States Push to Shift Road Funds to Transit and Bike Projects as Trump Threatens Cuts
Source: US News and World Report/AP
March 22, 2025, at 12:04 a.m.
CHICAGO (AP) — Hundreds of bicycle advocates were at an annual summit this month in Washington, D.C., when their cellphones lit up over breakfast with an urgent email warning that President Donald Trump's transportation department had just halted federal grant funding for bike lanes.
As the administration targets green energy projects championed by former President Joe Biden that boosted transit, recreational trails and bicycle infrastructure, several states are banding together to advance those priorities on their own.
California, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New York and Pennsylvania joined forces for a national organizing effort dubbed the Clean Rides Network. The group gained momentum in various statehouses this year on environmentally friendly transportation projects it contends the federal government has abandoned.
“These are changes we need to make anyway, but they’re more urgent than ever,” said Justin Balik, senior state program director for the environmental advocacy group Evergreen Action and one of the organizers of the Clean Rides Network. “I’ve been calling the state departments of transportation the next frontier of climate advocacy.”
Read more: https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2025-03-22/states-team-up-to-defend-green-transportation-projects-targeted-by-trump
Link to Clean Rides Network - https://www.cleanridesnetwork.org/
I know here in Philly, we already have a big pile of bike lanes on streets all around the city. They have been slowly going through the city to paint those lanes green (which makes them more visible), having started doing so since 2011.
A bike lane in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. | Michael Stokes / Flickr
There has been a recent focus on enhancing the ones downtown (including finding ways to erect barriers to keep cars from crossing over into them) and enforce the prohibition of parking in the lanes. We have had a few fatalities of bikers hit by cars driving in or swerving into the bike lanes.
The Philadelphia Parking Authority will begin patrolling Center City, South Philly and University City to issue tickets to drivers parked in bike lanes in order to keep the roads safe for cyclists and reduce traffic deaths. Pictured above is a protected bike lane on the 2200 block of Chestnut St.