1nterceptor

"Depending on the compromise bill’s final language, states may be allowed to shift bike and pedestrian funds to road construction or other priorities. House Republicans would prefer to go one step further, eliminating bike and pedestrian funding altogether.

A student environmental group at Bridgewater-Raritan High School in New Jersey raised money for a bike rack only to have their principal reject it, citing safety risks. Similarly, a principal at Island Park Elementary School in Mercer Island, Wash., an avid bicycler herself, vetoed a proposed bike route, pointing out that a fifth-grader had recently been killed while walking his bike through a street crossing. A principal in Walker, Mich., recently suspended a group of students for biking en masse to school."

Read the full article:
https://grist.org/biking/congress-rai...ng-bicyclists/

PJCB

This is so entirely frustrating. It baffles me how incredibly stupid some people can be. Too many kids are killed in intersections, so lets make it impossible to create a safe route around said intersections? Sounds like some bull---t to me.

WPeabody 

It is BS. They don't want cyclists and pedestrians complicating the issue, they want all motor vehicles, and in the process are making it a lot more trouble than it needs to be. Those drivers who say bicycles are dangerous, a menace, etc. seem to be blind to the problems generated by motor vehicles which are many times worse. More headaches, the result of their lack of foresight, are waiting further down the road.

Keep writing to the members of congress in your area...

Recumbomatic

The car & oil lobby says we ain't spending enough money on their products.

CommuterRun

Showing once again that being a reasonably intelligent person is not a requirement to being a school administrator. More kids are killed while riding in motor vehicles. So it would only make sense to ban dropping children off or picking them up from school in a motor vehicle that is not a school bus.

DeadheadSF

It's a double win for the right-wingnuts - 1) Increase profits for oil companies by having just that many more people driving instead of riding bikes, 2) kill off all those "dirty smelly liberal hippies on bicycles".

Congress has been giving us all the finger for decades anyway.

PJCB

Huzzah! I just don't know where to plaster all my "dirty smelly liberal hippie vegan bicycle" bumper stickers! Cargo trailer? Ha.

There was a time when I thought to myself, "What the hell are those right-wingers thinking?!" Then I remembered: they don't think.

lostarchitect 

Big oil says, "Just say no to cycling!"

Recumbomatic

Various news reports out there saying that driving is on the decline among the young. The vested interests have to do all they can NOW to get those youngsters hooked on the idea that "there is only the car". Else, a lifetime of profits will be in danger!

WPeabody 

Hmph. There are plenty of conservatives who are serious cyclists, not just recreational riders, and I know *plenty* of liberals who would not be caught dead riding a bike.
Funny, truck drivers will often wave, give me plenty of space and the guy in the Prius with the Save the Whales license plate beeps and nearly runs me down. Life is strange. It doesn't fit what the media tries to drill into our heads. Really.

This cannot be a partisan issue, it has to be a unifying factor, no matter what one's walk of life, everyone runs the same risk of getting maimed on a bicycle, be you a transient or the Crown Prince of Denmark. Yet too many people still think of the cyclist as the second class citizen of publicly paid for and for the most part, publicly owned roads. Ridiculous.

Chris516

I am a conservative, but this is just plain stupid. Regardless of the party, they all bark about dependence on foreign oil, then they do something like this.

kookaburra1701

Noooo, it's the liberals who are anti-bike! The geezer who saw me pedaling up to my work last week told me so.

Me: "Good evening, sir."
Him: "That's a good bike - good way to save on gas."
Me: "It sure is."
Him: "Obama won't like that."

...?

rydabent

I am not dirty, smelly, or a liberal. I am a bed rock conservative constitutional republican, and I bike.

FrenchFit 

People vote for these cartoon characters, and then they are shocked by what they do. That's the real irony here, Congress is a reflection of us.

jmccain

And your local politicians including school board trustees if there are important issues they decide.

And whatever your well-reasoned and thoughtful beliefs, vote, vote, vote!

CommuteCommando

As someone recently said, Wall Street has the best government money can buy.

CommuteCommando

Considering my congressman is Darryl Issa, wish me luck with that. Last time I wrote him, I received back a form reply of all of his corporate sponsored talking points.

CommuteCommando

+1

Chris516

+100

rekmeyata

And this is why I would be completely against a registration fee for bicycles, because the government would steal it for other projects unrelated to cycling.

irwin7638

I don't think it's a partisan issue at all,
this "liberal freak"

initiated all the federal funding for bike trails in the last highway bill.
People are just short sighted and stupid when it comes to cycling.

Marc

Chicago Al 

Please provide a citation. I find that very hard to believe.

As opposed to this.

sudo bike

Great, so now cycling is a partisan issue as well. A&S at its finest.

Meh, as a conservative, I like low-cost, efficiency, and sustainability; bikes fit the bill. All sorts of people have all sorts of reasons for riding, and nobody's reason is better than anyone else's. nb4 move to politics.

hagen2456

I'm not too well versed in American politics, but the broad categories "Conservative", "Neo-liberalist" and "Liberal" seem to cover so many different temperaments and philosophies that using that kind of labels doesn't make much sense when it comes to cycling. One is better served, I think, by looking at which party votes how when it comes to legislation - as well as checking out who funds which party/politicians...

RobertHurst

In American politics, both parties are funded by Wall Street and huge corporations. And, when it comes down to it, both parties produce and support very similar legislation that benefits their sponsors at the expense of everybody else. In my opinion, the 'two party system' is kabuki theater set up to advance a single agenda by distracting the population with faked controversies and disagreements, mostly having to do with social issues. It works very well.