Advocacy & Safety - After the elections (not partisan) where are we headed?

Here's an excellent read from bikeportland.org as to what leaders in bike advocacy are thinking after last nights voting.

http://bikeportland.org/2010/11/03/national-bike-leaders-weigh-in-on-tumultuous-elections-42124#more-42124

If we can convince a few of the members of Congress, new faces and old, that running a trade deficit is bad economics, then we have a solid non-partisan issue. We import over two-thirds of the oil we burn and a fairly large amount of that burning is taking place for very short (2-10 mile) trips that even an overweight American can walk or ride if they perceive it to be safe. Building safe, effective bike and ped infrastructure doesn't force anyone out of their car, it just gets some cars out of their way.

Now I'm going to go thank my lucky stars that I don't live in one of the regions that voted Neanderthals into office. Yes, that is partisan.:D

As far as Oberstar is concerned, he was good for cycling, but bad for my job. He had a vendetta against FedEx and a willingness to push legislation that would have greatly complicated the way my employer does business. Since I'd rather have a job than a bike path, I'm glad to see him go.

The guy in Colorado who said that bike paths were a commie plot (I am barely exaggerating here) went down to crushing defeat, and the even-crazier guy who jumped into the race lost too. Between them they have probably knocked one of the major political parties to minority status on the Colorado ballot for the foreseeable future. :lol: :thumb:

I'm sure Bikes Belong has been working hard at getting a new Congress critter to send money their way. That is probably the entire point of their People for Bikes campaign. I'd give it no more than a year before it's business as usual.

But then again, I'm a cynical anarchist.

I just hoping the new idiot in charge our our state doesn't rip us off like he did medicaid.

I'm also hoping he doens't overturn our high speed and commuter rail initiatives.

Well, thats just great. Now there is no chance of slowing down the chipseal campaign currently unleashed upon our embattled roadways...
Buy stock in fat bicycle tires.

The result will be more money for highways and less for public transportation and bikes.

to hell, if we don't change our ways

Well, it looks like our president is using an increased republican majority in the House as an excuse to back-pedal on a global warming initiative. With more global warming gases comes more carbon dioxide and less oxygen. Enjoy your ride.

The MD governor's results will have an affect on cyclists around DC. The incumbent/winner is a big supporter of the Purple Line light rail, which will gobble up a major recreational/commuter trail in Montgomery county.

OTOH the apparent winner of Virgina 11th is a big cycling supporter.

I think it's a very dangerous trend for bike/pedestrian advocacy to become identified with only one political party, rather than politically neutrally, but that increasingly seems to be the case today. I would like to help reverse that, but I'm not sure how to do so. People of all political persuasions ride bikes, and everyone is a pedestrian at least some of the time. And there are aspects of bicycling that I would think would appeal to both ends of the political spectrum. But I think the problems seem to be the increasingly divergent "culture" that different groups in America are a part of, and how politics is affected by that.

For the conservatives in particular, I would think that bicycling would be an appealing thing because of the self-sufficiency aspects of it (both individually and on a societal level); the frugality of it; the potential reduction of the need for so much government spending on roads and other things to support the effects of cars; and the reduction in oil imports. And yet a lot of them don't seem to see it that way, as mentioned above, for reasons that seem irrational to me and that I don't fully understand. The only thing I can think of is that this partisan gap is in large part a function of the age and type of people who tend to support each major political party. If a lot of the GOP base lived most of their lives in an era in which bicycles were viewed as little more than children's toys, it's probably hard for them to picture them as a major part of our transportation picture.

BTW, Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia (who was elected last year, not this year) has also proposed diverting bike/ped funds to pay for, of all things, highway rest stops and tourism promotion. Clearly, his view of bicycling is as recreation only, and apparently not as a high priority even in that category. That anyone is actually thinking of CUTTING bike funds is appalling to me, given that the spending is already massively inadequate.

Non partisan---not hardly. Even the boogie man "global warming" was trotted out.

Non partisan---not hardly. Even the boogie man "global warming" was trotted out.

I think he meant the article.

I'm reasonably optimistic.

Previous generations made it through the Civil War.

Austin voters did pass a $90 million transportation bond issue (http://www.getaustinmoving.com/) that is about 40% dedicated to things that are not roads for cars -- which is pretty much unprecedented around here (and the source of most of the opposition to it.)

So the election turned out good for the cyclists here, at least in that regard.

I've concluded that federal and state politicians will do very little to advocate for cycling. Its the folks at the local level that really do most of the work.


The guy in Colorado who said that bike paths were a commie plot (I am barely exaggerating here) went down to crushing defeat, and the even-crazier guy who jumped into the race lost too. Between them they have probably knocked one of the major political parties to minority status on the Colorado ballot for the foreseeable future. :lol: :thumb:
Maes got >10% of the vote. That's all he needed for Republican party to maintain status as a major party. What's even more interesting is the fact that the ACP is now a major party in CO due to how many votes Tancredo won.

As I read the election results I was thinking of the old Who song; "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss..."

I don't expect it to happen, but I'd love to see them get some fiscal responsibility and start reducing the size of the national debt and the unfunded liabilities (social security and medicare). The first ammounts to about $30,000 per person in the country and with the second the number is ten times that or about $300,000 per person.

Everybody can argue about what to spend money on, but when the money runs out everybody gets the same answer, no...

I've concluded that federal and state politicians will do very little to advocate for cycling. Its the folks at the local level that really do most of the work.


While this is definitely true as far as showing vocal support for it, in my experience, actually providing the funding is another story. I've lived in several places now where the local politicians basically told local bike advocacy groups that they would be happy to enhance bike infrastructure...if the federal or state government provided most of the money (although these are mid-sized cities...big cities probably have more resources). I worry that if too much federal and state funding is cut, the local governments will just not bother at all. Apparently spending even a couple hundred thousand dollars a year is sometimes too much to ask, despite the fact that they routinely build and widen roads that cost millions and millions of dollars per mile.

As I read the election results I was thinking of the old Who song; "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss..."

I don't expect it to happen, but I'd love to see them get some fiscal responsibility and start reducing the size of the national debt and the unfunded liabilities (social security and medicare). The first ammounts to about $30,000 per person in the country and with the second the number is ten times that or about $300,000 per person.

Everybody can argue about what to spend money on, but when the money runs out everybody gets the same answer, no...

When money is tight, governments cut things that are seen as "optional" by many of the politicians first before they cut things that have big constituencies behind them. So things like bike/ped often end up first on the chopping block despite the fact that their cost is minimal in comparison to e.g., road building. At the federal level, non-defense discretionary spending always gets cut first, despite the fact that its impact on the budget is much smaller than defense programs or entitlement spending, because again, the political risk of making cuts there is less. So we don't ever solve our budget problems, but we actually end up cutting a lot of the things that would be very cost-effective ways of addressing some of our problems. For example, growth in Medicare and Medicaid cost is one of the main things crippling our budget right now, and one major reason (far from the only reason, though) for that is the increasingly sedentary lifestyle many Americans are leading. We could severely cut into future Medicare and Medicaid costs by spending a bit more more money on "active transportation" projects, and a number of studies have shown this to be true: the ROI is huge. So a mindless "cut everything" mentality is not productive: we should instead evaluate the costs vs. benefits of all spending and how it will affect future costs.

The large problems with the budget probably can't be solved without raising taxes on at least some of the population and making major defense and entitlement cuts. I don't see the two major parties agreeing to do that, so the debt will likely just continue to increase for the time being since now our government is split.

I honestly don’t expect any noticeable changes in cycling conditions or anything else for that matter, no matter who is in office.

While the difference between what opposing politicians say is sometimes huge, the difference of what they actually can do is often quite small.

Balance the budgets and cut taxes? Yeah right. I'll vote for that. :rolleyes:

I honestly don’t expect any noticeable changes in cycling conditions or anything else for that matter, no matter who is in office.

While the difference between what opposing politicians say is sometimes huge, the difference of what they actually can do is often quite small.

Balance the budgets and cut taxes? Yeah right. I'll vote for that. :rolleyes:


I mostly agree. But the rail trail legislation has been pretty big in my area. Partially because of the money, and partially because it provided new right of ways.

Other than that it all happens at a local level here. But I think a significant chunk of funding always ends up being federal. I don't know if they're earmarks, or TE funding, or what. I suspect that funding may start to disappear, and in anti-tax Nebraska that'll just mean there won't be money: The state won't bother to tax to pay for services people want. We'll just "do without."


I'm concerned to see TE go because it was starting to turn into real money. I'd really like to see biking and walking get their share instead of being accused of being a burden. If we fund cars federally then we should fund the others federally because we're not adult enough to fund them otherwise.

I mostly agree. But the rail trail legislation has been pretty big in my area. Partially because of the money, and partially because it provided new right of ways.

Other than that it all happens at a local level here. But I think a significant chunk of funding always ends up being federal. I don't know if they're earmarks, or TE funding, or what. I suspect that funding may start to disappear, and in anti-tax Nebraska that'll just mean there won't be money: The state won't bother to tax to pay for services people want. We'll just "do without."


I'm concerned to see TE go because it was starting to turn into real money. I'd really like to see biking and walking get their share instead of being accused of being a burden. If we fund cars federally then we should fund the others federally because we're not adult enough to fund them otherwise.

A good portion of it IS earmarks. We got some good local bike/ped projects that we never would have gotten otherwise out of earmark spending recently. Earmark spending has become politically toxic, however, especially in the GOP, because it's often identified as pork, and some of it is. But it's one of the largest sources of bike/ped funding. As I said before, it's a convenient target to go after small projects that are funded by earmarks when you want to tout cutting spending, because you can cut spending without taking any serious political risk like you would have to in order to cut Social Security or defense. Unfortunately, the spending is minimal in comparison, so it's basically just a symbolic scapegoat for the larger problems with government overspending.

I'm a little late on the news here but I just saw this blog post about Jim Oberstar: http://www.montaguebikes.com/folding-bikes-blog/2010/11/cycling-loses-key-member-of-congress-what-we-do-now/
I hadn't realized we had lost such an advocate in congress

As a cyclist I too would like to see money directed to cycling projects. However if these projects fall under the business as usual tax and spend it is going to have to be tempered with common sense. If I have to make a choice of ridding a nice hiker biker trail that will be charged to my granddaughter, I will chose to do without. The country is almost 14 TRILLION dollars in debt. Its time to only spend what we can afford. Money does not grow on trees!!!!!!

Me, I'm headed out for a ride.

As a cyclist I too would like to see money directed to cycling projects. However if these projects fall under the business as usual tax and spend it is going to have to be tempered with common sense. If I have to make a choice of ridding a nice hiker biker trail that will be charged to my granddaughter, I will chose to do without. The country is almost 14 TRILLION dollars in debt. Its time to only spend what we can afford. Money does not grow on trees!!!!!!

Money doesn't grow on trees, but I think it's fair to say that bicycle infrastructure projects have had a basically negligible contribution to that 14 trillion dollar debt. If you're concerned about the debt, you should be advocating tax increases and cuts to the major programs that suck up most of the money (like defense and entitlements). It's silly to focus on a single drop in the bucket and ignore the buckets more water being poured in.

Money doesn't grow on trees, but I think it's fair to say that bicycle infrastructure projects have had a basically negligible contribution to that 14 trillion dollar debt. If you're concerned about the debt, you should be advocating tax increases and cuts to the major programs that suck up most of the money (like defense and entitlements). It's silly to focus on a single drop in the bucket and ignore the buckets more water being poured in.

"Count the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves."

also known as "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

"Count the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves."

also known as "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

Except that that isn't true when it comes to U.S. government spending. In reality what happens is that politicians cut a bunch of small projects so that they can brag about how they're cutting spending, while increasing spending on the big stuff. And voters fall for it.

Except that that isn't true when it comes to U.S. government spending. In reality what happens is that politicians cut a bunch of small projects so that they can brag about how they're cutting spending, while increasing spending on the big stuff. And voters fall for it.

Since the politicians use public tax dollars to buy votes (pork projects). Of course by far the biggest problem are the entitlement programs (not defense which is one of the few legitimate federal responsibilities) which represent the vast majority of the $100 trillion dollar unfunded liability (debt that has been placed on the books yet because of accounting games).

No one wants their piece of the pie cut, yet when the money runs out EVERYTHING gets cut. And frankly the money has run out... As a nation we are like the idiots who use one credit card to pay the minimum payment on another.

"Count the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves."

also known as "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."


When Reagan fired the air traffic controllers the panicking among Federal Employee unions was so palpable you could cut it with a knife. There are numerous similar symbols that could be whacked today: The Dept of Education; the Department of Energy, for starters. Vast sections of the Depts of Commerce and Agriculture provide data that is, if ANYTHING, less reliable and less timely than reports produced and sold in the private sector (Crop forecasts, for example).

That money would build alot of bike paths!

roughstuff

As a cyclist I too would like to see money directed to cycling projects. However if these projects fall under the business as usual tax and spend it is going to have to be tempered with common sense. If I have to make a choice of ridding a nice hiker biker trail that will be charged to my granddaughter, I will chose to do without. The country is almost 14 TRILLION dollars in debt. Its time to only spend what we can afford. Money does not grow on trees!!!!!!

With the Federal Reserve’s recent announcement to crank up the printing presses, growing money on trees might actually take longer... :notamused:

In this economy raising taxes is not an option. Many in the county have to understand to gravy train is over. Just look at the many cities and states that are near bankrupt, and especially the Fed gov almost 14 BILLION in the hole.

http://retrorenovation.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/kohler-cimarron-toilet.jpg

^^^^^ Perfect political statement.

^^^^^ Perfect political statement.

Goes along with one of my favorite quotes... "Politicians are like diapers; they both should be changed frequently and for the same reason."

Since the politicians use public tax dollars to buy votes (pork projects). Of course by far the biggest problem are the entitlement programs (not defense which is one of the few legitimate federal responsibilities) which represent the vast majority of the $100 trillion dollar unfunded liability (debt that has been placed on the books yet because of accounting games).

No one wants their piece of the pie cut, yet when the money runs out EVERYTHING gets cut. And frankly the money has run out... As a nation we are like the idiots who use one credit card to pay the minimum payment on another.

While certainly defense is one of the few legitimate federal spending responsibilities, the amount we spend on it is asinine. I work for a defense contractor and our government wastes ridiculous amounts of money in the defense sector.