Wisconsin Bike Fed Executive Director Kirsten Finn

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Photo by Laura Dierbeck

Kirsten Finn

Kirsten Finn

For many of us, summer in Wisconsin means taking advantage of the weather on a bicycle. It may be a daily commute, workout or escape to nature on the many trails that crisscross urban and rural landscapes.

Through education, legislation and involvement, Wisconsin Bike Fed works to unite residents, business and political leaders to make the state more bike friendly. Wisconsin Bike Fed Executive Director Kirsten Finn paid close attention to the June meeting of the Joint Finance Committee meeting on Department of Transportation (DOT) budget.

Surprisingly, according to the League of American Bicyclists most recent Bicycle Friendly States Rankings, Wisconsin currently ranks 49th in the nation in the amount of money spent on biking and walking at just $.85 per capita. Under the new federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, there is significantly more money available for biking and walking.

Finn has suggested Wisconsin act to secure funding to match the national average of spending 2.2% of its transportation on biking and walking. She talks about challenges for cyclists and how funding can improve urban thoroughfares and trails.

Do you think people are surprised to learn that nearly every other state invests more in bicycling infrastructure than Wisconsin?

Yes. States like Alabama, you’d be surprised to learn they invest more than we do in biking and walking. We’d like to see Wisconsin come up to that national average of 2.2% of federal transportation dollars.

What is the TAP (Transportation Alternatives Plan) program and how it can be more effective in getting revenue to projects?

TAP is for transportation projects that don’t involve cars. It is the primary source of funding for biking and walking projects in Wisconsin. There are other federal programs, but the Wisconsin legislature has limited how much of those funds can be used, so TAP is really our main source of funding. 

Out of that is the Recreation Trails Program which goes to the DNR, and they use that to maintain the state trails. The rest of it is a competitive grant, based on population size. 

The Bike Fed realized that small rural communities rarely got any TAP money. With the new population breakdown, that is $10 million available over the next two years for communities and none of them are applying. 

They are not applying for two reasons: because they often don’t have anyone with the technical expertise to write the grants and the TAP program is an 80/20 split with 80% federal dollars with a 20% match. 

Bike Fed had a short-term contract from January to March to help communities of 5000-and-under to help with technical assistance and write proposals. Another thing DOT did was to simplify the proposals for school-based programs.

How did the DOT’s request for Transportation Alternatives Funds turn out?

The DOT’s request for $18.2 million annually in Transportation Alternatives Funds (TAP) was approved.  Unfortunately, the $1.2 million annual matching grant pot for small communities did not get approved.  It was our hope that these funds would help communities under 5000 in population who struggle to make the required 20% local match to qualify for TAP projects.

Good news for cyclists and other trail users, the DNR was approved for 17 trail maintenance projects.

In Milwaukee dangerous traffic is an ongoing problem, affecting bicyclists as well as pedestrians and motorists. A white-painted “ghost bike” was placed each year on Kinnickinnic Ave., as a memorial near the spot where a cyclist was killed. The Wisconsin Bike Fed office, located in the Wheel and Sprocket Bay View complex, is only a block away. How can it be safer to ride on Milwaukee streets?

Milwaukee’s DPW is doing more investment in creating bike infrastructure on the city’s most dangerous corridors. Closing the slip lanes so people are not passing on the right—driving in the bike lanes is a huge problem, reckless driving in general. There is a lot of investment in law enforcement ticketing people after the fact. You don’t want to punish them after the fact, you want to prevent accidents from happening. Bollards that bump out the curb and big stone planters to prevent cars from getting into the passing lanes can be effective. 

Back to that rural/urban disparity, a lot of the things that rural communities are coming to us for help with are schools on a two-lane country highway where cars are going 55 miles per hour and kids need to cross the road. The community doesn’t have the money in the budget for a raised pedestrian island or a blinking stop sign and they are trying to apply for a TAP grant for a basic traffic calming infrastructure. 

[I was] hoping what’s in the governor’s budget will help address rural as well as urban equity to help with those kinds of traffic calming measures. Unfortunately, what is ‘out’ is the governor's proposed $60 million for traffic calming.

What projects can we look forward to locally?

The 30th Street Corridor from American Family Field to Havenwoods State Forest. Right now, they are working on the Beerline extension from the Oak Leaf Trail out to 30th Street. It would create a square around the entire city, you could go north or south on Oak Leaf or the Corridor and east or west on the Beerline and the Hank Aaron Trail. It would be an interconnected bikeway system for Milwaukee.