Bike/ped funding denied because it's too cheep
[B' Spokes: This is worth highlighting as it's even more applicable to bike/ped planning. Imagine being denied funding because what we want as a group is too cheep? Yet it happens all the time with bike/ped and this relates to our alert: Demand more for bike/ped <a href="http://www.baltimorespokes.org/article.php?story=20110921214018820">http://www.baltimorespokes.org/article.php?story=20110921214018820</a>; ]
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Excerpt from Greater Greater Washington:
Finally, our system of government and media has a bias toward transportation megaprojects over many smaller ones. A huge project gets headlines and attention. Leaders, from local to federal, like to be associated with big public works. Big projects make people feel that something significant is getting done.
This is unfortunate, since a larger number of smaller transportation improvements can make more of a difference for less money. As I noted in the Post, Capital Bikeshare (which was itself a big deal) could be built 18 times over for the price of the massive Gainesville interchange rebuild alone. Individual bike lanes, sidewalks, roundabouts, street reconnections, bus lanes, bus service enhancements, and more each cost little but add up to a lot of value.
The 2030 Group/Bob Chase/Rich Parsons survey of unnamed transportation experts fell (or deliberately leapt) into this trap, asking transportation engineers what their short list of 10 big projects would be to address regional mobility. Naturally, those engineers picked 10 very large projects even if 100 or 1,000 small ones would do more.