According to the U.S. Surgeon General, two-thirds of adults and nearly one in three children are overweight or obese.  In the past few decades obesity rates have tripled among children – at a time when walking and biking to school levels have fallen dramatically – and doubled among adults. An obese teenager has more than a 70 percent greater risk of becoming an obese adult. This has major consequences on health. Obesity contributes to about 112,000 preventable deaths every year.

In a call to action to reverse this trend, the Surgeon General, Dr. Regina Benjamin, released The Surgeon General’s Vision for a Healthy and Fit Nation, 2010. In her opening letter she makes the connection between the way we build our communities and fitness:

As a nation, we must create neighborhood communities that are focused on healthy nutrition and regular physical activity, where the healthiest choices are accessible for all citizens. Children should be having fun and playing in environments that provide parks, recreational facilities, community centers, and walking and bike paths.

The report includes this line:

Similarly, the car-dependent design of our communities has made it much harder for our children to walk to school—and much harder for us to shop and do other errands entirely on foot or by bicycle.

Recommendations include:

• Build or enhance infrastructures to support more walking and bicycling.
• Support locating schools within easy walking distance of residential areas.

~Darren Flusche
League Policy Analyst

Wouldn’t it be great to be paid to ride your bike!? Well, hop in the saddle because that is what many businesses across the nation are doing – paying their employees to commute by bicycle.  Your two wheels are now recognized by the IRS as a “qualified transportation fringe benefit” which means that the costs (up to $20/month, $240/year) associated with riding your bike are eligible for reimbursement.  Things like spare tubes, bar tape, riding gloves, eye wear, cycling clothes, commuter bags, rain gear, lights, gloves, helmet, cost of maintenance, even the cost of a new commuter bike, basically anything you can purchase at a bike shop qualifies for reimbursement.

The Bicycle Commuter Benefit has been on the books since January 1, 2009, and more and more businesses are starting to use it! Through our Bicycle Friendly Business program we have compiled a list of businesses – big, small, east coast, west coast, and everywhere in between – that are encouraging pedaling through this benefit. Take a look at the list of BFB applicants who offer the benefit. This list is just a sample of participating businesses. There are a lot more out there. If you are aware of any we didn’t include, let us know. We’ll add them to the list. To learn more about how your business can implement the benefit visit our Commuter Benefit FAQs page.

~Ailson Dewey
Program Specialist, Bicycle Friendly America

On Monday, February 1, the Obama Administration Released its budget for 2011. Highlights from the Transportation section include:

• Transportation gets slight increase in spending
• $527 million for livability partnership (with HUD giving $150 million and EPA contributing $10 million)
  • for capacity building and transportation projects
  • “local quality of life is a universal challenge”
• $4 Billion dollar infrastructure bank (New York Times Energy and Environment)
• $30 million would establish a federal transit safety oversight program
• $ 1 billion a year for high speed rail funding
• Commits to develop long term solutions to financing and performance
  • Administration seeks to integrate economic analysis and performance measurement in transportation planning to ensure tax dollars better targeted and spent.
  • Needs a program that “increases options, promotes s sustainable environment, and makes our economy more productive.”
  • States funding transportation with gas tax is unsustainable. Does not suggest alternative.

View the Department of Transportation Funding Highlights here.

The full USDOT Budget can be viewed at www.dot.gov/budget/2010/2011budgethighlights.pdf.

Visit the Federal Budget Fact Sheet and the Federal Budget Department of Transportation Fact Sheet for further information.

~Meghan Cahill
League Director of Communications

The 2010 National Bike Summit kicks off in Washington, DC on March 9-11, 2010. So why should YOU be there?

We can think of a few good reasons: Do you care about having transportation choices? Do you want more bike lanes in your neighborhood? Are you a parent who wishes your kid could ride to school? Do you want to get out of your car and have a viable alternative for your commute?  Or do you dream of a more livable community?

If these didn’t get you, consider that the Summit is an opportunity for advocates, industry suppliers and dealers, transportation planners, government officials, and bicycling enthusiasts to come together and make our voices heard on Capitol Hill. In the ten years that we’ve been advocating for cycling on Capitol Hill, bicycling has come a long way. The number of people riding is growing in almost every community in the US, and the time to talk to your representatives in Congress about what you’d like to see happen in your community is now. Come celebrate ten years of progress and register for the Summit now.

Don’t miss our Early Bird Deadline – Thursday, February 4, 2010 – to receive $100 off your registration!

~Lisa Reitz
League Membership and Events

Ever want to know how your city and state stack up compared to others in levels of bicycling and walking? Or which state has the lowest rate of bicycle and pedestrian fatalities? Or how your state’s laws treat bicyclists compared to others? If so, you don’t want to miss Bicycling and Walking in the United States: 2010 Benchmarking Report from the Alliance for Bicycling and Walking (formerly Thunderhead Alliance). There’s a ton of useful information here for state and local advocates, researchers, and numbers-oriented cyclists. It is an ambitious project – gathering existing data on bicycling and walking – and adding original survey data. It is also a beautiful product. The PDF download is free, but get your hands on a hardcopy if you can.

The Benchmarking report provides information on programs and statistics for the 50 states, as such it is good companion to the League’s state ranking – see the Bicycle Friendly State Rankings by category. It also includes some graphs that illustrate some key correlations.

Let’s start with the obvious. The share of bicycling and walking to work in a state is strongly correlated with the share of the adult population that gets at least 30 minutes of physical activity a day. The percent of people that walk and bike to work is still small compared to the populations that meet these minimums, so rather than concluding causation, it appears that the factors that impact bicycling levels – policies, infrastructure, land use, culture – also impact overall physical activity. The commuters who are walking and biking to work probably help the physical activity numbers as well.

Speaking of land use, on average, cities with higher densities have higher levels of bicycling and walking. New Orleans is a notable outlier on the right side of the graph with a high bike/walk mode share and (currently) low density. You could spend a day thinking about the individual cases, but the overall pattern holds up well statistically (r=0.67).

Now it is excuse-busting time. Notice that when I listed the factors that influence bicycling and walking levels above, I didn’t mention weather. That’s because weather doesn’t appear to matter as much as people would often like to believe. You may already know that the hardy folks in Canada bicycle more than those of in the county immediately to their south.  The Benchmarking researchers compared bicycling levels to average summer and winter temperatures and didn’t find any statistically significant results. Alaska, for example, posts a significantly higher bicycling mode share than states like Arkansas, North Carolina, Delaware, and Missouri. Cold states such as Minnesota, Idaho, Montana and Maine also manage relatively high mode shares.

Finally, the report includes another safety in numbers-style graph. Often you see these graphs for one city with an increasing bicycling rate and decreasing crash rate over time, or they will compare European cities. This graph presents a cross-sectional look at the fifty U.S. states and fatalities per 10,000 cyclists. Again, you can see that, on average, states with higher rates of cycling have lower fatality rates.

These are just a few examples of the topics covered in the report. I’ve been thinking of the proper analogy to describe the benchmarking report. The Farmer’s Almanac comes to mind. But a book of baseball statistics may be a better analogy. If you were to start a bike-friendly fantasy league, like the baseball and football fantasy leagues out there, this would be your go-to resource. Consider it, you and your friends draft cities that you think will most improve on their bike-to-work mode share in the next year. Is Portland, Ore. going to continue its growth? Is Nashville, Tenn. set to have a breakout year? The Benchmarking report offers a complete look at the state of bicycling in each of the United States and could hold that statistical nugget that will lead your fantasy bicycle-friendly community team to victory. But I digress…Be one of the hundreds who have downloaded the full Benchmarking Report.

Thank you to Kristen Steele of the Alliance for Bicycling and Walking for the Jpegs.

~Darren Flusche
League Policy Analyst

The Club Leadership Training in Boca Raton, FL this past weekend was a big success! Bike club leaders from across the country met in 80 degree weather – a nice change for many of us – to share best practices, hear words of wisdom from great speakers, and enjoy a scenic ride along the coast.

The conference enjoyed a wide range in club locales; attendees hailed from Arizona, Colorado, Texas, South Carolina, D.C., Minnesota, Florida and so on. Most agreed that the highlight of the conference was simply networking and discussing how various issues were handled by each club – whether it was budgeting, attaining 501c 3 status, organizing rides, membership, or local advocacy.

One of the most popular presentations was the ever-complex issue of club insurance, offered by the League through American Specialty Insurance. Marla Peters, Sr. Vice President at American Specialty, explained the various kinds of coverage offered, the costs and benefits, and where and how to purchase. For the 2010 League Insurance Program information, go here.

Other popular sessions, Leader Transitions and Organizing Rides & Volunteers, were led by Mary Derks, past president of the Twin Cities Bicycling Club. Derk’s wealth of knowledge was evident: she gave great tips for succession plans, how to manage and maintain committees of key volunteers, and the importance of long-range planning. Check the League’s Club Leadership page next week to view these presentations.

Finally, a special thanks to the Boca Raton Bicycle Club for hosting us for the weekend!

Stay tuned for news on the next Club Leadership Training at http://www.bikeleague.org/

~Lisa Reitz

League Membership and Events

NRP has a story from the Associated Press that the  federal government has banned texting while driving interstate commercial vehicles:

The prohibition, which applies to drivers of interstate buses and trucks over 10,000 pounds, is effective immediately, the department said in a statement. Truck and bus drivers who text while driving commercial vehicles may be subject to civil or criminal penalties of up to $2,750, the department said.

This is welcome news. The League’s upcoming report on distracted driving highlights the research on texting that shows that texting while driving a car can increase the risk of crashing by eight times, the risk increases 23 times when driving a heavy truck:

Distractions lead to crashes and deaths. During a study by NHTSA and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI,) driver inattention led to 78 percent of all crashes and 65 percent of all near-crashes. Distractions are deadly too. According to the federal database that tracks traffic deaths, Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS,) in 2008, Driver distraction was involved in at least 16% of all fatal crashes — up from 12% in 2007. Driver distraction led to at least 5,870 fatalities. The problem is particularly acute among younger drivers – 39% of the distracted drivers involved in fatal crashes were under 30 years old (Magladry, Office of Highway Safety, Summit slide). These numbers rely on police reports, which means they underestimate the frequency that distracted driving leads to crashes.

A study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute that found Professional truck drivers who sent text messages while driving are 23 times at greater risk of crashing or nearly crashing than when not texting. A study using a driving simulator at the University of Utah found that drivers who text are eight times more likely to crash. The risks, however, are not limited to text messaging. Studies show that the likelihood of a crash quadruples while talking on a phone – with little to no improvement while using hands-free devices. In 2006, the researchers at the University of Utah confirmed an earlier finding and concluded “the impairments associated with using a cell phone while driving can be as profound as those associated with driving while drunk” at a 0.08% blood alcohol level.  For dozens of studies on the risks, visit the National Safety Council Website: http://www.nsc.org/safety_road/Distracted_Driving/Pages/KeyResearch.aspx.

See our previous posts on Oprah’s campaign against distracted driving and extensive distracted driving resources. Also read how an 18-year-old was just sentenced 60 months in prison in Washington’s first vehicular homicide conviction due to text-messaging. The driver hit and killed a cyclist in a bike lane while texting his girlfriend. (The Columbian)

~Darren Flusche
League Policy Analyst

As promised, here are some more numbers from the National Household Travel Survey. The League and America Bikes have put together this fact sheet on trip distance and mode.

The good news is that the share of all trips made by bicycle is up 25 percent since 2001, to one percent. The bad news is that even short trips are still dominated by privately owned vehicles, a category of vehicle that does not include bikes. Half of all trips are three miles or less, but fewer than 2 percent of those trips are made by bicycle, while 72 percent of them are driven. Private vehicles like cars, pick-up trucks, and SUVs, account for 60 percent of trips of a mile or less. Think about that next time you hear people wondering why we have such big problems with the environment, health and childhood obesity, and traffic congestion.

Eighty-five percent of bicycling trips are three miles or less, but nearly 58 percent of transit trips are longer than that. This fact — that most transit trips are longer than most bike trips — reinforces the compatible nature of the two. In regions with transit service, biking and transit together will get you pretty much wherever you want to go. Transit agencies should do more to promote bike-transit connections.

There are many worthy tables and graphs to be made with this data. For now, here is a simple one that illustrates the 30-40-50 trip distance concept. That is, nearly 30 percent of trips are a mile or shorter, 40 percent are two miles or shorter and 50 percent are three miles or shorter. It gives you a sense of how much of our daily travel involves distances that can be easily walked and biked.

Again, check out the fact sheet for more: http://www.bikeleague.org/resources/reports/pdfs/nhts09.pdf

…and see our earlier post on the 2009 NHTS.

Our thanks to the FHWA Office of Policy for help accessing these data.

~Darren Flusche
League Policy Analyst

How do you know when an issue has become mainstream? It’s not when the New York Times dedicates extensive coverage to it. And it’s not when the government makes it a sustained priority. An issue has only truly arrived when Oprah uses it to pull America’s heartstrings. That’s why Monday was a big day for the movement to curb Distracted Driving.

Click here for clips and resources:

http://www.oprah.com/showinfo/Americas-New-Deadly-Obsession

Oprah says if you think you can text and talk on the phone behind the wheel, you can’t:

http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/End-Distracted-Driving/1

After the show families of survivors spoke:

http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Victims-of-Distracted-Driving-Accidents-Videos

Sign Oprah No Phone Zone Pledge:

http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/End-Distracted-Driving/1

~Darren Flusche
League Policy Analyst

A Miami cyclist was killed this morning by musician Carlos Bertonatti along the Rickenbacker Causeway. Bertonatti, who was driving under the influence, sped away, dragging the cyclist’s bike underneath his car. It took 22 minutes before an ambulance arrived, and by then it was too late. Bertonatti is now being charged with vehicular homicide. (photo from the Miami Bike Scene Blog)

As a Miami native, I have found that the Rickenbacker Causeway is really the only place to ride (aside from the Everglades). Miami is a car dominated city, providing little in the way of walkable or bikeable streets. In fact, according to the Dangerous by Design report, Miami is the 3rd most dangerous city in the US for pedestrians.  The roads are equally as unsafe for cyclists, with eight cyclist fatalities recorded in Miami-Dade in 2006.

And so it is especially disturbing that this man was killed while riding in a bike lane on one of the only stretches of road that is remotely safe for cyclists. Perhaps if speed limits were more diligently enforced, Bertonatti would have been stopped before the fatal crash.  The Miami cycling community pulls together as they grieve the loss of a fellow cyclist.

Full report here:
Miami New Times
Miami Bike Scene

Read “Miami Bikes (But it Isn’t Easy)” in the July/August issue of American Bicyclist:

~Anna Kelso
League Policy Analyst