A group called Citizens Against Government Waste gave Oregon Representative Earl Blumenauer the “Porker of the Month award” for wanting to raise gas taxes in order to fund bike paths. Bike paths? They’re complaining about bike paths?
The group points out that taxpayers (they don’t say if this means all taxpayers or just federal taxpayers) have spent $9.5 billion on bicycle and pedestrian facilities over the last 22 years. It neglects to mention that this is only about 1 percent of federal highway spending and about a quarter of a percent of all highway spending. Maybe I’m biased, as (like Blumenauer) I’m an active cyclist, but I find it hard to complain about this.
MIT Press recently published Fighting Traffic, by University of Virginia researcher Peter Norton, who argues that streets used to be for pedestrians, but some vast conspiracy akin to the Great Streetcar Conspiracy stole the streets and gave them to automobiles. I don’t buy Norton’s extreme view, but I do see the need to provide safe facilities for all forms of transport. If roadways were once safe for cyclists and pedestrians but now are not because they are dedicated to cars and trucks, I don’t have serious problems with spending a tiny percentage of highway user fees on safe bicycle and pedestrian ways.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t think Blumenauer deserves a Porker of the Month award. But he deserves it for spending tens if not hundreds of billions on streetcars, light rail, high-speed rail, and similar projects, not for a few million on bike paths. While I probably would spend bike path money a lot more cost-effectively than Blumenauer, federally funded bikeways aren’t nearly as wasteful as federally funded rail transit, especially as about two people walk or bicycle to work for every three who take transit, yet transit costs taxpayers about a hundred times as much as the money spent on bike and pedestrian ways.
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Speaking of rail, I happened to read in the latest Trains magazine that a lot of bridges on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor are more than 100 years old and need replacement. Yet “securing public funding to replace or modernize these kinds of hulking war horses has become a daunting challenge, especially when the $40 billion-plus spent annually on highways cannot be used for passenger rail projects.”
Say what? Just what does the $40 billion spent on highways have to do with Amtrak? Rail advocates use this kind of juxtaposition all the time: Lots of money is spent on highways, so therefore lots of money should be spent on passenger rail.
Never mind that the $40 billion in federal highway funds all comes from federal highway user fees (Congressional appropriations to restore the highway trust fund have only been needed because so much is siphoned off for transit). Never mind that funding Amtrak’s bridges wouldn’t be a problem if Amtrak patrons paid enough money for Amtrak to earn a profit over and above its operations, maintenance, and capital costs. Never mind that the highways carry more than 600 times as many passenger miles, and millions of times as many freight ton miles, as Amtrak trains. Somehow the fact that lots of money goes for roads and not much for Amtrak sticks in their craw.
Truly, funding for highways has nothing to do with funding for Amtrak. Rail supporters might as well say, “It’s hard to fund Amtrak, especially when Americans pay billions of dollars a year on their mortgages.” Or, “It’s hard to fund Amtrak, especially when Americans spend billions of dollars a year feeding their children.” What dastardly people those Americans are, feeding their children when Amtrak needs the money!
Citizens Against Government Waste is just following its Tea Party script. Bicycles have become a new front in the culture war. As the Antiplanner ably points out above, the opposition to bicycle-oriented spending has nothing to do with the fiscal merits of different transportation infrastructure investments.
What I don’t get is “why bicycles?” What is it about bicycling that turns this harmless activity into a conservative dog whistle? Is it the lycra tights?
The main issue with constructing bike lanes is one of priorities, which is also my main criticism of streetcars.
When a city (like Seattle) spends tax money on bike lines (or street cars) when its roads are among the worst in the nation, then priorities are skewed in favor of a tiny minority.
Spending tax money on curb cuts for wheelchairs “skews in favor of a tiny minority,” and yet I hear no protest on that front. Must be the lack of lycra tights.
Andy, did you really have to link that lycra short pic?
Lanes set aside for non-motorised use are great in certain circumstances; especially if they are well-designed and maintained. In my (dated) experience in the U.S., that is only sometimes the case.
In urban areas, mapping and signing safe, convenient bike routes can be really effective — and cheap — in promoting cycling. Arrows painted in the street, small signs attached to street lights, etc. can help a lot. The cyclists have their routes as do the cars/trucks/buses/trams, etc. And everyone adjusts/accommodates: the cyclists know (or quickly learn) to stay away from the car/truck/bus streets; the cars that need to use the bike streets know to watch out.
At least that’s how it is in der Schweiz. Works pretty well.
Red herring.
Just because you haven’t heard anyone protest curb cuts (which could be found using Google), that does not negate the fact that bike lines, some of which cost more than half a million dollars per mile, skews priories to small minority.
HTH
As the Antiplanner ably points out above, the opposition to bicycle-oriented spending has nothing to do with the fiscal merits of different transportation infrastructure investments.
It doesn’t? Explain to me why funding bicycle projects should be anything other than an entirely local issue. Especially at the same time that people like Blumenauer talk out of the other side of their mouths about “crumbling infrastructure”.
Spending tax money on curb cuts for wheelchairs “skews in favor of a tiny minority,” and yet I hear no protest on that front. Must be the lack of lycra tights
You think able-bodied recreational cyclists should be put on par with physically disabled individuals in terms of spending priorities? That’s not a serious argument.
I also have no problem with CAGW giving Blumie an award for his porkery. Apart from his questionable judgement in using federal highway “trust fund” money for his own personal bike-related preferences, he should probably receive a lifetime achievement award for his longstanding efforts to carve new non-auto-related federal programs out of the dwindling resources of the “trust fund”. Not to mention his simultaneous calls for new road user taxes to replenish the trough.
The Antiplanner wrote:
Speaking of rail, I happened to read in the latest Trains magazine that a lot of bridges on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor are more than 100 years old and need replacement. Yet “securing public funding to replace or modernize these kinds of hulking war horses has become a daunting challenge, especially when the $40 billion-plus spent annually on highways cannot be used for passenger rail projects.”
Data points:
Amtrak’s Northeast Direct (according to Wikipedia) carries about 22,000 passenger per day. Amtrak’s Acela (again, according to Wikipedia carries about 8,800 persons per day. Not all of those trips go “all the way” from Washington to Boston (it is reasonable to assume that the majority do not), and there are other passenger services on the Northeast Corridor that are run by agencies like Maryland DOT, SEPTA, N.J. Transit, Metro North, ConnDOT and MBTA. But that’s a little over 30,000 person trips per day.
Comparing, I-95 between the Capital and Baltimore Beltways (I-495 and I-695 respectively), tax-funded has traffic volumes around 190,000 (between 10% and 20% are trucks).
I-95 (JFK Highway) between Baltimore and the Maryland/Delaware border (mostly toll-funded) has volumes as low as about 81,000.
I-95 (Delaware Turnpike; also known as JFK Highway, toll-funded) has volumes between 75,000 and 175,000.
I-295 crossing the Delaware River (toll) has volumes of about 96,000.
N.J. 700 (southern part of the New Jersey Turnpike) has traffic volumes from about 50,000 to about 75,000. I-95 (N.J. Turnpike from Exit 6 to north end) from 100,000 to 250,000 or more (toll funded).
The various Port Authority of New York and New Jersey crossings are all toll funded.
Data are from state DOT Web sites.
To summarize, most of the highway capacity from Washington to New York City is toll-financed by the drivers that use them. Only the section south of Baltimore is entirely “free” and tax-funded. Those highways all carry more traffic than Amtrak.
Why should Amtrak get such generous taxpayer subsides, when the users of the nearby highways pay their own way?
My initial reaction to this was annoyance. However, it’s because of the emotional nature of the cyclists issue. The following in particular addresses Andy Stahl’s question of why the animus towards cyclists.
You can argue with my observations below, but it’s pointless – I’m demonstrating why people get unhappy with cyclist causes and cyclists, whether the observations are statistically valid or apply to you.
Way too many cyclists ignore traffic laws – enough that I’d say it is the majority of cyclists I’ve observed when I’m driving. They not only ignore them, but show an attitude that it’s okay for them to do so. Why? I guess it’s a pain to stop for a stop sign or stop light. I once witnessed an accident where two cyclists, running a light that had just turned red, missed the front of my still stopped vehicle by inches and crashed into another vehicle that had started, legally and innocently, a moment earlier than me. When I’m driving, I give cyclists a wide berth, because they’re very vulnerable, and unpredictable: will they stop when they’re supposed to? Will they turn without signalling?
Cyclists often demonstrate (or state) a belief that they have as much right to the road as a motorist, even if they greatly impede traffic. This is off-putting and wrong. They and creates congestion and are real hazard. If roads are designed for a certain speed, it’s the cyclists who are wrong if the create situations where motorists have to slow down or take evasive action.
Cyclists, in fora, demonstrate an aggressive arrogance and superiority with little sensitivity to the valid complaints of drivers. Cyclists are better than drivers, because they are healthier… or, they’re better because they’re saving the environment, or whatever.
Finally – I think there’s a place for cycling – a growing place. But cyclists are their own worst enemies when this gets political, because too many of them could not do a better job of making enemies of they tried.
The hatred of motorists toward cyclists is caused by the tiny minority of cyclists that are the most visible and most hated and most worthy of being called “jerks”. They act like NYC cycling couriers, or modern “parkour”. These cyclists are hated because they portend to be pedestrians when it suits them, motor vehicles when it suits them, and just ignore laws when it suits them.
The problem with writing laws is that a kid on a bike is vastly different that a 30 yr old commuter on a bike, yet the laws have a hard time differentiating.
In many places, there is a bike path separated from the roadway but the jerk cyclists won’t ride there because there are strollers and kids and dogs there that slow them down, so they ride in the car lanes and demand the cars work around them. To be fair, at intersections these bike lanes are ignored and dangerous at the speed jerk cyclists want to travel.
If you need visuals, see http://youtu.be/vvV8ugiSeaM
Don’t forget: Motorists are jerks, too.
There are many motorists who “ignore laws when it suits them.” This saying is particularly urksome: A pessimist is a man who looks both ways before crossing a one way street. In Seattle, if you don’t look both ways, you very well may end up dead as elderly women in a Prius feel that they can go the won’t way on a one way. Just the other night, a jerk in a BMW thought he could get away with going 100 yards down a one way as a short cut to his condo building. I nearly hit him head on.
Then there are on the three or four jerks who blatantly run the red light each cycle on the nearby seven lane thoroughfare.
And the tailgaters.
And the speeders.
And the texters.
And the drivers who refuse to use turn signals.
Jerkiness is not limited to cyclists.
He won’t like it, but I must agree with Frank on this one.
Then there are the jerk motorist “lane monitors” who travel 10-20 mph below the speed limit on two-lane roads, and then get mad and speed up when you have an opportunity to pass them.
The lane monitors who drive below the speed limit in the left lane on four+ lane roads.
Of course, around here in the Napa Valley and in the surrounding hills, we have “roadie” bicyclists who insist on taking up the entire lane when you’re coming up on them, and show attitude when you pass them. Many of these assholes aren’t riding for transportation, but for sport, with their SUV with the bike rack parked somewhere near the bottom of the hill.
Then there are the roadies who insist on racing you down the hill, despite the fact that relative to their mass they have a lot less braking power than you do with their bike’s friction brakes.
21% of all auto drivers are cited for speeding annually. Auto drivers kill people at 1,000 times the annual rate of bicycle-caused fatalities. Car drivers are more lawless and more dangerous than cyclists.
If you’ve never been a cyclist, you have no idea the amount of shit that auto drivers inflict upon us. I’ve had bottles thrown at me, been run off the road, been brushed by cars going 70+ miles an hour when there is no on-coming traffic. I’ve been sworn at, flipped off, and cut-off. I’ve had several drivers screech to a stop in front of me, jump out of their cars and try to punch me, simply because I exist. Not a week goes by that some driver doesn’t try to see how close he can come to me as he whizzes by in his 2-ton steel cage.
I cycle over 8,000 miles a year. I’m an expert cyclist who knows how to handle myself on a bike, obey traffic laws, and help wave cars by me when the roads are narrow and curvy. None of that matters to those car drivers who believe they have a God-given right to run me off the road.
For 10 years, I was a farmer and regularly drove my tractor at 15 mph down narrow, twisty, two-lane state highways and county roads. In doing so, I backed up traffic many times, causing motorists a minute or more delay in their transit. NOT ONCE did I get honked at, threatened, or assaulted on my tractor. To the contrary, motorists waved cheerily to me when they got a chance to pass.
What explains the difference? My tractor, which occupied the entire lane, was a much bigger hindrance to traffic than my bicycle, riding on the road’s edge, ever has been (and on my bike I go a lot faster than that tractor did, too).
The root cause of the politically conservative’s hatred towards cyclists goes much deeper than hipsters running stop signs. And, yes, most of the anti-bike hatred comes from gun-toting, pick-up driving, white males. I see it every week. So, explain yourselves, please. Tell me why you think I have no right to ride on the road? Tell me why you disobey the law when you pass within 3 feet of me? Tell me why you disobey the law when you cut me off? Tell me why you disobey the law when you assault me? Why do you want to kill me? Why do you want to injure me? What the Hell have I ever done to you?
Recreational driving accounts for more miles and more trips than any other purpose, including commuting to work, shopping, or taking the kids to school. About one-third of miles traveled and trips made in cars are for recreational purposes (see page 13). I don’t begrudge auto drivers their recreational use of our roads; roads that I help pay for with my tax dollars. Why should they protest my recreational cycling?
“And, yes, most of the anti-bike hatred comes from gun-toting, pick-up driving, white males.”
That’s not true where I live; it can’t be given the rage I see against cyclists in a city where for every Romney vote, there were six Obama votes. In fact, as a gun-toting, SUV-driving white male, I’m in the minority here. Yet I people flip me off, tailgate, or illegally pass when I’ve slowed for a bicyclist because there is oncoming traffic in the opposite lane.
I learned to drive in the State of Jefferson, and I don’t doubt your accounts of road rage against bicyclists. (Although in the rural area I lived and bicycled, I never had an issue; I often miss how friendly motorists are there, those gun-toting white male farmers waving at you from the opposite lane even if they don’t know you.)
What I hope you realize is that this is not a liberal/conservative issue. It’s a “people are assholes” issue. They’re assholes there. They’re assholes here. They’re assholes everywhere.
I have no hate for bicycle riders, although I am irked when they—or motorists, as stated above—don’t follow rules of the road. It’s also troubling when a city like Seattle worries about adding bike lanes before addressing the wretched road conditions throughout the city.
CAGW has been around much longer than the TEA party, having attacked excessive government spending since its founding by industrialist J. Peter Grace and columnist Jack Anderson way back in 1984. The Grace Commission was established under the auspices of President Reagan to help reign-in government pork and the CAGW remains as a legacy of that commission. Spending money we do not have on projects we do not need is, by definition, wasted. In this case, bicycles made the Pork Report.