The U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood was busy lately. First he stood on a table in front of the national assembly of the bikers' mob, and then he announced a change in national policy requiring consideration for bikers and pedestrians in new infrastructure projects.
The new rules are to include such controversial measures as:
1) sidewalks and bike lanes on bridges
2) biking and walking corridors for children to walk and bike to school
3) maintain sidewalks and bike lanes the same way roads are maintained: e.g., plow them.
(as always full text at the bottom)
These seem no-nonsense enough. Some municipalities and states are moving in this direction already, but at the same time, many other sit idle on this issue and build roads without any consideration for foot and bicycle traffic.
Heck here in Austin one does not have to go far from downtown or even the Campus to find streets with no sidewalks. North Campus, and even the area around Central Market-North are one of many I am aware of. Their central location with high foot traffic only serves to highlight this infrastructural oversight!
I do not own a car, so I am biased. I bike from downtown to campus, most often using Brazos and Congress on the way north and Congress and San Jacinto returning home. I am lucky, though. I have an option of a path with low vehicular traffic, and bike lane most of the distance. However, Austin, is far from reliably bike friendly. Crossing Lamar and IH35 is difficult and crossing MoPac is virtually impossible.
Despite the pervasiveness of the problem even in a progressive city such as Austin; despite the idiot-proof nature of the solution - pay attention to all modes of transpiration in future infrastructure projects - we can count on clueless representatives to counter it. Let's see:
From NYTimes article:
At a House appropriations committee hearing last week, Congressman Steven LaTourette, Republican of Ohio, brought up the new policy and asked a Transportation Department official to clarify what Mr. LaHood means by “equal treatment.”“If we’re going to spend $1 million on a road, we’re not going to have half of it go to a bike lane and half of it go to cars?” he asked, according to a transcript of the hearing.
“My interpretation of that would be equal in the eyes of policymakers as what is the expenditure you make, what is the benefit you get,” responded Roy Kienitz, D.O.T.’s under secretary for policy. “And if the freight project offers the best bang, great, but if the bike project offers a good bang, great for them.”
“I don’t even understand how you get a bang for the buck out of a bicycle project,” Mr. LaTourette subsequently commented. “I mean, what job is going to be created by having a bike lane?”
A beautiful use of our tax dollars. Heavens forbid any of Mr. LaTourette's tax-payer paid salary is spent on actually thinking!
Let's see what LaHood said to the assembled bikers last week:
It is amazing what happens when government wants to actually fix things that are broken and, you know, do its job. Thank you Mr. LaHood.
biker photo credit: flickr / b roll
mr. LaHood photo credit: Wikipedia/DOT
new york times article: here
straight from the horse's mouth: dot press release
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