Let me set a gloomy picture. In early September, letters were sent out to select US state governments informing them that their federal funding for cycle and pathways was being withdrawn – and it was awash with pro-car sentiment.<\/p>\n
In Boston, funding was withdrawn from the city\u2019s plans to improve foot and cyclepaths out of fear that it would change the city\u2019s \u201ccurrent auto-centric configuration\u201d. A San Diego Country road improvement project featuring new bike lanes \u201cappears to reduce lane capacity and a road diet that is hostile to motor vehicles,\u201d and so the project\u2019s $1.2 million grant was rescinded.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n And in Alabama, a project converting street lanes to trail space was deemed \u201chostile\u201d to cars and \u201ccounter to the Department of Transport\u2019s [DOT] priority of preserving or increasing roadway capacity for motor vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n In total, the Trump administration has withdrawn $1.1 trillion in infrastructure funding promised in 2021 under the Biden administration to improve bike trails and pavements.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you don\u2019t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail,\u201d the President told the United Nations General Assembly last month, in a sentiment indicative of his wider beliefs about climate change – a \u201ccon job\u201d, pedalled by \u201cstupid people\u201d.<\/p>\n This is the US in 2026, but active travel budget<\/a> cuts have taken place across the pond, too.<\/p>\n Current active travel spending in Northern Ireland <\/a>was revealed last month to be an estimated \u00a335 million short of what is needed to fulfil its commitments to the Climate Change Act. Only 1.1% of journeys less than a mile were taken by bike, as opposed to their target of 20% in NI. And the infrastructure designed to promote this kind of travel has fallen short, too, with just 30% of a 330km greenway target completed by April 2025, with one more year to go.<\/p>\n Across the UK more generally, 57% of councils didn’t use all of their active travel budget in 2024-25.<\/p>\n But, a relative hope on the horizon came this summer, when the Court of Appeal found that Treasury cuts to active travel funding<\/a> in March 2023 under the previous Conservative government were unlawful. The ruling also means that ministers can\u2019t disregard duties set by Parliament, no matter how \u201cinconvenient\u201d they may be. This may guard against US-style funding cuts happening in the future, though the Treasury was not made to pay back the \u00a3200 million previously promised.<\/p>\n “Investing in small scale schemes, rather than glossy mega-projects like roads, means higher returns for the country and real benefits for communities,” said Chris Todd, director of Transport Action Network, who brought the legal action.<\/p>\n To the backdrop of this, the government was quietly writing up their 2025 Spending Review<\/a>, in which they allocated \u00a3616 million funding to Active Travel England. Though a large lump sum that gives relative long-term certainty, this divvies out to an average of \u00a3154 million per year, in a significant decrease on 2021\/22 and 2022\/23.<\/p>\n \u201cAccording to the Institute for Public Policy Research\u2019s latest report, to reach the active travel targets set by the government, it needs to commit to spending at least \u00a32bn a year on active travel in England,\u201d Duncan Dollimore, Head of Campaigns at Cycling UK<\/a>, told Zag Daily.<\/p>\n Is this all we can hope for? A gradual reduction in spending until a complete grounding halt? When our governments withdraw funding from public safety and climate-positive initiatives, we all suffer. Even in Republican strongholds in America, the demand for active transportation networks is growing, according to Kevin Mills of \u2018Rails to Trails Conservancy\u2019. The dependence on the car has damaging consequences. Americans currently drive around 50% more than Canadians, and are two and a half times more likely to die in a collision than them, too.<\/p>\n