Transportation's Bicycle Policy Hits Potholes

[steven johnson]

Dr. Peter Venkman:

"Grab your stick! .... Ray has gone bye-bye, Egon... what've you got left? "
Ghostbusters (1984)

Ray LaHood says the government is going to give bicycling -- and walking, too -- the same importance as automobiles in transportation planning and the selection of projects for federal money. The former Republican congressman quietly announced the ''sea change'' in transportation policy last month.

...DOT policy statement urging states and transportation agencies to treat ''walking and bicycling as equals with other transportation modes.'' It recommends, among other things, including biking and walking lanes on bridges and clearing snow from bike paths.

The new policy is a natural extension of the Obama administration's livability initiative, which regards the creation of alternatives to driving -- buses, streetcars, trolleys and trains, as well as biking and walking -- as central to solving the nation's transportation woes.

LaHood, 64, said he and his wife have biked on weekends for years. Three days before his announcement of the new policy, LaHood stood on a table to speak to a gathering of hundreds of bike enthusiasts in Washington. He drew cheers when he vowed the Obama administration will put affordable housing next to walking and biking paths.

Transportation's Bicycle Policy Hits Potholes

[Berry Cool]

1. I love how Steve LaTouette criticizes this, then brags about getting money for bike paths.

Like he really cares whether anyone in Lake County, Ohio can get around without a car. That county has been utterly car-dependent for years. It didn't even get a bus system until the '80s, and now that system's buses run every two hours and not on weekends at all. And they don't cover the most rural parts of the county at all. It's a joke. LaTourette couldn't care less if anybody without a motor vehicle has any kind of life at all in his constituency.