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Why Are Bikes Being Targeted by Congress?
How in the the world can biking and walking be controversial?
They’re good exercise, fun to do and—as an alternative to driving everywhere—help us save money and the environment. Both biking and walking are increasingly popular for transportation and recreation today, thanks in large part to a recent flowering of federally-funded trails, bikeways and pathways that make getting around on two wheels and two feet safer and more convenient. 
A biker zooms along the Midtown Greenway, paid for in part by a federal program that some Senators want to kill. (Credit: Thirteen of Clubs, a ubiquitous Minneapolis bike photographer, under a Creative Commons license from flickr.com)
But in these antagonistic political times, bikers and walkers are now targets of controversy for some members of Congress. In September, Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn proposed stripping all designated federal funding for bike and pedestrian projects from the pending Transportation Bill. After an outpouring of opposition from citizens coast-to-coast, Coburn withdrew his amendment.
Now bicyclists and pedestrians are under attack again, this time in an amendment from Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. He wants to redirect every last penny of money dedicated to bicycling and walking to bridge repair instead.
His proposal is scheduled for a vote next Tuesday. (Here's how to contact your Senators and Representatives to save federal bike and walk programs.)
Now we all agree that safe bridges are important. Look at the tragic bridge collapse four years ago in Minneapolis that took 17 lives.
But safety for the millions of kids and adults that bike and walk every day is important, too. Since 2007, 2,800 cyclists and 20,000 pedestrians have died on America’s roads—many due to the lack of sidewalks, bike lanes and other safety measures that federal funds provide.
We shouldn’t have to choose between safe bridges and safe streets. Here’s why.
- First of all, Senator Paul’s amendment will not even come close to fixing America’s bridges. Biking, walking and other so-called “transportation enhancements” that Paul wants to kill account for less than two percent of the total Transportation Bill. It would take 80 years using money saved from scrapping these programs to finance the backlog of current bridge repairs—not to mention future needs.
- States are not spending the money already allocated for bridge repairs. Last year, they returned $530 million to the federal government. That represents a big chunk of total bike and pedestrian projects.
- Federal money to make biking and walking safer and more convenient is a great investment in America’s future that pays off in safer streets, reduced environmental damage, greater energy security, improved public health and more resilient, neighborly, pleasurable communities.
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60 Comments so far
Show AllBikers and Walkers are Carbon Units and net Carbon Emitters, just like Trees, as Ronald Reagan taught us.
Road and bridges would still be safe for Bikers and Walkers when they become dangerous for vehicles. Shouldn't that be cause enough to give more priority to funding cars?
Cut corporate welfare programs, especially the pentagon programs and you will have more than enough money for improvements/expansion of roads, bridges, railroads and trails for the non-motorized.
If Lincoln had let the South secede in 1861 we would not need to deal with regressive corporate shills like Coburn and Rand.
The plantations, wallstreet banking houses (lead by morgan bank, a british bank), Boston banking/shipping/trading houses were all on one side (ie. the side of oligarchical empire. The Confederacy "romance" was clever marketing to win the hearts of southern "99-ers"and supply an army in the field). Lincoln was fighting wallstreet AS MUCH AS fighting the Confederacy (hence the brilliant "Greenbacks" maneuver AGAINST wallstreet/j.p. morgan bank). Only one of the three legs of empire within these borders was brought down (the plantation oligarchs). The other two legs are now in the OWS "crosshairs"; wallstreet and the "boston vault"(new england's "wallstreet"). When the Brit "99-ers" bring down "the city", global empire will be eradicated from the Earth, and Empress/Mother GAIA will be finally relieved that the pretenders have FINALLY been dethroned.
After OWS changes the direction of "the political winds" blowing through congress, they can re-pass Glass-Steagal and shut down the wallstreet casino, start bankruptcy re-organization, abolish the Fed (wallstreet's puppet), re-issue Lincoln Greenback/Treasury Notes (ie. monetized sovereign credit) fund New Deal-style infrastructure programs, including bridges AND bike paths.
The more people walk and bike the less gasoline they use. So walking and biking hurts the bottom line of Coburn and Rand's sponsors and so must be stopped!
The U.S. Congress, one of the densest concentrations of nihilism in the world, a kind of political and social black hole.
Yes, Congess is located in Washington, DeCeit
It's a power trip. I am thinking these politicians feel they can target this activity without much opposition. For the small amount of money concerned I wonder why they are even addressing it at all. What they seem to fail to consider is that bike riding is pretty equally divided amongst all income groups, with a slightly higher concentration with the budget conscious (low income).
It's not like addressing the subsidy for private jets. Those people have a media microphone and were very vocal when Obama suggested they forgo any tax breaks.
http://www.utrc2.org/research/assets/176/Analysis-Bike-Final1.pdf
Thanks Jay for the interesting and timely article. In the article it was no surprise that you named two of the biggest pricks in Congress as the ones who would waste their times on something so trivial with regard to funds saved. I support bike and pedestrian trails.
Compact, vibrant, bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods are part of what draw hordes of tourists to "charming" places like Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Parma, Paris, Berlin, Vancouver, Boulder, Helsinki, etc. Sprawling, bleak, lusterless communities devoid of all pedestrians and bicycles -- like most of America's exurbs, and a good portion of the Walmartized small towns in America's heartland -- degrade the human spirit, demoralize the soul, and certainly don't draw any tourists seeking some kind of inspiration.
Moreover, such auto-dependent dystopias devoid of public spaces and shared lives on the street result in communities full of fat, out-of-shape, aesthetically deadened, isolated, angry, TV-addicted slobs. Just the kind of people who vote for Coburn and Paul, I suppose ....
Pretty much dead-on.
from the article:
~ Since 2007, 2,800 cyclists and 20,000 pedestrians have died on America’s roads—many due to the lack of sidewalks, bike lanes and other safety measures that federal funds provide. ~
this sentence should read '...many due to the presence of cars...'
I love biking...it is the closest thing to flying I have found...
the car must go...the bike, too, eventually, as we cannot sustain the industrial processes involved with manufacturing, but getting away from the car is imperative to our immediate survival...
the car vs. bike argument is a bit on the frothy side, at this juncture...more air than substance...
there are other much more pressing issues...
like nuclear meltdowns, and the industry-cum-housing battle that is destroying the world...
nothing will protect the biker more than common sense and continual awareness of one's surroundings and speed, and getting cars off of the infrastructure so bikers, walkers, joggers, crawlers, skippers, somersaulters, wheelchairers, rear-entry copulators, cartwheelers, triple-long-jumpers, backriders, shoulder-riders, moonwalkers, handwalkers and Skywalkers can use them...
better to not commute, at all, and stay in bed with your honey a while longer...
"the car must go...the bike, too, eventually, as we cannot sustain the industrial processes involved with manufacturing"
I hope this isn't true, and I don't think it is (I mean the bike needing to go). Bicycles are in fact the single most energy efficient form of transportation, and while some infrastructure is needed, it's not that bad imo.
But
"better to not commute, at all, and stay in bed with your honey a while longer..."
Isn't this the most important point? I mean, in the US, 4% of the average household income is used to commute to work ( http://isea.redlands.edu/analysis/Oil_Analysis_5-04-11.pdf ). And that's just fuel, not considering the cost of the car. And in addition to this, how much of the stuff you earn goes towards not supporting yourself but the capitalist system? What about education? Isn't business the primary (and more and more the only) beneficiary of the educational system that is mostly supported by individuals and taxes, not by business? (I mean, this current form of capitalism does not work because it simply does not in any way account for the overwhelming majority of its material and social inputs. It doesn't pay for knowledge and knowledgeable workers. It doesn't pay properly for limited resources. It doesn't pay for pollution. It doesn't pay for anything important basically. In fact, it doesn't even know what it relies on so much. What a completely dishonest system. Human ingenuity and work my ass - it's all about externalisation.)
And how much of the work people are doing is not just nonproductive but downright destructive? Why is it better to go serve in the military or the police than being a hobo? Why is it better to go design ads or PR than not doing anything and still get some money? So much controller type work, beside being useless and easily replaceable by more democracy is downright destructive - what the hell is the reason for respect towards these things?
Not all work is good. In fact, I have a hunch that most of the work we're doing is actually destructive. Even agriculture, the foundation of all economies, is done in a wasteful and destructive way now - what about the rest that is even harder to do well? Wouldn't it be better if we exchanged some of this idiotic, destructive and absolutely not fulfilling work to more free time to spend with learning, family or democratic politics? Or on just being happy in general?
Thank you and dubet for these comments, they reestablished my faith into the common dreams community after all that bla bla about OWS. Not commuting or flying back and forth to protests would give time to: gardening, planting trees, learning new skills, organizing local initiatives, reorganizing and optimizing our own lives.
The big corporations and especially the Military Industrial Complex will not be stopped by open protests, they will only be stopped when enough people drop out of the system, stop buying their crap, and start building up their local "shadow economy."
And if you think the Military Industrial Complex is out of reach: Boing, the worlds biggest weapons producer will for sure be hurt when nobody boards their planes anymore. KBR will be hurt when Haliburton's oil drilling expertise is not needed anymore because demand for gas drops significantly. HP, Dell are also big Pentagon contractors.
To make "stop consuming" the main rallying cry for Americans is a pipe dream for now, but wait: As the pain caused by environmental destruction inevitably will increase, a paradigm shift becomes more and more likely. We have to prepare the ground for the new gardens that will be planted then.
I absolutely disagree with your posts about OWS and find some parts of them downright disgusting. Sorry. I am absolutely behind the people participating in it.
Your ideas about how change can happen are the typical liberal non-arguments and stuff that obviously does not work and can not work because individual actions can not effect systemic change. Maybe I misunderstand you, in this case I'm sorry, but if you think that things can change without a large movement that changes large parts of society at once, you're very much mistaken. Capitalism, which is about private (and very inequal) control over tools of production, will not change by individual action of the people who do NOT control tools of production. None of your suggestions has much to do with real possibility of change. Again, sorry about this, but you are so utterly and deeply wrong that I just had to answer you (three times altogether hehehe).
I agree with you Atomsk. The idea of bringing the system down by not buying things has the weakness that those most oppressed and marginalized by the system do the least buying. In using that solution those who are the most oppressed by the system would the most helpless and ineffectual participants in a boycott and would be mostly marginalized in working towards a solution. The idea that people who have for the most part been shoved out of the system can then have much influence by dropping out of the system makes little sense. The place where such a tactic might work would be in a country with a far lower gini coefficient.
In response to the title of this article, "Why are Bikes being targeted by Congress?" I would suspect the answer would have something to do with some people in cars being annoyed that they are being expected to slow down and drive safely past the cyclists and pedestrians, that being what the law requires them to do.
Also to some extent the use of an automobile can become an addiction. Mostly money is needed to finance addictions and addicts are known to focus on finding sources of money to feed their addictions rather than to face the pain and discomfort of going through some withdrawal. Here this withdrawal is made quite painful by the poor quality of and lack of pedestrian, cycling, and public transportation infrastructure.
"Why Are Bikes Being Targeted by Congress?"
Because bicycles (and walking) are closely associated with the *demos* ( "the people"), and with lower and middle class lifestyles. (even though there are numerous bikes sold that cost as much as the rent on a Mid-town Manhattan apartment -- $5000 to $6000). Initially, bicycles were toys for the wealthy who could afford to pay for them, but mass production brought them into the reach of the nascent middle classes during the Victorian era, becoming the first personal transportation. The owners of the 'public' transit lines noted the drop in ridership, and ran attack ads demonizing bikes as vulnerable to inclement weather, exposing the rider to the hazards of road traffic, and immoral due to the fact that women had to wear pants (*gasps of shock and horror*) in order to ride them.
In many Elite circles, bicycles are still seen as reminders of old Communist China, and are therefor viewed with the suspicion and distain of that regime.
Bicycles are also inextricably linked to the progressive movement and environmentalism, two things that the Elite will not tolerate.
So, in other words, not a whole lot has changed.
The amount of money for bike lanes is not the point. People like Coburn and Paul don't think that anything they do not do should be funded in any way by the government.
>>People like Coburn and Paul don't think that anything they do not do should be >>funded in any way by the government.
Except their salaries, benefits, eventual Social Security and Medicare.
Senators are not on Social Security or Medicare. Their pensions and benefits are separate, so it's only salaries on your list that they protect.
I think senators are eligible for both SS and Medicare like everyone who has paid into the system or otherwise qualifies.
Join your local bike group, if you have one. If you don't, why not start one? It doesn't have to be complicated-- get together with some friends and go for a ride.
In my town, we have several groups that provide opportunities for people to ride together. One is coordinated by a local real estate guy. I assume he does this because he makes contacts this way, but his rides are excellent-- he provides historical info. Riding with others gets very social very quickly.
Bikes are becoming a more important option-- make that a necessity-- as oil supplies shrink. Agitate for them. Write your representative. Support your local action groups. Join Rails-for-Trails. It will be fun; you will enjoy it. And you will leave the world in better shape than how you found it.
Larger bicycle clubs have become successful advocacy organizations that enable the enactment of much progressive legislation for non-motorized transportation.
The Cascade Bicycle Club in Seattle is the largest, one of the oldest and most successful advocacy organizations in the western hemisphere. Their website lists advocacy projects in progress that serve as good examples of what other clubs can accomplish.
The less people get out and exercise and enjoy the outdoors and commune with nature the easier they are to control. If they stay inside watching TV, eating junk food and surfing the Net the more brainwashing they are exposed to and the duller, lazier and more simple minded they become. The population is much easier to manipulate and control that way.
Does the Senator have a brother in the bridge building business?
Both Coburn and Rand are tight with the petrochemical industry that wants to sell more oil. Every bicycle trip is one more gallon of oil the industry won't get to sell.
Unfortunately many people don't have some kind of nature around to commune with, especially families in the sprawling suburbs. They have to ride by car for long distances to find even the smallest forest or some other patch of pristine nature, and they by doing so are destroying this very nature with the car fumes.
Don't need bike paths. When we get farther into peak oil, you can just use the empty freeways, providing you can keep someone from stealing your bike.
You mean to keep someone from knocking you off of your bike first, and then stealing it from you, which is what they do in some places already.
i live in Seattle, known as a "liberal" city that despite its many daunting hills has thriving cyclist communities and a "bike friendly" administration. Our current mayor and city council president both commute by bicycle, and we have a bicycle advocate working in the city department of transportation.
And, we have a rabid ugly contingent of hateful anti-bicycle, anti-cyclist, "patriotic citizens" who truly believe that there should be zero public investment in cycling infrastructure and cycling safety.
i read my "local paper" online. Every time it publishes a report of another cyclist killed by a car, a truly ugly group of commenters joins the comment thread to attack, denounce, blame, belittle and make fun of cyclists, including making fun of cyclists who are killed.
Again and again, people who loved a cyclist who was killed will read the news report, read the comment thread, see the crude hate expressed by ignorant commenters, and sign up for an account so they can ask these ugly people if they have no shame?
It goes way beyond ignorance. There is a not insignificant strain of automobile-identified "patriotic Americans," publicly embodied by the likes of Paul and Coburn, who viciously and truly HATE bicycles and cyclists. As exemplified by Coburn and Paul, this viciousness is closely tied to other specific forms of demonization and hatred in our proto-fascist political culture.
Thanks Common Dreams and thanks Jay Walljasper for this report.
I live in the rural midwest. The neighboring university town has 80,000 people and local talk radio. One morning they were discussing the very topic you bring up, the nastiness of some drivers towards cyclists--some were calling in saying how cyclists give them the finger, etc. Cyclists also called in to report tales of anger and hostility. This whole situation was news to me as I rode the streets of Chicago (no bike paths) for 20 years with no problems. Is it possible there is a talk radio host out there who stirs this stuff up to further the myth of the liberal wus?
No its not. You said you rode in the streets of Chicago, not the suburbs or rural areas. Attitudes in the city are much more enlightened than the suburbs or city.
When I ride my 50cc-class electric scooter, I get all kinds of mocking or hostile reactions in the suburbs and exurbs - even though it can go at least the speed limit on every road and hill ride it on! But, I never have problems once I'm in the Pittsburgh city limits.
Is America's Car Culture not an integral part of the "American Dream"? Americans drive bigger cars than any other country and there are about 150 million cars, one car for every two people. Americans use a quarter of all globally produced oil with just 4.6 percent of the worlds population. Unlimited (or nearly unlimited) mobility is seen as necessary for a successful career and a happy life.
What could be more American than a big car? (Maybe an expensive Harley Davidson).
I see that some people try to change this deeply entrenched aspect of US culture, thank you so much for your effort!
bikers are great until one come perpendicular to you at a four way stop to you and blow through at 12 mph. Give a biker a helmet matching clothes and no light and they become 15 year-old retards.
Yes. There are assholes among bikers also, just like there are posters on CD who like to use logical fallacies as arguments.
ZZZZZZZiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggggg!!!!!!!! ;-)
Well, I have had close calls on my scooter a couple times from bicyclists blowing through a stop sign and even red traffic lights.
As opposed to drivers like you, who are "intellectually challenged" all the time. Must be from breathing in the "new car smell" of polyvinyl chloride mixed with carbon monoxide and unburned hydrocarbons.
RAND PAUL, TRULY ONE OF THE WALKING DEAD, dead from the head down. If he were to get out of the MADHOUSE and bike around a bit, he might see things diff......forget it.
In the days when we were healthy enough to do all our errands via bike, we were MUCH healthier. Moving to a city and being compelled to survive by using a car has destroyed our health and our being accomplished volunteers — so what's the trouble with bikes? Just look at the comparative statistics...
---"Moving to a city and being compelled to survive by using a car has destroyed our health and our being accomplished volunteers..."---
I think you are confusing "city" with suburbs". City people walk, bike, use public transit have smaller carbon footprints and and are generally healthier than suburban or rural people.
Pissing on pedestrians and cyclists is politically advantageous. There are far more drivers who cannot tolerate pedestrians and cyclists than the other way around.
The new major in Toronto, a Mr. Ford (I'm not kidding) who is a drivel-spewing conservative swellhead, wants cyclists off city streets. Says he: "I can't support bike lanes. Roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks. My heart bleeds when someone gets killed, but it's their own fault at the end of the day."
Believe me, nothing bleeds in Toronto's mayoral office. Ford is a bloodless and heartless caricature. And he is not alone, his type is found all over.
Yeah, but when I was in Toronto last month, we had some self-righteous cyclist riding down the middle of Queen Street, deliberately holding our streetcar with probably 70 riders to 10 kph. The operator leaned on the horn, but the bicyclist would not get over. So apparently bicyclists agree with Ford in his hostility to public transit - or at least the streetcars and buses.
But as far as down here in the USA, it basically is this:
Bicycles = pointy-headed liberals, democrats, and communists
Public transit = dangerous niggers, retards and losers - keep those buses out of you neighborhoods!
The Car = Freedom and The American Way!
It's really that simple. Although, how such a mentality came to be is a bit more complicated; having to do with Edward Bernays and his methods of corporate mind control in a managed democracy.
To often biking becomes an urban vs rural issue, or fair weather state vs everywhere else.
The administration just gave Fisker a $536 million loan for further development of electric luxury sports cars. Ie; cars for the 1%. That was a half billion that could have been better spent on infastructure, public transport, etc.
Walking and biking are clean, healthy, nonpolluting, energy efficient activities and the GOPers can't stand that kind of thing. Don't they ride bikes in FRANCE? FRANCE FER GOD'S SAKE!
Why can't these people just drive like normal folks? Isn't it a long enough walk to get to the driveway?
Having spent quite a bit of time in countries (Belgium & the Netherlands) where bicycles are legally given the same or better rights of road priority over automobiles, it is not surprising why the lackeys and lapdogs of the American Oil oligarchy are trying to maintain the dominion of the car: $$$. More bicycles on the road means less people in cars, which means their bottom line takes a hit.
Every citizen - man, woman and child - is given an annual bicycle allowance in the Netherlands. Citizens can spend between $400 and $500 per year on bicycles and safety gear. There are excellent bike paths throughout the countryside and cities. All public transport has provision for bicycle transport. What better way to start the day than a bike ride that eliminates the "joys" and expense of commuting.
There must be people in Congress who wake up every morning only thinking "Who can I screw today". There can be no other reason for such short-sighted, venomous thinking.
Driving cars is a privilege, riding bikes is a right.
"How in the the world can biking and walking be controversial?"
when you live in an inverted totalitarian society, the seemingly logical becomes illogical when it (any number of behaviors, bicycling/vegetarian diet/recycling/buying used first/volunteering time) doesn't jibe/align w/ the rules of the market - convenience and profits.
"But in these antagonistic political times, bikers and walkers are now targets of controversy for some members of Congress"
it's an indicator, an outlier of how far away american culture is from accepting the obvious - the planet has an energy crisis that will only be exacerbated by oil shortages and climate change. as a bicyclist (of over 15 years) who currently commutes in olympia washington, i am amazed at how entitled people are to driving. many employers will not hire people who do not drive a car (even if they have a drivers license). i say this even though my city has received accolades for it's transportation system.
i frequently ride on the bicycle past people who are physically capable of cycling to the store to buy that bobble, or piece of gum, or pack of cigarettes. the fact is americans who live outside of the urban cores (metro in DC, EL in chicago, subway in nyc - or bus systems in medium sized cities) are almost required to drive because of the nature of sprawl. yet, one stretch of my bike commute these days - is along a sidewalk that passes a gym, where i can look in the window and see people who drove 2.5 miles to exercise in a gym - but they don't bicycle ?
i'm an advocate of giving every 12 year old a free bicycle and mandating that at least 33 percent of their physical education in middle school is spent using that bicycle (kids also should be issued a uniform standard computer notebook at age 6). ditch the drivers education mandate - bike ed w/ a free bike. pretty simple.
many of these people (addicted to their cars) passing me as i bike look at me in amazement, like i'm absolutely crazy for biking in the rain. some of them become angry because they have to pause when i legally have the right of way.
to me it's an indicator of how far away america is to achieving a cultural shift (of consciousness/a transformation) that will force it and the planet to respond accordingly to population growth and global warming. using precious materials- like plastics derived from petroleum - finite - as fuel to burn for senseless transportation to buy a package of gum or a soda pop or a condom or a package of crisps from the convenient store is fucking crazy.
if americans can't figure out how to walk and bike to the store (instead of drive, while talking n their friggen cell phone) then perhaps we all should perish in a nuclear fireball. what's the point ?
...peace...
Thank you for your post which is right on the point but sounds quit pessimistic. You probably will not be able to amend and improve the system, it is based on false presumptions. You will have to bring the system down and built something new. Don't be discouraged, the system will crumble sooner than we all can imagine.
In the meantime: prepare for a new society.