Dear Matt, Yes, you make your point about Federal Money and State transportation budgets. The bicycle should not be forgotten as well as the human foot, wheel chairs, and rail trains. Let us leave raiding oil profits out of the mix, though.
If, say 1% became the standard mandate, would the money enhance cycling or regulate it. Would then only certain less traveled roads be "DECLARED BY LAW' as the preferred bicycle routes and posted as bicycle friendly at the exclusion of all other roads? Probably any infrastructure would benefit some bicycle segment--such as the development of old rail right-a-ways. But soon there would be speed controls to benefit children on bike paths as well as certain country roads relegated to bicycles. Regulation always begins with good intentions and grows from that point into an Orwellian nightmare. Why should this innocuous 1% also follow the same fate? Encouragement of bicycle transport with Governors riding bicycles rather than Motor Cycles might help. More biking events which do not cost a family big bucks for charity would help. But I stress that sort of a bike culture is a systemic thing. Maybe psychologists could indicate how the culture could develop. Eric Westhagen Matt Logan wrote: > > Social change is systemic and not declared through the Governor's > > office or a Dane County activist group. > > Actually, I think the following policy paper proves you quite wrong: > > http://www.policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/pucher/TransportPolicyArticle.pdf > > As I read this, it is in fact the State Government that is the > bottleneck in the effort to help empower residents with mobility > options. The Federal Money is there, the local demand for the money is > there (In Madison and Dane County) - but it is the State that is > choosing to under-utilize Federal dollars already earmarked for > alternative forms of transportation. > > Something else I'd like to point out from the page 267 (the second page) > of the above document: > > Oregon is the State with the highest bike share of work trips in the > United States. Not coincidentally, back in the 1970's, Governor Tom > McCall signed legislation requiring that 1% of highway funds be spent on > bicycling. [ http://www.cicle.org/cicle_content/pivot/entry.php?id=269 ] > > Unfortunately in Wisconsin, 1.1% of the budget is split between > bicycling and pedestrian facilities. [ > http://www.americabikes.org/images/resource/stateinfo/wisconsinbike%20po > ll.doc ] > > What this boils down to is this: The State of Wisconsin is choosing to > dictate transportation options to its residents by under-funding > motor-vehicle alternatives. Increasing this funding makes a > demonstrable difference in the percentage of bike trips to work. There > is no need to mandate a "European culture" in order to empower our > transportation system users. The demand is there (as outlined in the > America bikes article), we just have to create the infrastructure. And > to do that, we have to knock some sense into our State Government. _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
