U.S. mayors want more money for bike, pedestrian infrastructure

To make their cities more livable, less congested, and economically competitive, U.S. mayors say they will need more federal transportation money to invest in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure.

That's according to a new survey on transportation infrastructure, commissioned by The United States Conference of Mayors.

Here's how the mayors ranked the biggest transportation challenges facing cities to meeting the goals of increased livability, less congestion, and economic competitiveness:

-Road/street maintenance (78 percent)

-Funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects (60 percent)

-Public transit operating assistance (45 percent)

-Public transit capacity (40 percent)

-Road/street expansion (36 percent)

The mayors are pretty clear that road expansion is not a priority. Besides ranking road maintenance and bicycle and pedestrian investment as a significantly higher priority than road building, a strong majority of the mayors (80 percent) said that highway expansion should be a low priority.

With more than two-thirds of Americans living in metropolitan areas -- most with aging transportation infrastructure -- the survey also found that 96 percent of the 176 mayors surveyed believe that the federal government should increase investment in surface transportation infrastructure. And it's no wonder considering 98 percent of the mayors say that affordable and reliable transportation is important to their economic recovery.

Tom Cochran, CEO of The United States Conference of Mayors, makes the economic case.

The largest metropolitan areas account for 87 percent of the nation’s traffic. The three most congested areas—Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago—account for 27 percent of that traffic. Our metropolitan areas rank high among world economies (e.g., New York’s economy ranks 12th and is larger than India ’s economy), but they are saddled with bus and rail systems at capacity and aging roads and bridges that will undermine their ability to meet the nation’s future economic output. Simply put, these areas are receiving significantly less in federal transportation investments than would reflect their role and importance to the nation’s economy.

And in order to raise the money, 89 percent said they would support an gas tax increase if more money went to local road and bridge infrastructure and 75 percent would support an increase if a greater share of the funding went to bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure projects.

Photo: Gnarly/Wikimedia Commons

[Via Streetsblog]

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com