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trail tales
TE is Transportation
Te Transportation Enhancements (TE)
program, a part of the federal surface
transportation program, is nearing its
20th year of existence. Since TE’s incep-
tion in 1992, more than $12 billion
has been apportioned to states. Tis
money has helped expand transportation
infrastructure to contain a wider variety
of modes—including trails and other
pedestrian and cycling facilities—and to
enhance existing infrastructure.
Of the 12 eligible TE activities, six of
the categories combined make up only
5.9 percent of the total program. Tese
categories include Acquisitions of Scenic/
Historical Easements, Establishment
of Transportation Museums and
Environmental Mitigation.
Te majority of TE funding, in fact,
goes to bicycle and pedestrian projects.
Bicycle and pedestrian facilities alone
receive nearly half of the funding. When
you add in bicycle and pedestrian safety
and education, pedestrian streetscapes
and the preservation, conversion and use
of abandoned railroad corridors, the total
share of bicycle and pedestrian TE proj-
ects climbs to 63.2 percent—or roughly
$7.4 billion of the total 20-year federal
investment in TE.
Te remaining categories relate to the
restoration or operation of historic trans-
portation structures, scenic or historic
highway programs, historic preservation
and landscaping. For more information
on how TE funds are distributed or how
TE funds are used in your state, visit
www.enhancements.org
or contact Kyle
Lukacs at kyle@enhancements.org.
We want to hear from you!
Essays should be no more than 250 words in
length and may be edited for publication. If
your essay is chosen, we’ll ask you to provide
a picture of yourself to accompany the essay.
Send your essay and contact information to
magazine@railstotrails.org or Rails-to-Trails
Conservancy, Magazine/Trail Tales, 2121 Ward
Court, NW, 5th Floor,Washington, DC 20037.
Space is limited; additional essays not
included in the magazine can be found at
www.railstotrails.org/magazine
.
NEXT ISSUE:
What is your favorite part about
rail-trail history? Do you love the
story of converting the corridor
into a trail? Or are you drawn to
the original railroads—when and
how they were built, what they
carried, how they shaped the
communities they served?
Deadline:
January 31, 2012.
Is your whole family into
cycling and trails?
On August 29 and 30, the
National
Transportation Enhancements
Clearinghouse hosted the 2011
TE Professionals Seminar at the
Marines’ Memorial Club & Hotel in
San Francisco
. State TE managers
and Federal Highway Administration
workers frommore than 25 states
were in attendance to discuss the
Transportation Enhancement pro-
gram. Contact Kyle Lukacs at kyle@
enhancements.org.
The three Mann brothers at the annual Mann
Brothers Bike Fest.
By Chris Mann, Charlottesville, Va.
F
irst there were the two-speed Schwinn
Sting-Rays with long banana seats
and sissy bars. Ten there were English
bikes, with three speeds and front and
rear lights. Tere wasn’t a Christmas that
went by without my two brothers and me
getting a new bike to explore our neigh-
borhood and beyond in Crestline, Ala.,
in the 1960s.
As the oldest brother, I was not only
the leader of the pack but also the one
to fx fats, adjust seats and of course put
cards in the spokes so everyone would
know we were coming.
Now the bikes have 27 speeds, they’re
aluminum and all have suspension forks.
What hasn’t changed, however, is that
my brothers and I have, for the last 25
years, kept our calendars empty the last
week in September, when we meet and
spend four days in what’s come to be
known as the Mann Brothers Bike Fest.
For the past 10 years or so, we’ve
been renting a house right of the
outside of
Damascus, Va. Karl, a nurse, drives
from Chapel Hill, N.C. My younger
brother, Keith, is a dentist and makes
the trip up from Wilmington, N.C. I
drive down with my wife, Paulette, from
Charlottesville, Va., where I teach Latin.
Six years ago, our cousin Marc joined
us, and for the past two years his brother
Erik has come, too.
We’re in our 40s and 50s, but during
Bike Fest we all are 15 again—racing
to the top of the mountain, yelling on
our way down, splashing through mud
puddles, trying to see who can be the
dirtiest at the end of the day. Tis ride
is our sanctuary, the place where time
not only stands still but seems to make
us all young again. Each night, one of
us is responsible for making dinner, and
in the month before we meet, emails
are fying with what we’re planning for
dinner along with the barbs, jokes, snide
comments, insults and name calling that
only brotherly love can foster.
Our mother—the reason we’re all
pretty fair cooks—was always so proud
and happy that her sons had remained
best friends. We always told her it start-
ed with two things: the love she and our
dad gave us—and the bikes.
Courtesy of Chris Mann
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