More money for bike/ped projects in San Mateo County!
In the year 2020, SMCTA provided $7,714,729 funding for 12 bicycle/pedestrian improvement projects (including 4 large infrastructure projects, 7 small infrastructure projects and 1 non-infrastructure project) as compared to $5.7 million allocated in the year 2018. SVBC provided support letters for 4 of these projects (along with 4 others that were not funded). Find more details in the image below.
This funding is because of you voting to approve Measure W in 2018! The amount of money available for this call for projects was approximately 2% more than has been available in previous rounds of funding through Measure A. Because of that, more bike projects will be built!
The Transportation Authority released its fifth call for projects in August 2020 and $8.1 million was made available. Included in this amount is $202,500 for Safe Routes to School projects that will be administered by the San Mateo County Office of Education (SMCOE).
The entire funding for non-infrastructure projects was not used (Non-infrastructure projects are those that do not result in construction and might include road safety audits, improvements in the collection and analysis of data, education and outreach efforts or targeted law enforcement activities). The remaining $152,500 will be rolled over to a mid-cycle non-infrastructure only call for projects or to the next full cycle call for projects.
Three percent of Measure A (passed in 2009) and five percent of Measure W funds are now available for the Pedestrian and Bicycle Program. The purpose of the program is to fund specific projects to encourage and improve walking and bicycling conditions. The 2004 Transportation Expenditure Plan and the Measure W Congestion Relief Plan include a list of candidate pedestrian & bicycle candidate improvement projects. Funding considerations are made through a call for projects where project review committees evaluate applications and review the projects based on a set of criteria which were approved as part of the adoption of the Strategic Plan.
Local Programs: Apart from funding for bike/ped projects, Measure A requires the Transportation Authority to earmark 22.5% to local cities and San Mateo County for various transportation-related improvements according to a formula based on population and number of roadmiles and Measure W has added an additional 10 percent to this category. During Fiscal Year 2020, local agencies received $28.7 million from both Measures and recipients of these funds primarily use them for street projects. These funds were dedicated for local investments primarily intended for pavement rehabilitation, but cities with a Pavement Condition Index (PCI) greater than 70 can use this for other programs and services as well.
Measure A Funding Distribution
Measure W Funding Distribution
It was a hard long fought battle where we partnered with our allies in the Transportation Equity Allied Movement Coalition (TEAMC) which includes 28 other non-profits in a variety of sectors – first to get the Measure passed in 2018 – which was as close as winning by 500 votes! Second, working on the Strategic Plan such that the scoring criteria reflected Measure W principles.
Most cities find it difficult to accomplish bike-ped projects because of lack of funding. SVBC has two ways of approaching this challenge – one, pushing cities to allocate a dedicated amount from the city’s budget. Two, working with other agencies to make more funding available.
To learn more about a city’s budget process and how you can advocate for dedicated % of funds for bike-ped, join us on Jan 20, 2021 at our 2nd Biketivist Forum. For funding resources available for your city to use, stay tuned.
