Repugs to bikers and pedestrians: Get a car or drop dead

[marmar]

from onthecommons.org:



Bike and Pedestrian Safety Under Attack on Capitol Hill
Republicans should heed a surprising conservative voice on the subject

By Jay Walljasper


Funding for bicycle and pedestrian improvements is fighting for its life on Capitol Hill right now, under attack from politicians who want to shove transportation policies back to the 1950s, when cars were the only way to go. Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) introduced a measure to kill dedicated funding for non-motorized transportation programs, which may come to a vote as early as today.

Called by the misleading name “transportation enhancements” (since when is saving lives an enhancement?) programs to make biking and walking safer for everyone are one of the smartest investments to come out of Washington. Any Republican wanting to eliminate them ought to open the pages of the conservative magazine The Economist, which last week made a strong case for continuing to build bike lanes and pedestrian-friendly street designs .

Not usually an advocate for expanding government programs, The Economist bluntly states: “Dying while cycling is three to five times more likely in America than in Denmark, Germany or the Netherlands.” The reason, according to the magazine, is that Northern European bikers enjoy the safety of bike lanes separated from moving traffic and other modern measures to protect riders.

Another factor cited by the magazine is traffic calming, a toolkit of new engineering approaches that remind motorists not to speed. And we know beyond a doubt that speed kills. The Economist points to a British government study showing that vehicles traveling 40 miles-per-hour kill pedestrians 85 percent of the time. At 30 mph, pedestrians die 45 percent of the time, and at 19 miles per hour (the speed limit on many residential streets in Europe), fatalities occur 5 percent of the time. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://onthecommons.org/bike-and-pedestrian-safety-under-attack-capitol-hill

[liberal N proud]

1. This is the influence from Oil Companies.

They want everyone to own a car which uses Gasoline and other petroleum byproducts.

[taterguy]

2. Walking and biking is fueled by food mostly grown in America. Cars run on imported oil

Why does the GOP hate America?

[GoCubsGo]

3. Nothing new there.

It doesn't surprise me one bit. In my right wing hellhole, they use cyclists as target practice. I had stuff chucked out at me from passing cars all the time. My old housemate once was hit with an unopened 2L soft drink bottle. Because of this kind of shit, and because of too many close calls, my bike hasn't been ridden in over 20 years. It's literally rotting in my garage. Wish I could live in a more cycle- and pedestrian-friendly place. Of course, schumucks like Coburn are seeing to it that that will never be possible.

[LeftinOH]

4. Walking is un-American..unless you're at the mall or DisneyWorld. I HATE

communities with no sidewalks and acres of parking lots.

[Zax2me]

5. Misleading headline. Link to a repug that said that?

This writer is turning off potential readers by - well, lying.
He doesn't have to, he is on the right side on this - so why do it?

[marmar]

6. It's my headline and it's intentional hyberbole.....Jeezus.

nt

[Luminous Animal]

12. You do understand what quotations marks are, don't you? The OP doesn't have any.

[Blue Owl]

7. Pretty soon nobody will be able to afford their fucking cars

or the infrastructure will crumble, not sure which will happen first.

[gratuitous]

8. I thought Republicans were all about reducing dependence on foreign oil

More folks walking and bicycling means less gasoline consumption. It also means a healthier population. And it means fewer cars on the road, so those who have to or choose to drive have less to contend with. Setting aside room for bike lanes or laying multi-user paths for walkers, joggers and bicyclists means jobs for construction people, ancillary industries, and local merchants who can stock and sell more non-motorized transport accessories.

Besides his innate jack-assitude, what's Coburn's rationale for this wrong-headed measure?

[kenny blankenship]

9. Bikes are not the answer. Pedestrian improvements, sure, we can use them where they'd be useful.

People in N. Europe live in much more densely built and populated cities and towns than Americans do. I live in a neighborhood that was built out circa WWI in a relatively dense old town inside a sprawling megalopolis. Even here, walking or biking to places you need to get to regularly just doesn't get it. I can walk to a Post Office and a drugstore if I have an extra 25 or 45 minutes available in my day for the roundtrip travel times they would require. For obvious reasons grocery shopping on foot or by bike is a major inconvenience and impractical: fresh food spoils right quick exposed to 90+ degree heat. The only supermarket I could safely get to by bike is the worst one for miles and miles. For a very small percentage of people who live right in the core of town, or in its oldest, closest-in neighborhoods, the distances to daily destinations in town is doable, but for many people in those oldest suburbs the car traffic would be prohibitive and intimidating to bike around in. Ah, you may say, that's where the bike lane comes in! But you're dreaming. The streets there are old as the houses, and the main N-S artery out of town is narrow, even after having been widened in the past. So there isn't room for "improvements" just for bicyclists. Traffic would come to a furious standstill. People who can afford to live there, moreover, can afford two nice cars, so it's unlikely many of them would be interested in the economy of biking it, even if an extra lane could be wished into existence. Maybe they could be provoked into biking if you made the street impassible for cars with your bike lane, but most would still pass. Those who live in the high rise condos in the town's center are already walking where it's possible to do so: that's why they moved there in the first place. They don't need your "improvements". As for the millions of others who live out in TEH SPRAWL of metro Atlanta? FORGET ABOUT IT. It's a totally ludicrous proposition. If I can't see it as a viable solution to my daily shopping etc. where I live, inside Ye Olde Towne, all those exurb dwellers including many of my relatives are literally MILES further from being able to convert from driving to biking where they need to go. They would just laugh at the idea, not out of disdain for "saving the planet!" or whatever rubric you propose their conversion to cycling under, but because it's completely absurd in the context of their lives and daily travels. Where they live, like most of Atlanta's population, the entire land-use geography and way of life is predicated on the use of a personal car. You don't need to put in bike lanes. You need to plow under the whole street "grid" out there, burn the local zoning laws, and start over from scratch.

As part of the 2009 Stimu-less, one end of the main drag through my town was "bike-laned". One of the two lanes was blocked off for the exclusive use of bicyclists. You don't see any more bicycles out there than before. Which is not surprising really since this length of road feeds into a four lane boulevard where you'd have to have a death wish to be riding on a bike. But what you do see as a result of the bike lane, is traffic bottlenecking and lots of near misses as cars follow each other too closely (as part of the funnel effect caused by the loss of the second lane) and suddenly stop as the lead car slows to make a right angle turn across the opposing lane (which is harder to do and takes longer because it too is more congested than before due to the loss of the outside lane on its side). As a stimulus project this was ill considered. Stimulus projects should be at least neutral with regard to utility. The classic example of neutral utility is paying people to dig a big hole in the ground and then fill it up again. Society didn't gain utility from the hole or from its refilling, but the workers paid to do it will spend the money, and at least you haven't done any harm. This imposition of a bike lane in my town has had considerable negative utility.

You want to spend money to do something useful for America's transportation grid and our national energy efficiency? You want to help millions of people, not just upper middle class elitists?

SPEND MORE MONEY ON BUSES AND TRAINS.

The budget cutbacks to MARTA bus routes and train schedules is reducing the system in some places and times to near uselessness. And not just out at the periphery either. The hobbling of MARTA is almost certainly is absolutely intentional on the part of the good old boy Georgia state government, which wouldn't be able to find its own ass without help from office staff who largely depend on MARTA to get around, but that's another complaint for another day.

Fucking bike lanes as a FEDERAL INITIATIVE? While metro area bus and rail service is being slashed - from a baseline that was already underfunded? This is EXACTLY the kind of moon-eyed, stupid fruitcakery that makes ordinary non-political people susceptible to the RW claim that liberals are out of touch with basic reality.

[devilgrrl]

10. I'm getting sick of the "densely built population" excuse for not doing anything.

Bike lanes in cities over 30,000. Railroad travel in between large stretches. Both projects are necessary and produce jobs.

[taterguy]

11. A decent commuter bike costs less than what some people spend on gas in a month

What's this "upper middle class elitists" shit?

Seriously, I got into biking when my car died and I couldn't afford to replace it.

Guess it was my moon-eyed stupid fruitcakery that wanted a way to get around.

:eyes:

[taught_me_patience]

13. I've had the exact opposite experience

Long Beach installed dedicated bike lanes and "green lanes" (which are shared car/bike lanes) and they are wildly popular. Once a week my wife and I bike to restaurants. It's safe enough to even strap my 10mo old onto the front and let her enjoy fresh air.