Philly Receives Millions In Stimulus Funds For Bike Trails
Philadelphia and Camden have received $23 million dollars in federal stimulus funds to create, expand, and connect bike paths for the two cities. Philly received the lion’s share, $17 million of the TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grant, awarded to the city with the intention of creating jobs as well as promoting green transportation. The grant is largely a product of the combined efforts of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council and Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, who worked with worked with six counties and agencies in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to secure the $23 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation. In an interview with NBC, Andrew Stober, director of strategic initiatives for the mayor’s office of transportation, could not comment on when or how the money could would be put to use as he got the news of the grant at 9:30 Tuesday night. The PEC and the Bicycle Coalition suggested a couple of ideas of how to improve area bike trails in the grant proposal. The first was to complete the Schuylkill River Trail; the other suggestion was to include Philadelphia in the East Coast Greenway. This paved, off-road walking and biking trail will form one continuous 60+ mile trail through Southeast Pennsylvania, and will become part of the 3,000 mile trail connecting cities from Maine to Florida.
February 18th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
Way to go, Philly (and Camden), this is a big win. Especially lucky for us is that so little of the money from this transportation fund went to bicycle and pedestrian projects.
February 18th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Yeah if by big win you mean getting money for a project that will impact a finite number of recreational users rather than any number of projects like those in other cities that voted Obama that will have lasting impacts on economically productive systems like freight distribution, or ports, or mass transit, sure, big win. Let’s continue to pretend that the Richard Florida creative economy will save us and build happy little $10 million bike trails from Locust Street to South Street so that we’re the cutest place in the Forbes miserable cities list.
February 18th, 2010 at 2:22 pm
^^^all i heard was “WWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!”
February 18th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
@ worldb: your reality injection is seriously harshing my bikegasmic mellow.
February 18th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
@ worldb: Holy run-on sentences of abysmal half-empty diarrhea.
February 18th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
this is terrific news and will reap positive dividends as Portland or Copenhagen or other places with superior cycling infrastructure can attest.
February 18th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
“worldb” my ASS!
come on stu bykovsky, post under you REAL name!
February 18th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
@worldb
Philly comes in at #20 of 20 on said list of misery, building some more bike lanes would probably edge it off the list altogether. That or you moving away. May I suggest Cleveland? Your constructive, forward thinking attitude should fit in quite well there.
February 18th, 2010 at 4:40 pm
If you’re interested, here’s the list of grants. http://www.dot.gov/documents/finaltigergrantinfo.pdf Philadelphia is one of the largest cities and one of the largest metros and turned out a huge plurality for Obama. Given that, $23 million for bike lanes compared to the amounts other areas received for projects that will have a greater effect on regional transportation and the economy seems disappointing. If you want to settle for being snarky and mediocre, Bob Brady and Michael Nutter give you their love and ask for a small donation.
February 18th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
i bet worldb caught a bike messenger making out with his girlfriend once
February 18th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
@worldb
My understanding is that these TIGER grants are part of the stimulus bill. So for a $787 billion bill whose purpose is creating/preserving jobs and building infrastructure, .003% was used to pay for an infrastructure project that will create jobs in the fifth largest city in the country (sorry Phoenix, you don’t count). And remember, it’s not just a bike trail, but pedestrian trail as well, which means everyone can use it (check out the existing SRT, and you’ll see more pedestrians than bikers).
As for your conspiracy theory, my back-of-the-envelope math shows about one third of the money went to projects in states that Obama lost in ’08. Guess what the population of those red states are compared to the U.S. as a whole. Yup, it’s about one third.
February 18th, 2010 at 5:12 pm
@ expat attack: and what was cited in the Forbes list? Long commute times. High unemployment. A bicycle trail loop around Center City addresses those things better than the same amount of dollars, or more, spent on port or rail or SEPTA infrastructure? Why is it forward thinking just because it involves bikes?
@ amc4232: the dollars might have been allocated to red states, but if you looked a little harder, not as much to red congressional districts. It’s not a conspiracy theory. It’s politics. New York, Chicago, LA, Philly, Detroit turned out the highest. New York and Chicago get grants 4x as large and other grants nearby. The Detroit area gets two grants, each larger. The SF area gets several grants. LA was shut out for some reason.
February 18th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Can they use the money to plow the snow out of the Pine/Spruce bike lanes?
February 18th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
@worldb: do you know how laughably little $23 million dollars is in public transit money? they wouldn’t have been able to extend the El one mile for that amount, or Regional Rail for that matter. what’s wrong with people commuting by bike, or their feet?
February 18th, 2010 at 5:31 pm
We should all be careful to distinguish bike ‘lanes’ from bike “trails.”
February 18th, 2010 at 5:35 pm
@worldb: I was looking only at states for my quick snapshot, but this TIGER grant program is designed for transportation infrastructure needs. And the greatest transportation infrastructure needs (railroads, mass transit, highways, ports, and yes, bike paths) are in densely packed metropolitan areas. And metropolitan areas tend to vote heavily democrat. It’s not about politics, it’s about spending transportation money wisely.
February 18th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
@AFecRain – oh, right. Well, I suppose it will be nice to zip right down to Florida from 7th and Lombard.
February 18th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
@ amc4232: Phoenix and Houston don’t tend to vote democrat, and are large, fast-growing metro areas, and didn’t get any grants. The Philly suburbs don’t consistently vote democrat, and were in the application, and didn’t get any of the funding. I don’t think that former Chicago area earmarker Ray LaHood only considered economic competitiveness and “livability” in the grants. I understand you do. Ok.
@ julie.t: if you actually looked at the list, the grants don’t fund the full project for any of the awards. Do you know how much Moynihan Station is supposed to cost? That didn’t stop them from awarding $93 million for a piece of it. $23 million could have secured additional state or local or bond funding for station improvements, track and signal improvements to reduce delays and accidents (SEPTA or AMTRAK or freight), better signage and real-time schedule updates, having a real fare card system like every other big city. And I haven’t said there is anything wrong with commuting by bike or feet. The question is per dollar what has the most impact, and the most volume, and generates the greatest improvements or behavioral changes. Will a bike lane along Delaware Ave create that much additional commuting? Will extending the lanes from Locust to the South Street bridge incentivize that many more people to commute by bike when they could just get off the bike lanes, cross the tracks and ride down a few blocks to the bridge approach? Or does it all just sound really cool and allow the mayor to take all the credit as his idea, instead of sharing with SEPTA and their suburban directors?
February 18th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
@worldb: SEPTA actually got a large grant for signal and other infrastructure improvements (i.e. stations) in another part of the stimulus bill last year. If they needed more for other projects, they were welcome to submit an application for the TIGER grant, which to my knowledge, at least, they didn’t. As for the non-Democratic (with a capital D) parts of Pennsylvania, the state benefited from two grants. The other was much larger (almost $100 million) and was focused on freight rail infrastructure in the rural part of the state, which is decidedly un-Democratic. Of course, it would be naive to say there were absolutely no political considerations taken in this federal granting process. But I think that the $23 million meets the goals of both the stimulus bill and the TIGER program and will have a very real benefit to Philadelphia and Camden.
February 18th, 2010 at 9:58 pm
Oh Wow, like cool man, bike trails, yeah…
Awash in deficit spending, this scumbag in the White House wants to piss away our children’s future building what???
Bike Trails, that’s right, destroying the economy for generations to come, tripling the national debt to pay off Democrat cities with half ass FDR copied busy work jobs that create no sustainable employment.What is funny is you socialist poisoned assholes think it’s a great idea.
THINK, YOU STUPID MOTHER FUCKERS
The purpose of all this spending is to destroy the American economy so that Black Bolshevik can replace capitalism with a government run economy.
You want to fix the economy and get people back to work?
Try huge tax cuts for businesses and individuals , accelerated depreciation on commercial property and a flat 50% reduction in every federal program.
This country would be rolling again in record time
February 19th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Will someone please tell me why anything bike related is an invitation to the cold war trolls to rant against pinkos, commies, atheists, and all other unholy unpatriot unamerican activities? Is Pete Seeger singing bikes will overcome now? Are bikes busting scabs down in the orchards of sunny californ? ‘In Dubious Pedal’ sweeping the nation?
Oh, and dibs on Black Bolsheviks as a band name. We’ll be playing at Tritone before you know it.
February 19th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
I’ve finally become convinced that jburnside is a Colombian drug mule. How else to explain both how insanely high he appears to be and that his head is perpetually up his own ass?
February 19th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
I like Black Bolsheviks as a band name, good call.
February 19th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
expat earns his living serving Arthur Kade as his fluffer