Good News in Calif. State Budget: Active Transportation Program Funding Restored

Sharp-eyed Jared Sanchez at the California Bicycle Coalition noticed that a threatened $500 million cut to the Active Transportation Program has disappeared from the budget deal signed by Governor Newsom.

In his January budget proposal, Newsom had floated the idea of balancing the deficit in part by clawing back part of a promised one-time boost of $1 billion to the ATP. He kept that in his May revision, but the focus of budget negotiations was on other issues, including the pending transit deficit. That was temporarily resolved with a $1.1 billion allocation from the state’s cap-and-trade fund.

In the end, when the budget was signed, the cancellation of ATP funds was not in it. More details from Sanchez and CalBike here.

Also note that CalBike is pushing for a lot more money to be spent on active transportation, period. The urgency of climate change, heightened by scary headlines every day, should be reason enough for the state to just stop putting its transportation money towards car travel. $10 billion to encourage people to walk and bike would be a solid – and relatively – inexpensive investment.