A letter to city council: Inability to execute is not a justification for inaction

Dear Mayor and City Council Members,

I am writing as a Charlottesville resident, parent of three children, pedestrian, cyclist, and driver, who worries about the safety of my children and the health of our community to urge you to revise the FY27–31 Capital Improvement Program so that it aligns with the commitments to health, safety, climate resilience, and economic vitality you have already adopted in the Comprehensive Plan and Climate Action Plan.

We have heard that the bicycle infrastructure line is slated to drop to $100,000 per year, with neither systematization nor expansion of quick-build funding and no dedicated funding to harden successful quick-build pilots. That is a disastrous recipe for another decade of disconnected paint—spending money without meaningfully improving safety or access. And with less than $500,000 (even if we count other bike related projects) per year, we are not even funding that inadequate patchwork, let alone the protected, connected network that can actually change behavior and outcomes.

At the Planning Commission, the City Manager stated that he is unwilling to budget for bike infrastructure without concrete project proposals. 

This logic is backward. It is like refusing to save for retirement because you have not picked the exact date you will stop working or exactly how you will spend your money in retirement. We know we will have an urgent need. We know the costs will be substantial. Why would you wait until you have a perfect plan before you start setting aside the money?

There is also a deeper problem in the way this budget is being framed. Treating bike infrastructure as if it must “take away” from other priorities assumes a zero-sum budget, when in fact high-quality bike infrastructure creates large positive externalities: fewer serious crashes (for all road users), lower healthcare costs, more resilient local businesses, less congestion, and quieter, safer streets even for people who never get on a bike. Dollars spent on a connected, protected bike network are not a niche subsidy for a small group of cyclists; they are an investment that pays off across the entire transportation, health, and economic systems.

More fundamentally, the inability to execute is not a serious justification for inaction. In a city with decades of neglect, with virtually no coherent, safe bike network and almost non-existent traffic calming in most neighborhoods, it is troubling that we have not been able to develop a strong pipeline of safety projects (you can pick almost any stretch of street in our city and find opportunities for safer design). I urge you to look into why this is happening. Is it a question of clear direction and prioritization, limited staff time, or insufficient use of outside engineering support? Whatever the reason, it is a problem of capacity and management to fix—not a valid reason to shrink the budget and walk away from the goals the city has already adopted.

To put it bluntly: under this budget trajectory, the city will meet neither its Comprehensive Plan nor its Climate Action Plan goals. In fact, city emission is increasing, driven by the transportation sector. This is a completely predictable and unavoidable, disastrous outcome of a city that doesn’t adequately invest in alternative modes. Climate targets require drastic reductions in transportation emissions, yet at $100,000 (or even at $500k) per year with no project pipeline, we are not building alternatives to driving. The Climate Action Plan is becoming rhetoric, not action.

This is particularly frustrating because transportation is exactly where the biggest and cheapest opportunities are. Power generation and buildings are the largest emission categories, but according to IPCC AR6 consensus reports, decarbonizing them requires expensive technological transitions largely outside municipal control. Transportation, by contrast, offers some of the cheapest interventions available—many even economically positive. In other words, because car infrastructure is expensive and full of negative externalities, failing to heavily invest in bike-ped infrastructure ultimately costs more than investing in it aggressively! A protected bike network can directly save each household thousands of dollars annually, boosts local retail, reduces healthcare costs, and generates more tax revenue per dollar than almost any other infrastructure. We have a straight-forward, affordable, high-return path that boosts the local economy and well-being while cutting emissions—and the city is choosing to ignore it.

The research is clear that it is the ‘network’—and especially a network of protected, safe infrastructure—that matters. Isolated stretches of paint can’t do much (why would people use a bridge that is connected to nothing?) Connected, protected bike networks dramatically increase ridership and safety, whereas scattered, painted segments on busy streets deliver far less benefit while still consuming scarce staff time and money. One-off stretches of paint are not enough. We must fund and deliver a protected network, not a patchwork. But right now, it sure seems like we are budgeting not even for the patchwork.

The evidence from decades of research is overwhelming:

• Bike infrastructure delivers 3:1 to 5:1 returns on investment (even higher for congested cities) through healthcare savings, productivity gains, and local business activity—with every $1 invested yielding roughly $2.94 in direct medical cost savings alone.
• Safe bike lanes move ~5x more people than car lanes, relieving congestion more effectively and cheaply than spending on car infrastructure.
• People on foot or bikes spend as much or more at local businesses than drivers (30-40% more in one study), and protected bike lanes are consistently associated with either neutral or net increases in local retail activity.
• Yet only a tiny fraction of people will cycle unless infrastructure can physically protect them from dangerous car traffic. 

If we lack capacity to plan and deliver projects, the solution is to build that capacity—not shrink the budget. Other cities have shown what is possible: Seville built an 80-kilometer connected network in just 18 months and saw ridership grow immediately by 450%. Hoboken’s rapid quick-builds proved that huge safety gains can be achieved quickly and affordably, even without detailed planning, in a small American city. In all of the success stories, the secret was not a perfect project list—it was political will.

I urge you to (1) expand bike network funding in this CIP, (2) diagnose and fix the organizational issues blocking progress and leading to failure in meeting city’s goals and missions, (3) direct staff to continually work towards a connected, protected network even when they are not perfectly planned, and (4) consider adopting a Cycling Safety Ordinance similar to Cambridge, MA that mandates much higher safety standards for every newly renovated or built street. 

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
YY Ahn