The future of green infrastructure and bicycle projects is under attack. The U.S. Department of Transportation (US DOT) has issued a memo calling for the removal of these critical projects from federal grant funding. If this directive stands, communities across the country will lose essential infrastructure that enhances public health, safety, and economic opportunity.
🚨 This is a direct threat to landscape architecture and the communities we serve. Now is the time to take action and implore the US DOT to reverse this damaging policy.
📢 Take action in just one step:
✅Sign the letter to US DOT Secretary Sean Duffy to highlight how bicycle and green infrastructure projects improve mobility, public health, climate resilience, and economic growth—and how landscape architects are leading the way in their design.
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✅ Share this alert with colleagues and encourage them to act. We need every landscape architecture advocate to stand up and defend these vital projects. Your voice is critical in stopping this harmful policy before it’s too late.
Thank you for your advocacy—let’s make sure US DOT hears us loud and clear!
Dear Secretary Duffy:
We, the undersigned landscape architecture professionals and advocates, are writing to urge you to continue funding bicycle and green infrastructure projects. These projects are sensible economic, health, and safety investments for communities nationwide.
Today, many communities want less costly and more convenient active transportation options like bicycling and walking, among others. Dedicated bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure helps millions of Americans commute to work, provides young people safe routes to school, and creates healthy recreational opportunities. Studies have shown that communities with enhanced bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure enjoy significant economic benefits, including increased retail and restaurant usage, increased disposable household incomes, and increased property values. Dedicated bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure provides a safe, reliable form of transportation for families across the nation.
Further, integrated vegetation management projects, also known as green infrastructure, are critical to most transportation projects. Many highways, roads, and streets are purposefully designed using green infrastructure to stabilize the project and prevent erosion. Eliminating green infrastructure from these transportation projects could leave them vulnerable and unsafe for use. Also, as severe flooding continues to plague communities, including their transportation networks, green infrastructure projects help prevent flooding by absorbing and managing stormwater. The agriculture community and our nation’s food supplies also rely on the 17 million acres of roadsides continuing to be vegetated, as this space provides critical habitats for migrating pollinator populations.
Both bicycle and green infrastructure projects help small businesses. Unlike large highway projects, which are built by large construction firms, green infrastructure and bicycle infrastructure projects are planned, designed, and built by small landscape architecture firms and small supplier and contracting companies. Landscape architects have the education, training, and expertise to lead the planning and design of these and other community infrastructure projects in a way that fosters economic development, generates local jobs, and creates healthy communities.
Once again, we urge you to consider the economic, health, and safety benefits of bicycle and green infrastructure projects and to continue to fund these important community investments.
Sincerely,
[We, the undersigned]