European Style Socialism -- Get Ready for a rough 2-1/2 Years
Transportation Department Embraces Bikes, and Business Groups Cry Foul
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has announced a “major policy revision” that aims to give bicycling and walking the same policy and economic consideration as driving.
Today I want to announce a sea change,” he wrote on his blog last week. “This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of nonmotorized.”
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Not surprisingly, the news had bike enthusiasts excited.
“It is simply the strongest statement of support for prioritizing bicycling and walking ever to come from a sitting secretary of transportation,” said Darren Flusche, policy analyst for the League of American Bicyclists.
Nonetheless, some business groups have expressed concern that giving walking and biking the same policy considerations as other transportation modes, as Mr. LaHood recommended, would impede progress on other fronts.
Internal combustion engines interfere with earth’s cleansing When we seek to artificially enhance our capacity to acquire what we need from the earth, we do so at the direct expense of the earth’s ability to provide naturally what we are seeking. We frequently ignore the impact of our technological alchemy on natural processes. When we manufacture millions of internal combustion engines and automate the conversion of oxygen to CO2, we interfere with the earth’s ability to cleanse itself of the impurities that are normally removed from the atmosphere.
Source: Earth in the Balance, page 207
