FHWA Supports:
The purpose of this webpage is to provide information on the amount of Federal-aid highway program funds obligated for pedestrian and bicycle facilities and programs. This information consists of project obligations coded as bicycle and pedestrian, rail-trail, or bicycle and pedestrian safety in FHWA's Fiscal Management Information System (FMIS). This information does not include direct Federal obligations from the Federal Lands Highway Program and does not include projects or programs that are not recorded in FMIS.
Obligations are the Federal government’s legal commitment to pay or reimburse the States or other entities for the Federal share of a project’s eligible costs.
The State table presents State-reported obligations of Federal-aid highway funds for pedestrian and bicycle facilities and programs during fiscal years 1999 to 2023. States use different reporting procedures, so the table is not a complete representation of actual spending in States. Some States only report obligations on independent bicycle and pedestrian projects or programs, but not on facilities constructed as part of a larger project. Some States report details of bicycle and pedestrian-related obligations, regardless of whether the facility is embedded in a larger project or is an independent project or program. Readers should not use this table to draw comparisons between individual States' spending patterns without understanding how each State reports its obligations.
The Category table presents State-reported obligations of Federal-aid highway funds for pedestrian and bicycle facilities by program category. The categories listed are those most commonly used for bicycle and pedestrian projects. The table includes all Safe Routes to School and Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program projects regardless of how the projects were coded, but does not double count projects that were coded as bicycle and pedestrian.
Notes
FMIS does not have separate Improvement Type codes for pedestrian-only or bicycle-only projects, or specific kinds of facilities. Projects may be independent bicycle and pedestrian projects, or may be part of larger highway projects, if States code project portions separately.
Many projects that benefit pedestrians and bicyclists may be part of larger highway projects but not coded bicycle and pedestrian projects. FMIS does not allow multiple Improvement Type codes to capture bicycle and pedestrian projects coded under other Improvement Types, such as right-of-way, preliminary engineering, construction, or safety. Therefore, actual obligations for bicycle and pedestrian facilities are higher, but not quantifiable.
Underreporting: According to the Transportation Alternatives Annual Reports from 2016 to 2023, 95 to 98 percent of TA projects selected for funding (excluding Recreational Trail projects) are bicycle and pedestrian projects. However, most States code many TA Set-Aside projects as right-of-way, preliminary engineering, construction, safety, or other improvement types, not as bicycle and pedestrian. The FY 2023 TA Set-Aside obligations were $815,507,595.79 (excluding RTP), therefore, probably $775 million to $800 million was for bicycle and pedestrian projects. Underreporting also may be significant for CRP, CMAQ, STBG, and HSIP, but there is no reporting method to compare by how much. The STP/TE funds are accurate due to FMIS coding restrictions specific to TE projects.
New projects are projects obligated for the first time in a particular fiscal year.
Total Obligations includes new obligations for new projects, new obligations for projects funded over more than one fiscal year, and deobligations from previously obligated projects. Therefore, dividing total obligations by new projects does not necessarily provide a meaningful result.
FY 2009 and 2010 include funds obligated under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). RTP projects from 1992-1998 are included in Other because amounts were not significant.
Law Abbreviations
Program Abbreviations
