Imagine you're the federal official in the Bush administration charged with overseeing the nation's transportation infrastructure. A major bridge collapses on an interstate highway during rush hour, killing 13 people and injuring an additional 100. Whom to blame? How about the nation's bicyclists and pedestrians! Salon
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the St. Paul, Minn., program Bike/Walk Twin Cities, administered by Transit for Livable Communities, [got] $21.5 million of federal dough is being spent to create bike lanes, connect existing walking and biking trails with one another, and install signage to alert drivers of the presence of bicyclists and walkers. Despite the cold winters, Minneapolis is something of a biking Mecca, with 2.4 percent of all trips to work made by bike, significantly higher than the national average of 0.4 percent, according to Joan Pasiuk, program director of Bike/Walk Twin Cities.
this just shows how stupid some of the bush administration people are and how good they are at passing the blame.
of course, must be Bush's fault. Did you ever think the multiplier of economic impact is like a billion x more for interstates carrying commercial vehicals thatn bikes? That a bike lane and signage just dont require that much $? I agree, its shitty to not look at bikes and foot traffic but to pin it on Bush is juvenile. Get off it already.
Did you ever think the multiplier of economic impact is like a billion x more for interstates carrying commercial vehicals thatn bikes? That a bike lane and signage just dont require that much $?
you suck. your dependence upon entrenched economic modeling to justify antiquated environmental, infrastrucutal, and economic politics is just plain sad.
Evil, you do realize the federal government, through funding "earmarked" by the trucking industry steered (if you'll forgive the pun) our economic model to critically rely upon trucking. Trucks didn't just happen because it was the free market determined it was so, it was due to govenment handouts to the trucking industry and strict regulation of one industry (rail) combined with the lassie-faire regulation of another (trucking).
I should also point out that one of the costs that has been sloughed onto the taxpayers is how much more damage a truck or even a car does to a road surface when compared to a bicycle. If the same number of people had crossed the bridge in minneapolis on bicycles instead of cars, it would most likely still be standing.
But, to your reactionary point - Bush bashing is easy (so is Clinton bashing from the other side) and while I don't think this is directly a mandate from W (he is after all, a mountain biker, if not a very good one) it certainly fits within this administration's mantra to promote the petrochemical industry whenever and however possible. Hell, I'd bet 50% of them return to their former jobs shucking oil, or lobbying for those who do.
i.e. If the shoe fits...
oops - thats laissez-faire, not lassie-faire - that has to do with the canine television industrial complex.
not to interfere in the affairs of another, but this shows that there is more than one idiot in the white house.
trillion dollar industries dont occur because of lobbyists
no seriously - that means you would have to believe in a world were everything is a concpiracy against common good, efficiency and common sense. Which would mean that you fundementaly think the world is flawed or broken because of invisible forces beyond your control, and that is getting close to the definition of schizofrenic. No wonder people think architects are insane. Some people are going to sit here and believe that trucking lobbyists have directed point to point distribution, not market economics? Please, they wouldnt even let peolpe like that into a business schools.
I don't believe in some "X-Files/Smoking Man" type conspiracy. But I do believe that well-connected people and businesses have rigged the game in their favor, to the detriment of their competitors and thus us as consumers. You are being disingenuous if you believe that either the world is a free-market system or a "everything is a conspiracy world" and nothing inbetween - Why is it so hard to accept that on a regular basis businesses attempt to (legally or extra-legally) rig governmental forces to their favor and to the detriment of their competitors and consumers?
I do believe and except it, and I believe our democratic system has a way of balancing that out, however the captain of the ship, the decider of how we will move our goods and people, balanced by environmental concerns as well as density and mobility issues, will all wash out to the best comprimise possible. Thats the free market in action. And right now the market is saying fix the bridges.
I'd prefer they take the money to do infrastructure repairs from the trucking industry who does the most damage to our roads and highway infrastructure versus the people who are attempting in their own small way to reduce our dependency on foriegn oil and increase our average health. But since there is a trucking lobby and an even more gigantic petrochemical lobby, they are not affected and the bicyclists are left out in the cold. If it really was a free market the solution that does the most with the least would prevail, but it didn't. The plutocratic old boy network won, not us or the all-(not so)-mighty free market. Evil P, I would hesitate to use this as an example of our government "balancing it out".
Crowbert, the statistics above tell the story - 10% of trips to work and school, nothing mentioning deliveries and distribution. The problem isnt bike lack of bike paths. The bigger problem is 2-fold in my opinion. 1st the radical edge of metro areas (where people flock for more bike paths and cheap land) is too attractive for auto intensive development thus leading to more road building and new growth trumps old growth so inner city walkable and bikable infrastructure gets bypassed.
2nd - road building construction practices and funding methods are in most states borderline mafia racketeering. Its a socialist make work wet dream.
Dont blame the trucks good buddy. My city of Chicago is kicking the idea of giving them their own Freightways - highways for trucks along rai right of ways to seperate trucks and cars on the network. We also may be the most bikeable city in the country and its not because of Federal programs. Its because of flat land and density.
My point is
that the trucks cause the most strain on road infrastructure and should, for reasons of either morality or for charging people by the damage they do (i.e. the really free market) trucks should bear the lions share of the cost of repairing the roads. That cost would then be passed on to us, and at the point where the costs for repairing the roads gets too high per ton of items delivered, rail (or whatever) will fill that spot in the market. That is how the free market is supposed to work. However, because of the old/oil-boy network, they do not have to pay that cost and other tangentially related things do.
Do you want an example - Compare the Dan Ryan with LSD. Do you know why the DR is closer to a washboard than a road and is under constant construction, but not LSD? Its because the Dan Ryan is packed to the gills with trucks and they are banned on LSD. Even factoring for volume, its night and day the quality of the roads. So when the trucking industry starts to pay their fair share and we still have a difference to make up, then we can start talking about whether bicycling should be a priority or not. Until then, its a game rigged to take the costs off the plutocrats doing the damage, and being placed on those of us who work for a living - and try to make the world a little better by biking to work.
I'd love to see that freightway come though. It might have the added benifit of proving my point.
Most anyone with a strong lobbing group (on either side of the aisle) is working towards a socialist's wet dream - except their proletariat is the investor class.
well the Dan Ryan is also supported by Federal Funds and LSD isnt. No doubt the truckers lobby but they also pay tremendous taxes, tolls and have very economic impact multiplier. my economics proffesor at UIC told us in 97 that every ton of freight is $50 into Chicago's economy, and multiplies by 5% meaning the added value of freight traffic actually grows money. The freightway would be the tracks along the I-55 ship canal and connect to an old N/S beltline railroad by central Ave. Its in the Metro 2020 proposal.
Ted Stevens proves my point. Thanks for showing that your company's responsibility to america has nothing to do with your costs so long as you can bribe public officials to shove those costs onto regular working americans.
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