State and local level. The result was the adoption of a nine-point Federal Action Plan with 60 specific activities and a five-point Recommended Action Plan for both State and local government agencies.

Doubling the Percentage of Trips Made by Bicycling and Walking

The National Bicycling and Walking Study (NBWS) established the target of doubling the percentage of trips made by bicycling and walking from 7.9 percent to 15.8 percent. In 1990, a total of 18 billion walking trips and 1.7 billion bicycling trips were reported representing 7.2 percent and 0.7 percent respectively of all trips counted by the study. In 2001, the total number of reported walking and bicycling trips nearly doubled to 38.6 billion, although it was only 9.5 percent of all reported trips.

The data were collected in the Nationwide Personal Transportation Surveys and the National Household Travel Survey. The Department views these surveys as the best available data on all types of trips, although the differences in methodology in the collection years limit their comparability.

Summary of Walking and Bicycling Trips, 1990 to 2001

In 2001, the NPTS was replaced by the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS). The number of walking trips for all purposes increased significantly to 35 billion; the number of bicycling trips increased slightly to 3.3 billion. [6]

There has been a significant increase of the total number of reported bicycling and walking trips since Congress commissioned the NBWS in 1991. In 1990, there were a total of 19.7 billion walking and bicycling trips reported; in 2001, that number had nearly doubled to 38.6 billion.

The NBWS, however, called for a doubling of the percentage of trips made by bicycling and walking. This percentage has increased from 7.9 percent to 9.5 percent. The disparity between the near doubling of actual trips and the slight percentage increase can be explained by the explosive growth in total reported trips made; from 249 billion in 1990 to 407 billion in 2001. In short, reported bicycling and walking trips have increased significantly, but the number of reported driving trips has increased at a rate that eclipses that of bicycling and walking.

The 1999 NBWS Five-Year Progress Report identified this trend and stated that "Increasing the percentage of overall trips made by bicycling and walking is going to be a tough challenge if the level of overall travel continues to increase at this rate." The same remains true in 2004.

Also, although data collected from the NPTS in 1990 and 1995 and the NHTS in 2001 indicate more walking and bicycling trips, the methodology for each survey has been different. Until data are collected using the same survey and methods, an accurate evaluation of the change in level of bicycling and walking in the United States cannot be made.

Another source of information on utilitarian bicycling and walking is the U.S. Census "Journey to Work" survey. The survey is conducted every ten years and reports travel to and from work for people aged 16 or above. In 1990, 4.3 percent of workers, or 4.9 million people, walked or rode bicycles to work. In 2000, the percentage fell to 3.3 percent, and the number fell to 4.25 million people riding bicycles or walking to work. Although discouraging with regards to meeting the NBWS goal, according to the 2001 NHTS, less than 15 percent of all trips are journeys to and from work; over 85 percent of all trips are not accounted for by Census data.

A potential explanation for the reported increase in bicycling and walking trips identified by the NHTS and the relatively stable number of walking and bicycling trips to work shown by the Census Journey to Work survey is that there has been an increase in bicycle and walking trips for non-work related transportation or recreation.

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) monthly Omnibus Household Survey found in 2001-2002 that nearly two million adult US residents bicycle to work or as part of their job and more than ten million walk to work or as part of their job. These data indicate that nearly 12 million adults, or approximately nine percent of all adult workers, regularly bicycle or walk related to their work. [7]

Although the goal of doubling the percentage of trips by bicycling and walking, as called for by the NBWS, has not been met, there are other indicators that walking and bicycling remain important modes of transportation or recreation in the U.S.

• Results from the National Survey on Recreation and the Environment 2000 indicate that over 80 million U.S. residents bicycle for fun or exercise.
  
• The BTS monthly Omnibus Household Survey found that, during 2002, an average of 143.7 million U.S. residents (72 percent of the non-institutionalized adult population) walked, ran, or jogged an average of 13 days each month.
  
• The Omnibus Household Survey also found an average 33 million adult U.S. residents (16 percent of the non-institutionalized adult population) rode a bicycle an average of six days a month, for an average of more than an hour on a typical day.
  
• The 2002 National Survey of Pedestrian and Bicyclist Attitudes and Behaviors, jointly sponsored by NHTSA and BTS, found that 27.3 percent of the driving age public rode a bicycle during the summer of 2002.

The challenge confronting the Department to meet the goal of doubling the percentage of bicycling and walking trips, is to continue increasing the total number of bicycling and walking trips while simultaneously encouraging other travel modes to switch to bicycling and walking. The first part of this might be accomplished simply by continuing current activities including current programs and policies, since walking and bicycling trips have increased. The second part, affecting overall vehicle trips, however, falls outside the scope of activities included in this report, which deals only with bicycle and walking-related goals.

The second NBWS goal of reducing fatalities and injuries suffered by bicyclists and pedestrians by 10 percent has been surpassed.

Recent surveys conducted by the Department, such as the 2002 National Survey of Pedestrian and Bicyclist Attitudes and Behaviors, offer insight into why and how people walk or bicycle, and can help USDOT, States, and local governments determine how to increase walking and bicycling. For example, a BTS Issue Brief report using data from the National Survey conducted during the summer of 2002 found that bicyclists riding in areas without bike paths or lanes are nearly twice as likely to feel endangered (mostly by motorists) as are bicyclists with paths or lanes, and more than four times as likely to be dissatisfied with how their community is designed for making bicycling safe. Knowing this and other forthcoming information from the 2002 Survey, communities and States can better understand walkers and bicyclists, and might lead to better plans for providing the most appropriate new infrastructure and programs to encourage more walking or bicycling.

In 1993, the last year prior to the release of the NBWS, 5,649 pedestrians and 816 bicyclists were killed in collisions with motor vehicles. In 2003, using preliminary data, [8] these numbers had fallen to 4,762 and 626 respectively. These numbers reflect a 17.3 percent decline in pedestrian fatalities and a 23.3 percent drop in bicycle fatalities. In the past year, between 2002 and 2003, pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities fell by 2.8 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively. Overall, since the NBWS was released, combined pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities have dropped 18 percent. The second NBWS goal of reducing fatalities and injuries suffered by bicyclists and pedestrians by 10 percent has been surpassed.

Over the same period, the number of pedestrians injured in collisions with motor vehicles fell from 94,000 to 68,000 (27.7 percent) and the number of bicyclists injured in collisions with motor vehicles fell from 68,000 to 44,000 (35.3 percent). Between 2002 and 2003, pedestrian and bicyclist injuries declined by 4.2 percent and 8.3 percent, respectively.

Bicyclists and pedestrians represented more than 16 percent of all traffic fatalities in 1993, and then dropped to 12.3 percent in 2003. At the same time there was an increase in overall traffic fatalities of more than seven percent. The declines between 1993 and 2003 in pedestrian fatalities (17.3%), pedestrian injuries (27.7%), bicyclist fatalities (23.3%), and bicyclist injuries (35.3%) have exceeded the target set by the National Bicycling and Walking Study.

The role of the Federal government, and specifically the Department, [9] in implementing the NBWS was defined in an ambitious nine-point Federal Action Plan that identified 60 specific action items to be carried out by the Department. Responsibility for each of the action items was assigned to at least one of the modal administrations within the Department (e.g. FHWA, NHTSA, FTA, FRA, or OST).

Action has been taken on at least 55 of the 60 items, and while many of the items are ongoing, more than one quarter of the items can reasonably be said to be complete. There are only five items where no identifiable action has yet been taken and on at least one of these the Department has either no responsibility for the specific action or the action has been performed by other agencies and no longer requires the Department's action. [10]

The final action item adopted in the NBWS was for the Department to serve as a positive national presence and role model in relation to bicycling and walking. Through its work in implementing the overwhelming majority of the Federal Action Plan and other related activities, the Department has clearly shown States and local governments the kind of leadership, direction, encouragement, and support for bicycling and walking that was intended.

In particular, the Department has made significant accomplishments in five key areas:

a) Publications. In the ten years since the NBWS was released, the Department has produced a wealth of literature - research reports, fact sheets, design and sign guides, manuals, brochures, training materials, etc. - on all aspects of improving conditions for bicycling and walking. Most of these publications are available on the Department's web sites. These publications have enabled State and local government agencies and advocacy groups to ensure the design and planning of a more walkable and bicycle-friendly infrastructure, stage successful safety events and training courses, enforce safe road user behavior, combine transit with bicycling and walking, promote public involvement in the transportation planning process, reach new constituencies with important safety messages, and inform planners, engineers, safety experts, accessibility advocates, and the public about bicycling and walking issues.

b) Research and Technology Transfer. The Department has undertaken a comprehensive multi-year bicycle and pedestrian research program that includes original research, project evaluations, several syntheses of existing research work in critical areas (including some foreign experience), training courses to disseminate research findings, awareness campaigns, and other activities designed to apply existing knowledge in the field. The research and technology transfer program has addressed many of the issues identified in the NBWS Federal Action Plan including studies of crash types and countermeasures, innovative intersection designs to accommodate bicyclists and pedestrians, and methods to estimate travel behavior by bicyclists and pedestrians.

c) Outreach and Partnerships. Recognizing that improvements for bicycling and walking will only come about with the concerted and combined efforts of many agencies and interested parties, the Department has actively sought to partner with a wide range of groups and other agencies. The Department has developed a strong relationship with the State Department of Transportation bicycle and pedestrian coordinators and has worked with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) on specific projects. There has been improved collaboration between modal administrations within the Department (e.g. working with the Federal Railroad Administration for the first time) and between the Department and other Federal agencies through regular meetings and joint projects. The Department has successfully used printed materials, the internet, training courses, clearinghouses, conferences, events, and other media to effectively disseminate information about bicycling and walking to a diverse audience.

d) Increased Attention to Pedestrian Issues. Actions taken in response to the Federal Action Plan, as well as the nationwide emergence of pedestrian advocacy organizations, have substantially boosted the level of attention paid to walking issues by both the Department and State and local agencies. Through a range of activities such as the development of a Pedestrian Safety Roadshow, support for Safe Routes to School and annual Walk to School Day events, publication of Spanish-language pedestrian safety materials, and collaboration with the health promotion and injury prevention communities, the awareness of pedestrian issues is higher than at any time in the past three decades. There has also been an increased emphasis on issues affecting access to the transportation system for people with disabilities.

e) Increased Funding for Bicycling and Walking Projects. While the most significant recent increases in funding for bicycling and walking projects occurred with the enactment of ISTEA in 1991 and TEA-21 in 1998, actions taken by the Department in response to the Federal Action Plan, such as the issuance of the "Design Guidance" language [11] in 2000, contribute to continuing record levels of spending on bicycling and walking initiatives across all the various funding categories administered by the Department. In addition, with more information and technical resources available about pedestrian and bicycle facilities and programs, States and local governments are increasingly using their own funds for projects and programs benefiting bicyclists and pedestrians.

While the Department is proud of these and many other accomplishments in the bicycle and pedestrian arena during the past ten years, there are still some items in the Federal Action Plan that have not been addressed, or where important work still remains necessary. A partial list of these items include:

• Updating the part of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) relating to bicycle and pedestrian eligibility to reflect the changes made by TEA-21 and upcoming reauthorization of surface transportation legislation
  
• Promoting the integration of bicycling and walking with transit directly to the transit operators through training, publications, and encouragement
  
• Explicitly including bicycle and pedestrian considerations in the core internal planning and operations documents of the USDOT (e.g. strategic plans and performance measure plans)
  
• Collecting and analyzing bicycle and pedestrian use and exposure data to help determine problem behaviors leading to crashes and crash risks; and the effectiveness of safety countermeasures and other actions
Conducting research into promoting the use of bicycling and walking and measuring the effectiveness of such programs

• Encouraging and assisting States and MPOs to more speedily implement bicycle and pedestrian projects using Federal transportation funds
  
• Undertaking research and offering guidance on the air quality and congestion relief impacts on investments in bicycling and walking infrastructure and promotions
  
• Developing a stronger relationship with the Department's field staff
  
• Providing training and technical assistance on designing accessible sidewalks and trails
  
• Identifying more research opportunities within the Department to meet ongoing and future research needs in the bicycle and pedestrian area

Progress on the Recommended State and Local Action Plan

The Federal role in State and local transportation decisionmaking continued to evolve throughout the 1990s. However, because most decisions affecting the safety and comfort of bicyclists and pedestrians are made at State and local levels of government, the NBWS provides some guidance and encouragement to States and localities as to the ways in which they could improve conditions for the nonmotorized traveler.

Based on input from State and local bicycle and pedestrian coordinators, and the findings of a number of case studies developed as part of the NBWS, the Study outlined a five-point Recommended Action Plan (RAP) for State and local governments. The final report of the NBWS discussed ways in which each of the five elements of the plan could be implemented, drawing on examples from States and localities that had already made progress in these areas.

Since the Study came out, the Department has not undertaken a formal inventory of State and local government actions in response to the Recommended Action Plan. However, some factors indicate the States and local governments are increasing attention to pedestrian and bicycling needs:

• All State DOTs now have a designated bicycle and pedestrian coordinator. [12]
  
• A 2003 report about progress in State DOTs [13] indicates some success there: 29 of the 50 States have adopted statewide bicycle or bicycle and pedestrian plans.
  
• Membership in the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals [14] has grown to over 400 since its founding in 1995. APBP's members work at local and state planning and transportation offices, as well as in the private sector as consultants; the growth of membership reflects many more professionals dedicated to bicycle and pedestrian issues, and further indicates that more local governments are dedicating resources to pedestrian and bicycle issues. [15]

General State and Local Agency Response

Action Plan Item 1. Organize a Bicycle/Pedestrian Program

Since 1994, the number of staff (or amount of staff time spent) working on bicycle and pedestrian issues at the State level appears to have more than doubled. As described above, the growth in membership of an organization of pedestrian and bicycle professionals indicates an increase in the number of staff working on these issues, although the exact numbers working at the local level on bicycle, pedestrian, or both issues cannot be easily quantified.

Also since 1994, more than half the States and a number of local agencies have established or re-established citizen advisory committees to help guide bicycle and pedestrian programs.

Action Plan Item 2. Plan and Construct Needed Facilities

Approximately half the States report that bicycle and pedestrian facilities are now included in some or most highway projects; the remaining States usually develop bicycle and pedestrian facilities as separate or independent projects. Less than half the States have separate bicycle and pedestrian design manuals.

Most States report having an overall long range transportation plan that integrates bicycling and walking; one-third have a separate long range plan for bicycling and walking.

Action Plan Item 3. Promote Bicycling and Walking

Most States and local governments report publishing supportive literature (maps, brochures, etc), and more than half promote or organize events such as Bike-to-Work Day.

Action Plan Item 4. Educate Bicyclists, Pedestrians, and the Public

Most States and localities have produced bicycle and pedestrian safety literature; local agencies are more likely to have also provided training to children on safe walking and bicycling.

Action Plan Item 5. Enforce Laws and Regulations

Some States and localities have revised their vehicle codes and/or drivers' manuals since 1994 to better address bicycling and walking issues, others have passed child helmet laws for bicyclists.

As March 2004, 20 States (including the District of Columbia) have enacted age-specific bicycle helmet laws and more than 131 localities have enacted some type of bicycle helmet legislation.