T4America Blog

Coming soon: A new report on how metro areas are building more and better bicycling and walking projects

Metro areas of all sizes across the country are strategizing, developing, and implementing new ways to improve bicycling and walking in their regions. Over the last year, T4America worked with metro areas across the country to collect and document these stories, ideas, and strategies into a guidebook that we’re releasing on December 11.

Join us on December 11th at 12 p.m. EST for a launch webinar where we’ll release Building Healthy and Prosperous Communities: How Metro Areas are Building More and Better Bicycling and Walking Projects and hear from three of the agencies featured in it.

Over the last two years, Transportation for America, in conjunction with the American Public Health Association, has worked with metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) across the country to collect and document stories about how they are planning, funding and building more and better walking and bicycling projects in communities. (Find our previous resources on this topic here and here.)

As the gatekeepers of billions of federal transportation dollars, MPOs have an influential role in expanding and improving options for walking and bicycling. They may establish policies, develop plans, direct funding, and help design transportation projects to allow more people to easily walk, bicycle, or ride in a wheelchair. Doing so can help people get the physical activity they need to be healthy — and healthier residents bring economic benefits for an entire region.

Places that have made biking and walking from place to place a safe, convenient, and enticing choice have produced positive impacts on businesses, jobs, and revenue. When it’s safer and more convenient for people to walk or bicycle as part of their regular routine,  more people get the amount of physical activity that science proves they need to reduce their risk of certain chronic diseases.

The following MPOs and scores of others are excelling, but there’s much more that can be done to build the necessary infrastructure to keep people thriving, safe, active, and connected to the places they need to go. The examples in this guidebook can inspire and inform your efforts, help tailor them for your region, and improve upon them to give the residents of your region the bicycling and walking infrastructure they demand and deserve.

The guidebook has detailed profiles of the work of these metropolitan planning agencies:

• Atlanta Regional Commission (Atlanta, Georgia)
• Broward MPO (Broward County, Florida)
• Chattanooga-Hamilton County/North Georgia Transportation Planning Organization (Chattanooga, Tennessee)
• Corpus Christi MPO (Corpus Christi,Texas)
• Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
• Denver Regional Council of Governments (Denver, Colorado)
• Mesilla Valley MPO (Las Cruces, New Mexico)
• Metro (Portland, Oregon)
• Metropolitan Transportation Commission (Bay Area, California)
• Nashville Area MPO (Nashville, Tennessee)
• Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (Columbus, Ohio)
• Puget Sound Regional Council (Seattle, Washington)

During the webinar we’ll hear from three featured MPOs: The Chattanooga TPO will share how they created a new performance measures framework to prioritize multi-modal projects for funding. The Corpus Christi MPO will talk about how they customized a Bicycle Mobility Network through accessibility planning and community engagement. Finally, we’ll hear how Metro in Portland, Oregon encouraged higher rates of active transportation by changing the design of walking and bicycling projects.

Register today!