Biking advocates aren’t ready to crow about their clout just yet. The bike lobby rolls on

The bicycle lobby is real.

Wall Street Journal editorial board member Dorothy Rabinowitz drew widespread mockery when she suggested in an online video that “the bike lobby is an all-powerful enterprise” while she blasted the New York bike sharing program as the product of a “totalitarian” city government.


All-powerful the bike lobby is not. Cars — and the infrastructure needed to accommodate them — receive an overwhelming percentage of federal, state and local transportation dollars. But a scrappy band of bicycle manufacturers, smart-growth advocates and cycling nonprofits is increasingly fighting — and winning — battles at all levels of government.

( PHOTOS: Politicians riding bikes)

They’ve helped birth the proliferation of bike share systems across the country, thousands of miles of newly paved or painted bike lanes, new laws to protect riders and a vocal constituency of die-hard activists and voters. Now, those activists are increasingly branching into politics — forming PACs, backing friendly politicians and donating money on behalf of their cause.

But biking advocates aren’t ready to crow about their clout.

“Anyone who says the bike lobby is all-powerful and amazing, that’s flattering, but we’re still talking about 1 to 2 percent of transportation funding,” said Tim Blumenthal, president of Bikes Belong.

“The idea that there is an all-powerful bicycle lobby is absurd,” said Ray Keener, executive director of the Bicycle Product Suppliers Association. “We’re very vocal,” he added. “We just don’t have any funding. Compared to the road builders, we’re a tiny, tiny percentage of their funding.”

His organization, which represents manufacturers in the bicycle supply chain, spent about $20,000 in lobbying in 2012 with the firm Venable. Meanwhile, AAA alone spent more than $500,000 on lobbying in 2012. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, or AASHTO, spent more than $160,000 last year; General Motors spent $7.1 million on federal lobbying; and Ford spent $6.8 million.

In fiscal year 2011, cyclists and pedestrians got about $280 million in federal transportation money, according to data collected by the National Transportation Alternatives Clearinghouse — a sliver of the federal transportation budget.

The effort has been a bit more successful on the local level in some communities. Washington Mayor Vincent Gray recently proposed to spend what the D.C. Bicycle Advisory Council estimated is about $3.7 million of its transportation fund on bicycle programs, and the district has made a robust, multiyear public investment in its Capital Bikeshare program.

In fiscal year 2011, before the passage of the latest federal transportation law, $1.2 billion was available for “transportation enhancements,” which included biking and walking programs. That law, Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century, known as MAP-21, consolidated those programs to create the “transportation alternatives” program, which was allotted $809 million for fiscal 2013 and an additional $820 million for fiscal 2014.

That success may be hard to duplicate. Members of the League of American Bicyclists say Hill staffers tell them that while biking has an official spot at the transportation table, they are hesitant about funding.

“People don’t hate biking, but they don’t like dedicated funding,” said Caron Whitaker, the league’s vice president of government relations.

The bicycle community hopes to change that partially by playing the typical game of advocacy and endorsements.

In April, a group of cyclist and transportation activists launched StreetsPAC, an effort to get pro-cycling and pro-alternative-transportation candidates elected in New York.

“This [bicycle] advocacy movement hasn’t really been playing the political game like the political players are playing it,” said Aaron Naparstek, one of the co-founders of StreetsPAC.

Naparstek, a journalist and activist who launched the website Streetsblog, says the new PAC intends to participate heavily in the 2013 New York election — a campaign in which bikes have already become a major issue thanks to the new bike sharing system.

One candidate for mayor is former Rep. Anthony Weiner, who famously said he would “have a bunch of ribbon-cuttings” to tear out Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s bike lanes. He has since reversed his opinion, saying he loves bike lanes.

On the Hill, Bikes Belong’s BikesPAC has handed out $32,000 so far this year in contributions, primarily to Democrats and moderate Republicans, with special attention paid to Republicans on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Top House recipients of BikesPAC money have included Reps. John Mica (R-Fla.), Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), Tom Latham (R-Iowa), Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), Tom Petri (R-Wis.) and former Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio). Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), biking’s top congressional evangelist, has received the most in BikesPAC contributions — $8,000 in 2012 and $9,500 in 2010.

The PAC has also given to moderate Republican groups, such as Tuesday Group PAC and the Republican Main Street Partnership.

The PAC “helps us get in the door,” Blumenthal said. “I think what we have is a pretty good story to tell — modest, cost-effective investments in bike infrastructure pay off.”

Pro-biking groups have seen their overall budgets swell in recent years. The Alliance for Biking & Walking went from less than $400,000 in 2008 to almost $900,000 in 2011 — according to the latest tax data available. Bikes Belong, which is organized legally as both a foundation and a business league, was operating on an $870,000 budget in 2008 and jumping to $3.1 million in income by 2011. The business league’s budget increased from $2.3 million in 2008 to $3.1 million in 2011.

“As biking has grown in the cities and communities, it has helped us have a bigger presence” said Whitaker, from the League of American Bicyclists.

The cycling league, along with Bikes Belong and the Alliance for Biking & Walking, are the major bicycle advocacy groups inside the Beltway. Other groups that lobby Congress on cycling issues include the Bicycle Manufacturer’s of America, the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals, the Bicycle Product Suppliers Association and America Bikes.

Its growing presence has reflected the interest in cycling issues, especially among younger Americans.

“It’s clear that there’s a larger trend going on here,” said Cheryl Cort, policy director for the Washington-based group Coalition for Smarter Growth. “Young professionals want to live in urban places — they’re pursuing jobs in places where there’s more convenience.”

Meanwhile, the biking community is losing a major ally at the Department of Transportation this summer.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood — a moderate Republican from Illinois — cycled to work as part of an awareness campaign, and under his leadership, the department recently launched a cycling safety campaign.

“We need to develop zero tolerance for people who don’t respect cyclists,” LaHood said in April.

LaHood plans to step down when the Senate confirms his replacement. And that may be soon — the Senate Commerce Committee has sent the nomination of Charlotte, N.C., Mayor Anthony Foxx to the floor.

“I wish we were all-powerful,” Whitaker said. “If we were all-powerful, I think the first thing that we would do is clone Ray LaHood.”

Kathryn A. Wolfe contributed to this report.

This article tagged under: Lobbying

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