Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment, and I call up amendment No. 618 and ask for its immediate consideration. Mr.…
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment, and I call up amendment No. 618 and ask for its immediate consideration.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
Mr. President, the amendment I am offering, on behalf of Senators Kennedy, Obama, Carper, and myself, calls for several simple adjustments to current practices at the Federal, State, and local level. The costs are minor, but the impact on safety for those who walk and ride bikes would be large. With the safety improvements that could result from this amendment, I believe we could increase pedestrian and bike traffic, and we could increase exercise to the benefit of American's health. We can reduce traffic congestion, and we can provide for safer travel for those who want to walk or ride a bike.
At the outset, I want to acknowledge that there are funds in the bill for increased bike paths and trails. We have kept the enhancement money. That is all well and good. I don't know the exact amount of money, but there is a quite a bit involved. The problem is there is nothing in current practice that requires State departments of transportation or metropolitan planning organizations to integrate in their planning upfront for bike paths and sidewalks when they are planning highways. Again, I think a lot of the good money for bike paths and trails will be used to redo and retrofit what they should have done in the first place. That is what we always seem to be doing-- we'll fix it up and add something later on. That always costs more money.
What this amendment does is it says: Let's have them at the initial planning stage integrate into their planning sidewalks and bike paths.
The fact is, our current transportation system has been engineered in a way that is, in many cases, unfriendly and often very dangerous to nonmotorized travel. Again, my amendment promotes Federal, State, and local actions to make walking and biking safer and to increase the total number of walking and bicycling trips.
Specifically, the amendment requires each State to adopt a ``complete streets'' policy to accommodate bicyclists and pedestrians by ensuring that all users are considered when communities are built or modernized. While studies show that Americans would like to bike and walk more, many roads do not have sidewalks or bike paths, making them dangerous for pedestrians and bike riders. In many cases, traffic lights do not allow enough time for the elderly or people with disabilities or children to safely cross busy intersections. Meanwhile, we are constructing new housing developments without sidewalks. Go out and take a look at some of the new housing developments being added in any State. A lot of times there is not even a sidewalk. How can you ask kids to walk to school if they don't have a sidewalk?
My wife and I get up every morning. We have a mile route that we walk. We have sidewalks for part of the way, and there aren't any sidewalks for the rest of the way. Again, it is about getting this integrated in the initial planning.
While studies show that Americans would like to bike and walk more, many roads don't have sidewalks or bike paths. It is dangerous for pedestrians. We are building roads without bike lanes. Quite frankly, we are heading in the wrong direction. Quite frankly, to promote more healthy living, we must promote people walking or biking more. I will have more to say about that in a minute.
Experts I talk to tell me that even a modest increase in pedestrian and bike traffic will get some cars off the road. That can have a significant positive impact on traffic congestion and gridlock. Research shows that often a surprisingly small increase in the number of cars can make the difference between a smooth flow of vehicles and a time-wasting traffic jam.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, the number of trips that are taken that are 1 mile or less is about one out of four. In other words, about 25 percent of all trips taken are 1 mile or less. Nearly half of all the trips taken in this country are under 5 miles. So it wouldn't take a huge shift to have an effect on traffic congestion. The path to safer travel on foot or by bike is also the path to a smarter, healthier, more efficient vehicle transportation system.
Each of the provisions in my amendment is intended to help us move forward toward safer travel for people in vehicles, pedestrians, for people who use bikes or people who use wheelchairs, or for people simply trying to cross a road safely in a neighborhood.
When we debate the highway bill, we typically talk about the Nation's infrastructure deficit, about jobs and economic competitiveness, the movement of goods, and other broader transportation goals. But we neglect other matters that are of real concern to people all across America in terms of transportation. For example, what are we doing to improve the safety of pedestrians and bicyclists?
In the Washington, DC, area we have recently experienced a rash of pedestrian fatalities. All across the country
bicyclists put their lives at risk on roads that make no accommodation for nonmotorized traffic. No one denies that over the years we have built a transportation system that neglects and endangers nonmotorized travel. Again, this costs us dearly in terms of needless loss of life or permanent disabilities caused by accidents.
It also has other consequences. When we give people no alternative to using their cars, they use their cars. So we add more and more vehicles to our roads and highways, 25 percent of which are used for trips of less than a mile. This translates into traffic delays, congestion, often gridlock. We simply must give more attention to the safety of pedestrians and those who use bicycles or who walk or who use wheelchairs.
It is pretty shocking when we look at the statistics. Our Federal system for tracking fatalities, known as FARS, tells us that during the decade from 1994 to 2003, nearly 52,000 pedestrians were killed in traffic accidents in the United States. During the same 10-year period, more than 7,400 bicyclists were killed. Though the data is less reliable with regard to injuries, we know the number of nonfatal injuries ran into the hundreds of thousands during that same 10-year period.
In 2003, the most recent year for which we have data, nearly 5,000 pedestrians and more than 600 bicyclists were killed in the U.S., again, with many more thousands injured. Fully 13 percent of all transportation fatalities are pedestrians and bicyclists--13 percent. That is a rate far in excess of the share of trips taken by pedestrians and bicyclists. The bottom line is it is disproportionately dangerous to be a pedestrian or bicyclist in the U.S. This is one big reason why people are opting not to walk or ride a bicycle. Instead, they are getting in their cars and they are contributing to traffic jams. Again, about 25 percent are going less than a mile, and over half of the time they are going less than 5 miles.
The journey to work data in the 2000 census tells a dismal story. Compared to 1990, despite a big increase in population, the number of people who walked to work fell by almost three-quarters of a million-- 727,000, to be exact. In 1990, 3.9 percent of Americans walked to work. Ten years later, in 2000, that had fallen to 2.9 percent--a 25-percent decline in the number of Americans who walk to work, in a 10-year period of time.
These various statistics tell us that many fatalities and injuries to pedestrians and bicyclists are preventable if we make the safety of nonmotorized travel a higher priority, and that is exactly what my amendment is intended to do, to put it into the planning stage and make it a higher priority. This amendment, I guess you could say, is also designed to significantly reduce the number of car trips taken.
As I said, consider that trips of a mile or less represent the highest share of all car trips we make every day--a quarter of all of those trips. This means there is a huge, untapped potential to shift a significant portion of these short-distance trips to foot or bicycle, if we make some modest adjustments and if we step up our focus on safety.
A 2003 transportation research board study showed that residents of neighborhoods with sidewalks were 65 percent more likely to walk than residents of neighborhoods without sidewalks. That kind of makes sense. As I said, my wife and I take a mile walk in the morning, and we have sidewalks part of the way, and part of the way we are out in the street. Fortunately, there is not a lot of traffic at that time. More than once, we have been walking down the street where there are no sidewalks and you don't hear a car coming and they slip by you. I have often thought what if I happen to step one way or the other while walking and do not hear that car coming. That is why people don't walk more.
A study in Toronto documented a 23-percent increase in bicycle traffic after the installation of a bicycle lane. Think about that. They put in a bicycle lane and there was a 23-percent increase in bicycle traffic because people are more safe. They can travel on a bicycle and know they are not going to get hit. As a Senator who is a chief sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which we passed 15 years ago, I can testify that stepped-up attention to pedestrian improvement and access will be enormously beneficial to people with disabilities and also to our growing population of seniors.
Right now, about 85 percent of bus and rail users get to the bus stops and subway stations on foot. Many are people with disabilities. And seniors have no choice but to rely on costly paratransit services; they cost a lot of money. A lot of times we pay for it out of taxpayer dollars. We can reduce those costs by building new walkways and improving the existing walkways.
I have something here that was put out by the National Association of County and City Health Officials called Public Health and Land Use Planning and Community Design.
It says here that a Texas study--that is the State I referred to earlier--found that for three out of five disabled and elderly people, there are no sidewalks between their homes and the closest bus stop. I will repeat that. A Texas study found that for three out of five disabled and elderly people, there are no sidewalks between their homes and the closest bus stop.
One of the reasons we passed the Americans with Disabilities Act was so more people with disabilities would get into the workforce. More often than not, they rely on a bus to get there. How are they going to get to the bus stop if they don't have a sidewalk on which to even get to the bus stop?
Over 55 percent of all pedestrian deaths occur in neighborhoods that are often designed with no sidewalks or otherwise inadequate pedestrian accommodations. So, again, in terms of helping people with disabilities make sure they can get to a job, or get to shopping, or whatever they need to do, they rely upon transit services, buses. But if they cannot even get to the bus stop, what good is it?
Over the last two generations, we have seen dramatic changes in how children go to school. As recently as 30 years ago, up to 70 percent of children were walking or riding bikes to school. Outside of every school you would see bicycle racks loaded with dozens of bikes. Not anymore. Today, nearly 90 percent of our kids are traveling to school in vehicles, mostly buses. But if you checked the high school parking lots, you know it is cars, too. In addition, a growing number of parents are driving their kids to school, putting further stress on the roadways during the morning rush hour. Again, the logical alternative is to provide safe, convenient options to encourage children to walk or bike to school.
I was saying earlier to Senators on the floor, I remember my own two daughters, when they went to public school out in Virginia. We live about a mile from school. Well, there was a sidewalk about a third of the way, and about two-thirds of the way there was no sidewalk. It was a busy thoroughfare. How are you going to let them bike? You are not going to let them walk. So they got a car to drive a mile. I would not let our kids walk on that street and neither would our neighbors. Again, they will come along later and retrofit a sidewalk and that will cost more money, or they will put in a bike path later. Why don't we do it up front, get the planning done up front?
That is what this amendment is all about. Our focus in a transportation bill, I believe, should not strictly be on moving vehicles. We should be more broadly focused on moving people and making it possible for more people to move themselves by foot or by bicycle. For every American who opts to get to work, school, or the grocery store by foot or bicycle, that is less costs for road building and maintenance, zero contribution to traffic congestion, zero costs in terms of pollution and environmental degradation. Every walking and bicycle trip that substitutes for a car trip, especially during rush hour, makes a big difference.
In local situations, where we can encourage hundreds or thousands of people to shift to walking and bicycling, this can have a dramatically positive impact on the transportation system.
So improving and expanding sidewalks and bike paths is not only about safety, it is about maximizing the performance of our transportation systems. Again, the good news is, to make a positive difference, large numbers of vehicles do not need to be moved off a congested roadway. Just some of them need to be moved. It is the incremental user that spells the difference between
free-flowing traffic and time-wasting congestion, and that is why any thoughtful, effective transportation policy for this Nation must aim for at least modest gains in walking and bicycling.
So again I have talked about how, by investing in sidewalks and bike paths, we can reduce the stresses on our transportation system. I have also talked about how this can improve safety for pedestrians and bikers. There is one other huge benefit that, by itself, would justify passing this amendment. Simply put, by encouraging more Americans to spend more time walking and biking, we can have a major positive impact on their health and their wellness. We can reduce the incidence of obesity and chronic diseases. This, in turn, will lead to savings in health care costs, including Medicare and Medicaid.
Ninety million people in the United States are living with chronic diseases, and many of these can be prevented through changes in lifestyle--for example, by eating nutritious foods and getting plenty of physical exercise. I wish to stress, physical exercise. When all is said and done, aside from tobacco use and genetic predisposition, there are essentially two things that lead to chronic disease: Poor nutrition and lack of physical activity. They also contribute to being overweight and obese.
So we need to be doing everything possible to encourage Americans to engage in more walking and bicycling. We can begin by making it possible for more young people to walk or to bike to school.
Currently, only 8 percent of elementary schools and 6 percent of high schools provide daily physical education year round for all students. More than one-third of youngsters in grades 9 to 12 do not engage regularly in vigorous physical activity. No wonder we have an epidemic of childhood obesity. No wonder that American adolescents rank as the most overweight in the industrialized world.
And the picture is just as bleak for adults. Almost 40 percent of American adults are sedentary. In the United States, only six percent of trips are by walking or biking, compared to 49 percent of trips in Sweden and 54 percent of trips in Italy.
Research shows that the amount of time people spend in their cars correlates more strongly with overweight and obesity than income, education, gender, or ethnicity.
One remarkable study compared the health of people living in walking- and-biking-friendly cities with the health of people living in sprawling, car-dependent suburbs. The study, published in 2003 in the American Journal of Health Promotion, found that people living in counties marked by sprawling development are likely to walk less and weigh more than people who live in less sprawling counties. In addition, people living in more sprawling counties are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure. These results hold true after controlling for factors such as age, education, gender, and race and ethnicity.
One does not need a Harvard study to establish another correlation: The correlation between the decline in physical activity and skyrocketing health-care, Medicaid, and Medicare costs. We build subdivisions without sidewalks, schools without playgrounds, and cities without bike lanes, and then we wring our hands about rising rates of overweight, obesity, and chronic disease. We systematically neglect wellness, fitness, and common-sense disease prevention and we are shocked, shocked that health care costs are ravaging Federal, State, and corporate budgets.
Someone once defined insanity as doing the same old thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Well, our current health care approach is, by definition, insane. In fact, in America, today, we don't have a true health care system, we have a sick care system. If you are sick, you get care. We continue to spend hundreds of billions on pills, surgery, treatments, and disability. But we are under- funding, cutting or eliminating programs designed to keep people fit and well and out of the hospital.
We cannot go on like this. We are choking our economy. We are exploding the Federal budget. And we are, literally, killing ourselves.
Consider the obesity epidemic. Some 65 percent of our population is now overweight or obese. The incidence of childhood obesity is now at epidemic levels. Alarm bells are going off all over the place. But our Government has done virtually nothing.
And the Federal budget is being eaten alive by health care costs. It is also State budgets. It is family budgets. And it is corporate budgets.
Look at the numbers. Last year, nationally, we spent more than $100 billion on obesity alone. Medicare and Medicaid picked up almost half of that tab.
This is unwise. It is uneconomic. And, as we now know, it is totally unsustainable. If we are going to control Medicare and Medicaid costs, and private-sector health care costs, as well, we need a radical change of course. We need a fundamental paradigm shift toward preventing disease, promoting good nutrition, and encouraging fitness and wellness. This will be good for the physical health of the American people. And it will be good for the fiscal health of Government, corporate, and family budgets.
That is exactly what this amendment is about. Yes, this amendment is a step towards reducing the burdens and stresses on our transportation system. It will improve safety for pedestrians and bikers. By encouraging walking and bicycling, it will also have significant health benefits. And, as a consequence, it will help to hold down health care costs and reduce the burden on Medicare and Medicaid.
Now let me explain the specific ways that my amendment will help us to capitalize on these opportunities.
My amendment asks the Secretary of Transportation to report to Congress each year as to how the Federal research dollars provided in this legislation are advancing progress on safety and other issues related to walking and bicycling.
It also asks the Secretary to establish goals for increasing walking and bicycling, and to set milestones toward achieving these goals.
Looking into the future, it asks each State department of transportation to have a policy statement on ``complete streets,'' so that when they undertake projects funded under this highway bill, some consideration must be given to the needs of non-motorized users.
Larger metropolitan planning organizations--that is, regional transportation agencies serving 200,000 or more people--can choose to adopt a ``complete streets'' policy or satisfy certain criteria in their planning process. And these agencies must show how their long- range plans and transportation improvement programs will increase walking and bicycling. It does not require that sidewalks or bikeways be built along side rural roads or intercity roads.
Finally, under my amendment, these large metropolitan planning organizations, or MPOs, are encouraged to work with their local governments on improvements designed to increase biking and walking. In addition, the MPOs would be directed to designate a bicycle and pedestrian coordinator, a move that would be in line with a requirement placed on state transportation departments dating back to the 1991 ISTEA law.
Each of these provisions is designed to better align our current law practices with key features of the bill before us.
In the SAFETEA bill, the committee has provided for important financial commitments to bikes and trails. But we need to fully integrate the needs of pedestrians and bicyclists into the complete transportation process.
There are also provisions in my amendment regarding how we conduct Federal research activities. This is designed to expand our knowledge of effective pedestrian and bicycle safety practices, and to help our State and local partners understand the best methods and practices for addressing these safety needs.
Provisions in this ``Complete Streets'' amendment will help us to ensure that we are designing transportation projects, up front, with pedestrian and bicycle safety in mind, so we don't have to keep going back and retrofitting. So many of the programs in the SAFETEA bill involve re-doing and retrofitting what we didn't do right in the first place. In the future, as each State adopts a ``Complete Streets'' policy, this can be avoided.
Finally, this amendment attempts to set modest goals for increasing the
number of walking and bicycling trips, while reducing pedestrian and bicycle fatalities.
I believe that this modest package of policy improvements can and will make a significant difference. I am very pleased by the broad range of organizations that enthusiastically endorse this amendment.
Yes.
Absolutely.
Wait just a second, Mr. President. The Senator said he wants to do what at 5:30?
Well, I had a request from Senator Carper who wanted to speak. I assume Senator Bond may want to speak. I do not know. That is only 7 more minutes.
Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I wonder if the Chairman would permit me to modify my amendment by striking lines 6 through line 16 on page 5 dealing with research.
I ask unanimous consent to do that.
Mr. President, I wanted to make sure the Senator from Missouri had adequate time to speak. I think I have made my case. I wanted to point out who is in support of this amendment. I have a nice chart that says it all. The American Association of Retired People, the Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations, the MPOs, are in favor of this, as well as America Bikes, Natural Resources Defense Council; Paralyzed Veterans of America, again, because of the disability issue; America Walks; the American Heart Association strongly supports this; the American Public Health Association; the American Society of Landscape Architects; the American Planning Association, among a lot of others, are in favor of this amendment.
I hope we can adopt this amendment for a number of reasons, not the least of which is for the health and welfare of the American people and to get more people walking and biking but to get it done upfront, so when they are planning, it is integrated upfront, and that
is really what this amendment does, in essence.
This amendment asks for upfront planning, that they have a policy statement, that metropolitan planning organizations have a complete streets policy, that all of this is done upfront. Let us quit coming in and backfilling and putting in bike paths and sidewalks after the fact. Let us get it done upfront. That is really what this is all about.
I ask unanimous consent that letters from the following national organizations be printed in the Record: the Surface Transportation Policy Project, AARP, America Walks, the National Center for Bicycling and Walking, the Metropolitan Planning Organizations, the League of American Bicyclists, The American Society of Landscape Architects and the National Resources Defense Council, and a fact sheet from the National Association of County & City Health Officials.
This amendment will improve our transportation system. It will improve pedestrian and bicycle safety.
And it will be good for the health and wellness of the American people. I urge my colleagues to join me in a strong, bipartisan vote in favor of this amendment.
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, this amendment is about doing what is logical regarding sidewalks and bike paths in the planning stages. You will hear there is money in this bill for sidewalks and bike trails. That is true. But more often than not, we are always doing things after the fact. We are redoing it.
All this amendment says is in the planning upfront, you plan for sidewalks where they are logical. You plan for bike paths where they are logical. You plan it in the beginning, not doing it later on. These are some of the organizations who support the amendment: the American Association of Retired People, the Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations--they are the ones who have to do the planning; they are in favor of this amendment--American Bikes, Paralyzed Veterans of America--people with disabilities need more sidewalks--the American Heart Association, and the American Public Health Association.
Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.