Bike Lanes Save Lives. So Why Did FHWA Remove Them From Its Safety List?

A Federal Safety Recommendation Disappears

Bike lanes, especially protected bike lanes, save lives. FHWA has documented their safety benefits for years and, in 2021, formally added bicycle lanes to its list of “Proven Safety Countermeasures.”

So why, five years later, have bicycle lanes disappeared from FHWA’s current safety list?

And why is the Trump administration now taking a different approach, criticizing “DEI bike lanes,” emphasizing motor-vehicle capacity through its “Freedom to Drive” initiative, and asking Congress to restrict certain federal funding for bicycle infrastructure that reduces vehicle throughput?

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has gone even further, asking Congress to support removing existing bike lanes that contribute to congestion. 

The contradiction is difficult to ignore. 

FHWA spent years documenting bicycle lanes as an evidence-based safety treatment. Now its parent department is asking Congress to prioritize motor-vehicle travel over bicycle infrastructure.

As a cyclist and an advocate for the safety of all vulnerable road users, this really ticked me off. Enough that I wanted to dig into the policy, politics, and research behind the shift as objectively as possible.

Bike Lanes Were a Federal “Proven Safety Countermeasure”

In 2021, FHWA added bicycle lanes to its list of Proven Safety Countermeasures, strategies backed by research showing they could reduce fatalities and serious injuries.

The numbers were significant. Research found crash reductions of up to 49% on certain four-lane urban roads and 30% on certain two-lane urban roads after adding bicycle lanes. A later FHWA study found that converting conventional or buffered bicycle lanes to separated lanes using flexible delineator posts could reduce bicycle-vehicle crashes by up to 53%.

Those percentages require some context. They do not mean that every bike lane will reduce crashes by 30%, 49%, or 53%. The results apply to particular roadway configurations and bicycle-lane treatments. FHWA’s own guidance recognized that traffic speeds, vehicle volumes, truck traffic, transit, land use, curb access, and other roadway characteristics should influence where and how bicycle facilities are designed.

But the underlying safety principle is straightforward. Cyclists have little protection when they are struck by a motor vehicle, and FHWA found that nearly one-third of fatal and serious bicyclist crashes occur when motorists are overtaking cyclists. Creating dedicated space for bicycles can reduce those interactions and physically separate vulnerable road users from faster, heavier vehicles.

FHWA explicitly connected bicycle lanes to its Safe System Approach, which recognizes that people make mistakes and that the transportation system should be designed so those mistakes are less likely to result in death or serious injury.

That was the federal government's safety position. And the research behind it is still available today.

What Is a “DEI Bike Lane”?

Transportation engineering has no category known as a “DEI bike lane.”

The term comes from a broader debate over how the Biden administration awarded federal transportation dollars. Some programs considered equity and access when determining where transportation investments should go, particularly in lower-income and historically underserved communities.

Equity also appeared in FHWA’s bicycle planning guidance. Its Bicycle Lanes Proven Safety Countermeasure fact sheet said agencies should consider the safety and transportation needs of lower-income populations who may rely on bicycles to reach essential destinations.

But that should not be confused with the research used to determine whether bike lanes improve safety. FHWA’s crash-reduction estimates came from engineering and crash studies examining roadway design, vehicle and bicycle crashes, lane configurations, and different types of bicycle facilities.

In other words, equity considerations could help determine where bicycle infrastructure was needed or prioritized. They were not what made a bicycle lane a Proven Safety Countermeasure.

That distinction matters because describing bike lanes as “DEI” shifts the discussion away from the question FHWA has studied for years:  How can roadway design reduce the likelihood that a cyclist is seriously injured or killed?

USDOT's New Priority: The “Freedom to Drive”

The removal of bike lanes from FHWA’s safety list did not happen in isolation. Three months earlier, on April 20, 2026, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy launched the Freedom to Drive initiative, a national effort to reduce congestion and increase roadway capacity. USDOT called on states to identify their worst traffic bottlenecks and work with the federal government on solutions.

The initiative focuses on “maximizing existing roadway capacity,” accelerating projects that relieve congestion, and using private investment and technology to improve traffic flow. FHWA says the average urban driver lost 63 hours to congestion in 2024 and estimates vehicle travel will increase another 16% over the next 25 years.

On its face, reducing congestion is hardly controversial. Most people do not want to spend more time sitting in traffic.

What matters for cyclists is how USDOT proposes to create that additional capacity.

In letters sent to governors and Washington, D.C.’s mayor, Duffy encouraged governments to focus on “expanding and maximizing roadway capacity for driving.” The letters went a step further, stating that officials “may also need to recover roadway capacity from other purposes to support driving.”

By July, the administration was much more explicit about what one of those “other purposes” could be.

In a July 22 letter outlining USDOT’s priorities for the next federal surface transportation bill, Duffy included a section titled:

“Prioritize Motor Vehicle Travel Over Bicycle Lanes.”

The letter argues that bike lanes created through road diets and other roadway reconfigurations can reduce vehicle throughput, increase congestion, lengthen travel times, interfere with trucks and deliveries, affect emergency response, and create additional cyclist-driver conflicts at intersections.

Duffy then asked Congress to restrict certain federal funding for bicycle infrastructure that reduces motor-vehicle throughput and to support removing existing bike lanes that contribute to congestion.

That language makes the underlying policy choice unusually clear:

When roadway space for bicycles conflicts with motor-vehicle capacity, USDOT is asking Congress to prioritize motor-vehicle travel.

Does the Research Support USDOT's Concerns?

Duffy’s concerns are not entirely without merit. Removing a travel lane or reconfiguring a roadway can affect traffic flow, emergency access, deliveries, transit, and intersections. Not every road is a good candidate for a road diet, and not every bike lane is well designed.

FHWA’s own guidance recognized these tradeoffs. It called for selecting and designing bicycle infrastructure based on traffic volumes, speeds, truck traffic, transit, land use, curb access, and other roadway conditions.

So what does the research say about the concerns USDOT is raising?

Do Bike Lanes Cause More Congestion?

Removing a travel lane or reconfiguring a roadway can reduce vehicle capacity under some conditions. But FHWA’s own guidance has long emphasized that the effect depends on the road and how it is redesigned.

In its Incorporating On-Road Bicycle Networks into Resurfacing Projects workbook, FHWA acknowledged that adding bicycle facilities often requires narrowing vehicle lanes or reconfiguring the roadway. Yet the agency concluded that both approaches “can increase the overall safety and comfort of a roadway for bicyclists and pedestrians without negatively impacting vehicular operation.”

FHWA also noted that narrower lanes can reduce vehicle speeds and crash severity, while road diets can reduce speeds and pedestrian crossing distances.

A typical road diet converts four undivided travel lanes into two through lanes and a center turn lane, sometimes using the remaining space for bike lanes. FHWA found that on roads with substantial turning traffic, this configuration can have relatively little effect on traffic operations because vehicles waiting to turn no longer block through traffic. FHWA also documented substantial safety benefits with expected overall crash reductions ranging from 19% to 47%.

Real-world projects illustrate why the effects cannot be generalized. New York City has expanded its bike lane network extensively, and NYC DOT data compiled by PeopleForBikes found that crashes fell 34% after a protected bike lane was installed on Columbus Avenue while traffic flow remained similar. 

In Chicago, the Kinzie Street protected bike lane added less than one minute to travel time in one morning rush-hour direction, while travel times during other periods slightly improved. 

FHWA explicitly recognized that roadway space could be reallocated for bicycle infrastructure without necessarily making traffic operations worse.

What About Emergency Vehicles, Trucks, and Deliveries?

These are legitimate concerns, particularly on streets with significant commercial traffic or that serve as primary emergency routes.

But FHWA has historically treated them as design considerations rather than reasons to categorically exclude bike lanes or road diets. Its guidance says properly designed road diets can retain sufficient width for emergency vehicles and large trucks. Separated bike lane guidance likewise addresses loading zones, accessible parking, transit stops, and driveways.

What Happens Next?

For now, Duffy’s proposal to restrict certain federal funding for bicycle infrastructure is just a proposal to Congress, not federal law.

Congress has not adopted the recommendation and has temporarily extended existing surface transportation programs while lawmakers work on a longer-term reauthorization.

But if Duffy’s proposal becomes part of federal transportation law, states and cities could face new restrictions on funding for bike lanes and other projects that reallocate road space, even when those projects address documented safety problems.

FHWA spent years documenting bicycle lanes as a proven way to protect vulnerable road users. The underlying safety research has not changed. The federal policy direction has.

When did protecting vulnerable road users become secondary to moving more motor vehicles? And when did a transportation safety issue become a political one?

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