ATP Goals and Priority Projects

• Increase walking and bicycling as a means of transportation.
• Increase safety and travel options for people walking and bicycling.
• Reduce vehicle use and greenhouse gas emissions, especially in large urban regions.
• Enhance public health, with a special focus on reducing childhood obesity through Safe Routes to School projects and programs.
• Ensure that disadvantaged communities fully benefit from ATP.
• Provide a wide range of project that benefit many types of users.

Active Transportation Program Funding Priorities

The ATP specifically prioritizes funding for projects and planning in disadvantaged communities, Safe Routes to School projects, non-infrastructure projects, and Recreational Trails projects. All projects must meet one or more of the program goals above, and will be ranked according to scoring criteria. 

Disadvantaged Communities

At least 25% of ATP funding must benefit Disadvantaged Communities. Funding for planning projects is also reserved for Disadvantaged Communities. For a project to receive points under the the Disadvantaged Communities criteria, it must be located within or in reasonable proximity and have a direct connection to the disadvantaged community served by the project or be an extension or segment of a larger project that connects to or is directly adjacent to that disadvantaged community . To demonstrate “disadvantage,” the applicant can use one of the following three methods:

• The community’s median household income is less than 80% of the statewide median based on census data from the American Community Survey.
• An area in the 25% most disadvantaged areas of CalEnviroScreen scores.
• A school community with at least 75% of public school students eligible to receive free or reduced price meals from the National School Lunch Program. The project must be within 2 miles of the school represented by the data. Applicants using this criteria must also demonstrate how the project benefits the school community. 

If a community is disadvantaged but does not meet the criteria above due to a lack of data, the applicant can submit a neighborhood-level survey to demonstrate how the community is disadvantaged or how the project connects the community with outside resources. Regional definitions of “disadvantaged community” (i.e. the Bay Area’s “communities of concern”) are also allowed starting with Cycle 3 (2016).

Safe Routes to School projects

• A project that improves safety and convenience for public school students to walk and/or bike to school.
• Safe Routes to School infrastructure projects and traffic education and enforcement activities must be located within two miles of a public school or within the vicinity of a public school bus stop.
• Non-infrastructure funding is intended for startup programs and not ongoing operations. Program expansions or adding new elements to existing programs will be considered, however. In all cases, the applicant must demonstrate how it will fund the non-infrastructure program after the ATP grant.

Recreational Trails projects

• For trail projects that are primarily recreational, the projects must meet the federal requirements of the Recreational Trails Program.

Next up

 Identify a competitive ATP project in your community or go back to our main page on SRTS/ATP funding.