I get impatient sometimes when I hear about how we should stop subsidizing public transit or Amtrak. I don't think I have ever heard of highway contruction being referred to as "subidizing personal transit." A NY Times editorial, and that post on the general ridiculousness about pills and obesity from the other day, got me worked up about this. The editorial:
The transportation bill that's now before the House of Representatives is likely to be controversial for all sorts of reasons, given President Bush's concern for symbolic cost-cutting and Congress's love affair with road-building. While that debate goes on, we hope that someone focuses on this oddity: at a time when the nation is obsessively worrying about obesity, the bill seems to do everything it can to make sure that Americans continue sitting in their cars for as much time as possible. Some 80 percent of the six-year $300 billion bill would go to road-building projects, with most of the rest financing mass transit. Less than 1 percent would be allotted for pedestrian and bicycle paths. By giving Americans more reasons to pick up the car keys instead of their sneakers, the bill gives new meaning to the word pork. The Natural Resources Defense Council, a national nonprofit group focused on the environment and public health issues, has been urging Congress to do its part and require state and local transportation planners to consider how they can address the problem of obesity. Most outings in and around cities are less than three miles, but the way cities and suburbs are structured practically begs residents to take those short trips behind the wheel. Expending calories instead of gasoline flattens stomachs and strengthens legs. Having fewer cars on the road would also lead to cleaner air. The nation would be thinner and healthier and would breathe easier. Perhaps lawmakers should take a walk and think it all over.
Americans love their cars, of course. I love my car. But what I think most people don't understand is how almost every part of our environment is mercilessly dominated by the automobile. It should strike us as weird that for most people there's nothing but other houses within a 10 minute walk from our front door. When people talk about how they love Walmart because it's so convenient, they don't mean they don't want to walk around in more than one store, or stand in the check-out line more than once; they're really talking about having to get into the car to drive a mile, navigate frustrating parking lots and turning lanes, park, shop, get back in the car, drive 2 minutes, park, etc., all the while burning too much gasoline. It seems as if everyone is charmed by old, walkable neighborhoods with shops on the sidewalk, yet it seems all new construction is done out on former open space that you can only get to by car. This is because we pay out the nose to build roads everywhere we can, and everyone gets fatter and fatter, but that new gym in the strip mall down the road is such a pain to drive to... We don't have to sit in traffic. We don't have to be overwhelmed by road rage. We don't have to put up with 80% of our transportation dollars going to pay for more pollution, alienation, and waistline expansion. We need to stop subsidizing driving. Imagine what we could build for the money it takes to add another lane of traffic to the interstate. (I should say, the 80% number is slightly misleading, as all sorts of stuff gets lumped into "road construction." The river relocation and creation of the Providence Riverwalk, for instance, was largely paid for through federal road building funds. The overarching point remains, however. The ratio of actual road building to pedestrian/bike/sidewalk projects is just way too high.)

Driving Me Nuts

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