The Fight for Safe Streets Intensifies: Executive Action Threatens State and Local Funding

In 1892, when the nascent League of American Bicyclists (then the Wheelmen) was at the beginning of our fight for bicyclists’ rights, we took a petition with 150,000 signatures to Congress to demand a “Road Department” that would work to ensure people biking had safe, good roads for transportation or recreation. 

In 1991, it was Congress that established the first major sources of federal funding for bicycling and walking projects. In the 18 years before 1991, all 50 states combined spent a total of $40 million – approximately $2 million per year. 

In 2021, it was Congress that continued to strengthen and increase the emphasis on federal support of active transportation modes like bicycling, with funding available to states at levels as high as $1.4 billion per year. 

Now, in 2025, it is the executive branch via the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) that is trying to undo the bipartisan laws passed by Congress – threatening decades of work to build better roads for people who bike and threatening the safety of our very lives. 

While we were alarmed in March by a potential freezing or cancellation of discretionary grants, we are now astonished by this new attack on all federal transportation funding, which would necessarily mean a catastrophic blow to bicycling and walking projects. 

In a letter to all recipients of USDOT funding, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy threatens to withdraw funding to recipients that do not “comply fully with all applicable Federal laws and regulations” and then goes on to specifically claim that any program or project – whether it is described in neutral terms or not – is a violation of federal law if it is based on “discriminatory policies or practices designed to achieve so-called ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ or ‘DEI.’” 

This isn’t just the Administration making choices on grants they’ve been given permission to determine, this is the Administration rescinding state and local governments’ rights to determine what is best for their communities. This is holding congressionally-directed federal funding hostage, which has been legally directed to state and local governments, in an effort to compel compliance from those state and local governments on unrelated legal policies. 

After DEI, the letter takes aim at cities’ and states’ immigration policy, noting that recipients’ compliance and cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is mandatory. Cities or states that receive federal transportation funds and also issue driver’s license to undocumented people, or who decline to cooperate with ICE, are called out and given a choice: end these policies or risk USDOT funding. 

This letter raises so many questions: Is every recipient of federal transportation funds now potentially in violation and at risk of losing all funding? Or worse, the clawing back of “possible recovery of funds expended” the letter also threatens? Or even more arbitrarily, the termination of funding simply if USDOT determines it is “no longer in the public interest”? 

That we don’t know the answers to these questions is where the letter’s power lies. 

Whether or not this letter is legally binding or has the authority to change the law of the land, as determined by Congress and signed by several presidents over the years, it’s the uncertainty that will stall state and local governments from being able to build better, safer roads. 

We already know some cities and states have put projects on hold. We already know some recipients are nervous about signing new agreements. 

Though Duffy’s letter does not say “bicycling” once, its intent will stall progress on bike safety for years to come. 

And Duffy is elsewhere proving he is no friend to bicyclists. At a forum in Washington last week, Secretary Duffy was asked about the March memo on reviewing all funding for bike infrastructure. Here’s how Streetsblog reported on his answer: 

“I’m not opposed to bikes,” he began. “But in New York … they want to expand bike lanes, and then they get more congestion. … What are the roads for, and how do we use our roads? If we put bikes on roadways, and then we get congestion, it’s a really bad experience for a lot of people.

“I do think it’s a problem when we’re making massive investments in bike lanes at the expense of vehicles,” he added. “I do think you see more congestion when you add bike lanes and take away vehicle lanes. That’s a problem.”

The future of safe bicycling hangs in the balance right now. (None of that is true, by the way, and Streetsblog’s article breaks it down nicely.) 

Here is what the League is working on and how you can help: 

• Sign our petition! – Already signed? Share it far and wide! At the conclusion of Bike Month, we’ll be sharing the signatures with Secretary Duffy and Congress. 
• We’re meeting with congressional offices in Washington every week, keeping up the pressure on legislators to ensure federal funding for bike lanes keeps flowing. You can help by reaching out to your member of Congress (you can find them using our Action Center.) Invite them to visit new bike infrastructure next time they are in the district, go for a ride, or plan to meet with them in their district office.   
• We’re looking ahead to the next five-year transportation authorization bill in 2026 and working to ensure our priorities are Congress’s priorities in the next bill. While the road is rough at the moment, we know progress is possible — because we’ve seen it in action since 1892.