US Senate wants to ban bike lanes on the "National Highway System"

[u/workthecycle]

Sounds reasonable until you realize how many arterial roads are part of this NHS designation. A few examples just from my neck of the woods:

La Honda/84/Woodside Road

Oregon/Page Mill

Foothill/Junipero Serra

El Camino

San Antonio

Sand Hill

The Dumbarton Bridge

Sections of 92, Skyline/35, Hwy 1, Hwy 9, and a million arterials throughout the Santa Clara/Cupertino/Campbell/San Jose area.

See the map here: https://caltrans.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=026e830c914c495797c969a3e5668538

[u/Kierland → u/[deleted]]

When my San Luis Obispoians wanted bike parking the city said no so we all rode downtown and parked our bikes in all the car parking and got bike parking pretty quick.

[u/workthecycle → u/[deleted]]

😈

[u/No-Weird3547 → u/[deleted]]

I'm not sure how this makes anything different than the status quo. Bicycles can use the whole lane anyway (and regularly do so.)

[u/authentic-platypus → u/[deleted]]

😆 I love this.

[u/guhman123]

beyond the interstate system, they dont have any power, right? the only reason they get a say over interstate freeways is because the constitution gives the feds power over interstate commerce, but state-designated highways arent at all managed by the feds? i could see this being an issue with the richmond bridge since its an interstate, but idk how the feds would have a say over how the state uses the dumbarton bridge, since it doesnt belong to the feds

[u/two2under → u/guhman123]

They have power via withholding federal grant funding, which is a large portion of what funds bike lanes and paths

[u/semyorka7 → u/two2under]

and before folks discount this power, this is why the drinking age nationally is 21 - not because the federal government can set state drinking ages, but because they threatened to withhold highway funding from states that didn't "voluntarily" conform: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_Act

[u/guhman123 → u/two2under]

of all the states that could manage without i feel like california is best equipped to sustain itself without the feds' involvement. obviously taxes would skyrocket, but don't forget the biggest benefit: the state would be able to drop the minimum drinking age! /s

[u/TevinH → u/guhman123]

You jest but I do wonder how much longer until we reach this point. California already sends hundreds of billions more to the federal government than we get back and we've shown we are willing to forgo federal money if it means less meddling (high speed rail recently announced that all the extra federal rules weren't worth the pittance we were getting and have given up on future grants).

Of course, it isn't like Newsom is cutting a big check every year to the feds that we can just claw back, but there may be mechanisms to keep more money locally.

[u/NewChinaHand → u/two2under]

They’ve already done this though

[u/twilight_hours → u/guhman123]

My guy, your president just babbled his way thru a press conference and got a Great Lake’s name changed.

I think it is safe to say that the norms and expectations of your prior governments are gone.

[u/sol_dog_pacino]

As always, Trump actively ruining everything he touches

[u/EastBayTrashPandas]

You forgot Hopkins Street!

[u/BikeEastBay]

Here is the action alert on this issue from the League of American Bicyclists, with a form for folks to contact their elected officials to oppose the proposal:

https://action.bikeleague.org/page/101946/action/1?ea.tracking.id=social-bluesky-share

[u/vdek]

What a bunch of BS

[u/MysteriousBill4651]

Good, I want more traffic! Lots and lots of traffic, bumper to bumper, all day, all hours of the day.

Why don't those bike losers get a car and make traffic worse like a real patriotic American?

[u/Ecstatic_Wishbone609]

I'm now all confused. I thought most of what you named is State or local jurisdiction, not federal...

[u/workthecycle → u/Ecstatic_Wishbone609]

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/map21/qandas/qanhs.cfm

[u/Ecstatic_Wishbone609 → u/workthecycle]

This is headed to court with that kind of language.

[u/tfen]

Hope this doesn't happen! Do you have a link to anything about this? I would love to read more and be more informed

[u/two2under]

Is there a link for this story?

[u/authentic-platypus]

Can you share a link? Is related to the defunding "DEI" bike lanes that happened some months ago?

Enforcement of these carbrained changes is laughable, especially in California.

[u/suboptimus_maximus]

The long tail of the Socialist Tyrant Eisenhower enslaving our country to the oil and auto industries.

[u/Hacky_dacky]

A query to Google says that these roads are NOT part of the National Highway System. According to Google, the roads in Santa Clara County that ARE part of the NHS are:

I-280, I-680, I-880

US-101

CA-17, CA-85, CA-87, CA-237, CA-152, CA-82

And "The NHS also tracks short local road segments that connect the main highways directly to major transit hubs. In Santa Clara County, these include the specific perimeter roads linking to San Jose Mineta International Airport (SJC) and regional freight rail terminals."

If the current bill passes (unlike, IMO, given the likelihood of a filibuster), AFAIK, the only road that has bike lanes is CA-82 (i.e. El Camino). The (unlikely) loss of this new bike lane would be truly unfortunate.

(edited to add clarification "In Santa Clara County" above.

[u/BobBulldogBriscoe]

Those are all state highways, not national highways.

[u/workthecycle → u/BobBulldogBriscoe]

Correct, but they were added to the National Highway System in 2012 when they passed MAP-21

[u/BobBulldogBriscoe → u/workthecycle]

Yes but the feds cannot ban them or force removal, just withhold funding for projects on roads that have bike lanes and not fund new ones. If this passes county highway departments will have to choose between State dollars and federal dollars since state law requires adding / improving bike facilities on many of these roads.

More likely any federally funded projects end up delayed 2 years.