Could Building Bike Lanes Become America’s Next Big Infrastructure Project?

A new tool will help U.S. advocates fight for a national bike infrastructure network with the same passion with which highway boosters once fought for the national interstate system — and find battles close to home where they can have the most impact.

Nonprofit PeopleForBikes' recently launched the Great Bike Infrastructure Project, a new advocacy portal which aims to map all the "protected bike lanes, off-street trails, pump tracks, bike parks, and more" that U.S. communities are poised to build — particularly following the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which multiplied the amount of federal funding for cycling by roughly six.

Rather than treating those efforts as disconnected, though, the group says advocates need to start thinking of their hyper-local bike projects as part of one massive, national effort to combat climate change, cure traffic violence, and end universal car dependence — and do the urgent work of bringing transportation decision-makers together in a unified front.