Office of Planning, Environment, & Realty (HEP)
Planning • Environment • Real Estate
The Bicycle & Pedestrian Program of the Federal Highway Administration's Office of Human Environment promotes bicycle and pedestrian transportation use, safety, and accessibility.
Each State has a Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator in its State Department of Transportation to promote and facilitate the increased use of nonmotorized transportation, including developing facilities for the use of pedestrians and bicyclists and public educational, promotional, and safety programs for using such facilities. The State Coordinators can help you with questions specific to your State.
The FHWA Bicycle & Pedestrian Program issues guidance and is responsible for overseeing that requirements in legislation are understood and met by the States and other implementing agencies.
On this site you can find information about the amount of federal funding spent on pedestrian and bicycle projects in your state, available federal funding sources, existing legislation, and guidance about accessible design.
FHWA also sponsors resources such as the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center to provide information on a wide variety of engineering, encouragement, education, and enforcement topics. The Center was established with funding from the US DOT and is operated by the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center.
Section 1807 of SAFETEA-LU created the Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program. The goal of this program is to demonstrate how improvements to walking and bicycling infrastructure can increase mode share for walking and bicycling. Four communities (Columbia, MO; Marin County, CA; Minneapolis Area, MN; Sheboygan County, WI) have each received over 25 million dollars to improve their walking and bicycling networks. According to SAFETEA-LU, "The purpose of the program shall be to demonstrate the extent to which bicycling and walking can carry a significant part of the transportation load, and represent a major portion of the transportation solution." A final report to Congress describing the program outcomes was submitted in April, 2012.
This policy statement, released in March 2010, emphasizes the needs and requirements to integrate walking and bicycling into transportation systems and provides some recommendations on how to do so.
The final report for the International Scan on Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety and Mobility has been released. The FHWA/AASHTO Scan Team visited Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom in 2009. The report describes how these countries have made walking and bicycling safer and more convenient through policy, engineering, education, enforcement, encouragement, and evaluation strategies. A follow-on review of Public Policies for Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety and Mobility has also been released.
Learn more about the many benefits of walking and bicycling. In this section we list many research studies that attempt to quantify the health and environmental benefits of walking and bicycling.
Enjoy the benefits of active transportation. Whether you are interested in commuting to DOT Headquarters or are just visiting, in this section you can:
