Smart Travel
to attempt to build your way out of congestion prob- Conversely, The American Bikes coalition can identify
lems,” the Commission reported. “Congestion increases only US$2.2billion in shovel-ready, muscle-powered
as people move outward from urban centers, and addi- projects.
tional lane miles of roads to accommodate the people “The quickest things we can do may not be the ones
lead to more development, and more people, and more that have the most significant long-term impact on the
congestion, and more lane miles and around it goes.” green economy,” transit activist and Minneapolis Mayor
Some 90 per cent of municipal freeways are, indeed, RT Rybak, who oversaw the rebuilding of the collapsed
overwhelmed within their first five years yet the vast I-35 bridge over the Mississippi River to include capac-
majority of American TIP (transportation improvement ity for a future transit line, told The Washington Post: “This
plans) are still about building and repairing more high- will (likely) end up being a stimulus package that rebal-
way lanes. These are the “shovel-ready” projects which ances our transportation strategy toward roads and
the Obama Administration is likely to fund in the near away from (what) we need to get off our addiction to
future. oil.”
In my college town, in the Charlottesville, Virginia
area, with its an all-Democrat city council and alleged It’s a cultural thing
progressive ideals, each and every TIP project ready for Though it’s nothing new, it’s time America admitted that
Uncle Sam’s burst of stimulus funding only adds bicycle rational, long-term thinking has disappeared in our
facilities if there, somehow, is left-over money. After a political and social culture because we, the people, have
US$1.25m planning process for one commercial north- quit bringing our brains to at least our transportation
bound stretch, the local county is in search of US$300m issues.
for more automobile projects and US$16m for bus rapid The power of the screaming interest group in our
transit. political culture is so strong that as far
There is nothing for muscle-powered
“It’s time America
back as 1990, one survey of congres-
transportation. Our area, furthermore, is
presently seeking federal funds specifi-
admitted that
sional decision-making found that
rational analysis was “a” (not “the”) fac-
cally set aside for “non-motorized trans-
rational, long-term
tor in only 12 per cent of votes as, over
portation” to build automobile parking
at the Lewis and Clark Exploratory
thinking has
the last three decades, any politician
mentioning gasoline taxing (á la H. Ross
Center – a new museum accessible
disappeared in our
Perot, Jerry Brown, Paul Tsongas) has
almost exclusively by driving – and the
only footbridge in our foreseeable
political and social
been doomed to early exits from the
political stage.
future connects a golf course to a soft-
culture”
Two generations after the Arab nations
ball field over a railroad track. told America clearly in 1973 that we
The State of Oklahoma, meanwhile, is asking for stim- should change our driving behavior, the failures of
ulus dollars to repave stretches of interstate highways; Republican and Democrat national, state, and local gov-
New Jersey wants to re-paint its highway bridges and ernments to lead in this area have proven that only we,
Scottsdale, Arizona is seeking dollars to widen its roads. the people, can demand that health costs, defense costs,
Highway officials overall have isolated some 5,000 roads pollution costs and greenhouse gas costs be included in
and bridge maintenance projects costing US$64 billion American transportation policy.
for potential stimulus dollars and the business commu- Other nations have clearly proven they can change.
nity has identified US$1.6trillion in needed highway Why can’t we? TH
repairs.
salz@rocketmail.com
Oxford London
54 Vol 4 No 1 Thinking Highways
www.thinkinghighways.com
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