Balanced transportation systems are fundamental to healthy communities. A strong economy and high quality of life depend on safe and easy access for all residents to jobs, schools, transit, shops, services, places of worship, parks and playgrounds, and friends and family. Public health is improved by providing a built environment that facilitates routine physical activity. Investing in networks of infrastructure that enable walking and bicycling—or active transportation—is critical to providing transportation systems that meet everyone’s needs, regardless of whether they drive, and to increase mobility, improve access for people with disabilities, spur economic development and promote healthy practices.

We are urging the Trump Administration to enact policies that:

• Connect people to important destinations—such as jobs, schools, transit, health care and parks—and opportunities for healthy physical activity.
  
  
• Fuel economic development, attract tourists, reduce health-care costs and aim to eliminate traffic deaths, particularly among pedestrians and bicyclists.
  
  
• Concentrate on meeting the needs of people who do not drive, such as many low-income individuals, people living with disabilities, seniors and children.

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Americans need safe routes to walk and bicycle, and such active transportation networks connecting community destinations are critical to making it safe and practical to routinely walk and bicycle. Supporting active transportation should be a national priority because it provides affordable mobility, promotes public health through physical activity and cleaner air, and creates jobs and community vitality. To realize these benefits to the nation, we call on the federal government to:

• Increase federal investment dedicated to safe active transportation networks;
  
  
• Use innovative financing to leverage the private value of infrastructure to stretch limited public dollars and accelerate projects; and
  
  
• Integrate health concerns into transportation decisions, and active transportation opportunities into health policies.

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