The Parks to People Active Transportation Act directs the Secretary of Transportation to run a competitive grant program to improve or build greenway paths that link communities. It charges the Secretary with designating a national greenway network and setting selection criteria that emphasize cross-jurisdictional connectivity, safety, access to transit and jobs, and equity.
This program reframes federal infrastructure dollars toward non-motorized networks and land acquisition for paths and will matter to regional planners, parks and land-conservation organizations, transit agencies, and jurisdictions that want federal capital for walking and bicycling corridors. The legislation also requires planning support, administrative resources, and reporting to Congress on outcomes and barriers to delivery.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill creates a competitive grants program at DOT for ‘‘regionally or nationally significant’’ greenway paths and requires DOT to build and maintain a designated national greenway paths network. Grants may fund construction, improvement, or acquisition of property for accessible walkways, bikeways, and shared-use paths; the statute includes planning grant and administrative set-asides and a multi-year authorization.
Who It Affects
Eligible applicants include states (and territories), metropolitan and regional planning organizations, local governments, multi-county districts, multi-state groups, and Indian Tribes; recipients will partner with park agencies, transit providers, land trusts, and construction firms. Metropolitan planning organizations and jurisdictions that coordinate cross-border projects are particularly positioned to compete.
Why It Matters
The law ties active-transportation investments to congestion relief, emissions reductions, and equity goals, sets minimum project scale and planning standards, and embeds match rules with exceptions for high-poverty and rural areas — effectively prioritizing larger, multi-jurisdictional corridors while carving out relief for disadvantaged communities.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The bill tasks the Secretary of Transportation with standing up a competitive grants program to build and improve greenway paths that connect communities across local and State lines. To focus funding, the Secretary must create a national greenway paths network and designate which corridors are regionally or nationally significant based on criteria such as crossing multiple jurisdictions, reducing single-occupant vehicle trips, improving safety and transit access, or meeting other Secretary-determined measures.
Applications must come from the statute’s defined ‘‘eligible organizations’’ — states, MPOs, local/regional governments, multi-county districts, multi-state groups, or Indian Tribes — and may require cooperative agreements when projects touch Federal lands. When evaluating proposals, DOT must look for broad community support, integration with transit and parks, commitments to traffic-safety measures and local policies that promote walking and bicycling, and evidence of matching resources or in-kind contributions.
The statute explicitly prioritizes projects that address disparities in pedestrian and bicyclist fatality rates and expand access for low-income communities and communities of color.Grant proceeds can fund construction and improvement of hard-surfaced, wheelchair-accessible paths and land acquisition necessary for those projects. The statute establishes annual set-asides for planning grants and caps for administrative uses so DOT can provide planning and technical assistance.
It also creates deadlines tied to appropriations for publishing a request for applications and selecting recipients, requires interim and final reports to Congress on grants, best practices, and impediments, and authorizes multi-year appropriations to fund the program.Financial mechanics are explicit: the Secretary is to set the federal cost share (with a standard cap and statutory exceptions for disadvantaged and rural areas), define total project cost categories that DOT will accept, and permit inclusion of planning, permitting, land acquisition, construction, and a range of related costs. Finally, the bill includes a set of definitions — active transportation, greenway path, community, eligible organization, eligible greenway project, total project cost — to narrow eligibility and scope so applicants and DOT operate from the same baseline.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill authorizes $300 million per year for DOT to carry out the program for fiscal years 2027 through 2031.
An eligible greenway project must generally have a total cost of at least $15 million, while planning and design grants must be at least $100,000.
DOT must set aside at least $5 million each fiscal year for planning grants and may use up to $3.5 million for program administration, research, technical assistance, communications, and training.
The Federal share defaults to 80% of total project cost, can rise to 90% for projects serving ‘‘rural areas,’’ and may reach 100% for projects serving communities with a poverty rate over 40% in the majority of census tracts served.
After funds are appropriated, DOT must publish an application notice within 60 days and select recipients within 180 days; DOT must also submit an interim report to Congress by September 30, 2028, and a final report by September 30, 2030.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Short title
Gives the Act its name: the Parks to People Active Transportation Act. This is a procedural provision but signals the policy focus — federally supported active-transportation connections between parks and communities.
Creates the National and Regional Greenways Program and network designation
Subsection (a) directs DOT to run a competitive grants program for improvement or construction of greenway paths. Subsection (b) requires DOT to establish and maintain a national greenway paths network and to designate corridors as regionally or nationally significant based on whether they cross multiple jurisdictions or States, reduce single-occupant vehicle trips, improve safety and access to jobs, support MPO goals, or other Secretary-determined criteria. Practically, that central designation power will shape which projects can even be considered eligible, so applicants must align proposals with DOT’s corridor priorities.
Application rules and evaluation criteria
Applicants must submit whatever information DOT requests and, for projects that include Federal land, enter cooperative agreements with the relevant agency. DOT must evaluate applications for demonstrated community support, integration with transit and parks, safety and traffic-policy commitments, matching resources, and the degree to which projects will reduce disparities in fatality rates or expand access for low-income communities and communities of color. That creates a scorecard-oriented selection process where planning work, documented partnerships, and equity impacts will affect competitiveness.
Permitted uses of grant funds, and required set-asides
Grants can pay for construction, improvement, and acquisition of real property needed for a greenway path; planning and design grants are explicitly funded through a minimum annual $5 million set-aside. The bill also caps administrative and program-support spending at $3.5 million per year. These earmarks reserve funds both to get projects shovel-ready and to resource DOT oversight and technical assistance, rather than spending the entire appropriation on capital works alone.
Grant timing, federal cost share, and reporting
Once funds are available, DOT must publish a request for applications within 60 days and choose recipients within 180 days — timing tied to appropriations. The statute sets the default federal share at up to 80% of approved project costs, raises that share for rural projects to 90%, and allows DOT to cover 100% for projects serving communities where a majority of census tracts show poverty over 40%. DOT must provide an interim report to Congress (due 9/30/2028) and a final report (9/30/2030) listing awards, best practices, and delivery impediments. These deadlines create accountability but depend on actual appropriations and DOT resourcing.
Authorization and definitions
The bill authorizes appropriations ($300M annually, FY2027–2031) and supplies statutory definitions for key terms (active transportation, greenway path, community, eligible organization, eligible project, total project cost). By defining minimum project costs, allowable cost categories, and eligible applicants, the definitions materially shape who can apply and what costs DOT will consider reimbursable.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on Transportation across all five countries.
Explore Transportation in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Residents of low-income neighborhoods and communities of color — the statute prioritizes projects that address disparities in pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities and expand access to schools, jobs, transit, and parks, and allows for full federal funding in very high-poverty areas.
- Metropolitan planning organizations and regional planners — the program is tailored to multi-jurisdictional corridors and gives MPOs a funding pathway to deliver regional connectivity that individual jurisdictions could not finance alone.
- Parks agencies, land trusts, and conservation organizations — grants can be used for land acquisition and to connect parks and conserved lands into an accessible active-transportation network.
- Tribal governments — Indian Tribes are explicitly eligible applicants and can compete for funds to construct greenway connections that serve Tribal communities and link to regional networks.
- Transit agencies and first/last-mile providers — projects that integrate with transit and improve access to stations will strengthen the utility of transit investments and open up funding to address multimodal connections.
Who Bears the Cost
- Local governments and eligible organizations — applicants must demonstrate matching resources (unless they qualify for exceptions), and must invest planning, permitting, and implementation capacity to win and deliver projects.
- Smaller municipalities with sub-$15M projects — the $15 million minimum total project cost for capital grants will exclude many smaller-scale but locally important projects, forcing reliance on the planning set-aside or other programs.
- Federal taxpayers/federal budget priorities — the program is authorized at $300 million per year, which competes with other federal infrastructure priorities and requires Congress to appropriate those funds.
- Applicants building on Federal lands — projects that touch Federal land must negotiate cooperative agreements with land-managing agencies, which can add time and transaction costs to delivery.
- State and regional permitting authorities — leaders will face increased coordination demands to align safety regulations, design standards, and matching commitments across jurisdictions for multi-state corridors.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma: concentrate scarce federal resources on large, regionally significant greenways to maximize connectivity, climate, and equity returns, or spread funds across many smaller local projects to ensure distributed access and community-level benefits. Prioritizing scale improves network effects but raises barriers for under-resourced localities that lack matching funds or project size to compete.
The bill concentrates funding on larger, cross-jurisdictional corridors by setting a $15 million minimum project threshold for capital grants while providing modest planning grant resources. That design amplifies the impact of each award but risks excluding many local projects that deliver meaningful active-transportation benefits at far smaller scales.
Planning set-asides help, but the capital threshold creates a two-tier universe of projects: shovel-ready, well-resourced regional corridors and smaller local projects that must chase other programs.
Match rules and the Secretary’s designation power create additional tensions. The statutory 80% federal share (with higher shares for rural and very high-poverty areas) balances federal support against local buy-in, but the process for determining what counts as a qualifying ‘‘disadvantaged’’ area or acceptable in-kind match is left to DOT rulemaking and could be administratively heavy.
The bill also centralizes corridor eligibility in DOT’s designation of a national network, which is sensible for coordinating cross-border investments but gives the agency significant discretion that could generate claims of geographic or political bias. Finally, the statute funds capital construction and acquisition but does not create a recurring maintenance or operations revenue stream; grant recipients will need to account for long-term upkeep and liability costs, or risk rapid deterioration of new assets.
Try it yourself.
Ask a question in plain English, or pick a topic below. Results in seconds.