Citation

Freemark Y, Su Y, Oliver W, Fiol O. Urban Institute. Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, 2022.

Copyright

(Copyright 2022, Urban Institute)

The full document is available online.

Abstract

Cycling infrastructure can help broaden access to mobility by offering residents a low-cost, reliable, and sustainable means of transportation. Yet cities in the United States have thus far failed to systematically expand their cycling networks in a fashion that is safe for users and encourages a mode shift out of cars and into this more equitable and environmentally friendly transport mode. To help stimulate further investment in cycling infrastructure, between 2018 and 2021 the Final Mile program funded communications campaigns, advocacy efforts, and engineering consulting in five US cities. The program set out to test whether philanthropic assistance for municipal biking projects could accelerate city investments in communities where local leaders were already supportive of cycling infrastructure.

To examine the effectiveness of the Final Mile program, we conducted interviews with community stakeholders and collected data in each of the funded cities—Austin, Denver, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, and Providence. We also assembled information about what similar cities elsewhere in the country had done. We found that the program's support for continuous pressure on local officials—including by convening frequent meetings between city staff and cycling advocates, funding advertising, and identifying quantified investment goals—helped encourage all the funded cities to significantly expand their respective protected cycling infrastructure. They did so far more quickly than comparable cities elsewhere in the United States. Though gaps remain in achieving the complete bike networks the cities ultimately hope to build, the program could be a model for advocates looking to inspire local governments to follow through with their policy goals. This report summarizes our conclusions, identifying the successes and challenges faced by this program.