Improving American Public Health and Sustainability through Transport
Spring 2012
East Coast Greenway Alliance
The coming year offers an opportunity to kick-start a green transportation revolution throughout America, updating Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System begun a half-century ago. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood promotes and invests in the East Coast Greenway and other bicycle and pedestrian corridors as he focuses on livable communities, job creation, and environmental sustainability. First Lady Michelle Obama aims to cut child obesity across the nation through the Let’s Move campaign. And the rising price of oil brings to light the need to move away from our polluting dependence on oil.
The East Coast Greenway (ECG) Alliance brings together new and established civic groups and government agencies to develop a carefully planned and coherent “active transport” corridor from Maine to Florida.
The following four pages share our plan to significantly improve the health of our nation’s people and the environment – with your support.
Thank you for your consideration.
Dennis Markatos-Soriano
Executive Director, East Coast Greenway Alliance
The Situation: Unprecedented Opportunity
This historic moment is ripe with potential to spur the sustainable transport revolution our country needs. Federal leaders in the field of transportation are bringing bicyclists and pedestrians to the policy table to an unprecedented degree. The First Lady is promoting her “Let’s Move” campaign with children from coast to coast. And gasoline prices around $4 per gallon makes oil a salient issue for the American public again. Most Americans want federal action to mitigate climate change but Congress is still caught in a stalemate even after record heat this past “winter.”
Active transportation is arguably the lowest-cost behavior change that Americans can adopt to decrease their carbon footprint, yet most people think of changing their light bulb, going solar, or buying a hybrid car instead. Increased cycling and walking delivers health benefits that would help address our nation’s ballooning health costs by decreasing obesity rates, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. And the space efficiency of active transport would help our country reduce the $87 billion a year analysts estimate traffic congestion costs us.
Secretary Ray LaHood, a Republican from Illinois, recognizes these opportunities as he leads the US Department of Transportation. Enacting policy he labels “a sea change,” Secretary LaHood supports the rights of cyclists and pedestrians as equal to other modes in the transportation system. Specifically regarding the East Coast Greenway (ECG), Secretary LaHood recently endorsed our project in his blog, calling the ECG a cost-effective investment. And he doesn’t just talk the talk. The DOT awarded our Philadelphia section the largest bike/pedestrian federal stimulus grant in 2010 with over $20 million in TIGER funds to create and save hundreds of jobs constructing the ECG and our neighbor trails. The green transport community needs sufficient resources to take advantage of this opportunity for progress.
The Solution: Eisenhower 2.0 Triggered by ECG Success
Back in the 1950s, President Eisenhower launched the world’s largest Interstate Highway System. Now in the 2010s, we have a chance to perform a transportation system upgrade (to Eisenhower 2.0) that would, in one fell swoop, address many problems created by our current system — such as high costs for health, fuel, traffic, and the environment. The establishment of interconnected bicycle and pedestrian corridors both within and between cities nationwide would make a healthy and green lifestyle safe and accessible to all.
The American people clearly want to bicycle and walk more. Cycling and walking trips have more than doubled since 1990 and currently stand at 12% of all trips. Fully half of our nation’s car trips are less than five miles, so we have the potential to more than double active transport trips again over the coming decade. An active mode share above 30% would bring our country to the level of many pace-setting European peers today such as Germany, Denmark, Finland, The Netherlands, and Sweden that together also make up half of the world’s top 10 healthiest countries. Such a shift would lower US greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 5%, single-handedly taking us most of the way to the 2020 emissions level sought by the Obama Administration.
The main obstacle to increasing active transport is a lack of safety and accessibility within current cycling and pedestrian infrastructure. What we need is a model segment that shows the great potential and then to replicate it nationwide. The East Coast Greenway can be that model by 2016.
Steps needed for this progress include establishing full signage of the route (currently 16% is signed), user-friendly guide maps and apps for every state (5 of our 15 states have such guides completed or in development), and off-road greenway on 33% of our route (26% is built today). The other 67% would include a mix of safe roads with wide shoulders, bike lanes and other amenities. Requiring an estimated $200 million in public and private investment, this route upgrade would spur a much higher return in the form of improved public health, lower fuel costs, and environmental health.
The iron could hardly be hotter for this action due to a window of opportunity from favorable cultural shifts, policy, and political developments. Whether we will make the necessary investment is the question. Elected leaders will only step up if we mobilize strong and visible public support – in the form of increased active Alliance membership and prominent media.
The Plan: Bringing Project Organization to Scale & Prominence
We plan to launch the Eisenhower 2.0 Decade by making the East Coast Greenway a model for replication. The ECG is the most developed long-distance multi-use trail in the nation, already providing a safe route for hundreds of thousands of cyclists and pedestrians through communities along its 3,000-mile Maine to Florida route. The majority of ECG users take the greenway for local commuting and recreation, making our segments the top bicycle commuter corridor in many communities, such as the Hudson River Greenway in New York City. A diverse mix of travelers already rides our entire route between Canada and Key West, from honeymooners who live within the region to European tourists using the ECG to experience America.
But the East Coast Greenway needs investment for it to be universally appealing beyond those who ride and walk our trail today. Increased safety and accessibility will open the route to everyone, from young beginner cyclists to seniors enjoying their daily stroll. Within a few years, we can get hundreds of thousands and even millions of people enjoying the Greenway for their commute, errands, and recreation.
Our organization is already effective in driving progress in partnership with our many local and national allies. We grew our designated greenway mileage by more than 200 miles in the last three years, and new construction is poised to support similar growth over the next three. But global warming and the obesity epidemic require us to redouble our efforts to meet these national challenges. Over the next three years, we plan to raise the profile of the ECG to increase stakeholder buy-in and expand our active membership and volunteer base from 15,500 today to a level that can sustain the federal engagement necessary for a safe and accessible trail in three years. We see this as 50,000+ Americans launching the Eisenhower 2.0 Decade.
The Resources Necessary: Multiplier Effect in Action
Mobilizing two hundred million dollars of federal, state, and local transportation funding over the next five years will require significant organizational resources. Historically, the East Coast Greenway Alliance has leveraged its support by a better than 50 to 1 ratio: for every $1 invested in our organization, we mobilize $50+ in support for greenway design and construction (Our ~$5.5 million in revenue since we began in the mid-1990s has been leveraged to over $275 million in public investment to develop the trail).
Based on a similar ratio going forward, we will need a revenue stream of roughly $800,000 per year 2012-15 (totaling $4 million) to attract the $200 million required. Since we already receive ~$500,000 annually from our current members and supporters, we aim to partner with a collection of new major funders to raise the additional $300,000 per year in 2012 and 2013. We will invest these resources in a way that drives dues-paying membership growth so that we can wean the effort from financial dependence on its original funders in 2014.
Our organization has a strong financial base for current operations, with ~6 months of operating cash-on-hand today, in the wake of the Great Recession. We are ready to launch this initiative in 2012 from our new, more centrally located headquarters in Durham, North Carolina.
Your partnership would help to ensure the successful development of a national treasure that Americans and global visitors can enjoy for generations to come. A safe and accessible ECG will ignite a national revolution in our transportation system that helps our country cost-effectively address global warming, poor urban air quality, high health costs, and expensive traffic congestion. The situation is ripe for your vision and resources to collaborate with our determination and infrastructure as we initiate the green transportation transition.
www.greenway.org
