Month: March 2010

What they said:

The Washington Examiner’s “Daily Outrage” attacked Senator Menendez Wednesday, February 24 for supporting, along with his fellow senator from New Jersey, a $2.3 million upgrade to bicycle paths that will connect New Jersey to Pennsylvania. The editorial states that, “the grant comes from $1.5 billion in transportation funds awarded as part of the federal stimulus. Unless the new economy means we’re using rickshaws for shipping, it’s unclear how bike paths will ‘stimulate’ the economy.”

What’s the issue:
The paper fails to recognize bicycling as a legitimate form of transportation for starters, but also misses the point of theTIGER grants. According to  Secretary LaHood the purpose of the TIGER funds was to:

help build high-priority innovative transportation projects that were difficult to fund through traditional programs – projects that create jobs, stimulate economic activity and help develop livable communities…From freight rail to streetcars, from roadways to waterways to bikeways, we are affirming the truly multi-modal nature of American transportation.

What are the facts:
The bicycle industry supports nearly 1.1 million jobs and generates an estimated $17.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes. This includes the over 140 bike shops and major bike manufacturer in New Jersey. Bike facilities are great at stimulating the ever more competitive tourism dollars. For example, the Outer Banks area of North Carolina saw a 9 to 1 return on their investment in bike paths and widened shoulders.

TIGER grants were also about sustainable, innovative designs that improve livability. Something that increases lanes on existing highways doesn’t do enough.

What they could have said:
The Washington Examiner should be promoting the new direction of the Department of Transportation in taking livability and multi-modal initiatives into consideration. It is a (literal) breathe of fresh air. Not only could they have applauded the funding award, but they should have urged Senator Menendez to join the Senate Bike Caucus to further become involved in making America bicycle-friendly.

We urge New Jersey League members to contact Senator Menendez to thank him for his support of the funding and to continue to support future pro-bike economic stimulus initiatives. Also, contact Washington Examiner editors to let them know that bicycling is important to our economy.

Continue reading “Washington Examiner Trash Talks Bikes, the League Responds”

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How we best do this within the scope of health-care reform requires rigorous policy, psychology and marketing synergies. However, we also need to step outside that frame to realize the prescription we need centers on the nexus of land-use and transportation planning. We need a new kind of public option — one that allows us to live the healthy lifestyles we aspire to by designing our region with health in mind. We all want to live, work and play in safe places with easy access to transportation options, parks and open spaces and the markets, schools and amenities we all use.
We are, for now, literally stuck in traffic. A prominent study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine demonstrates that the more time we spend in our cars, the more we weigh. And the average Puget Sound resident spends nearly one 40-hour workweek a year simply stuck in traffic — so that’s a lot of weight.
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Continue reading “A new public health-care option — smarter transportation planning”

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The pollution that makes snow so ugly after a few days on the street doesn’t magically appear whenever it snows. It’s always there, produced by our litany of motorized vehicles. It floats around the air we breathe for a while before settling on the ground, or in the water. Every time you walk behind a truck or big SUV and get a whiff of exhaust, you’re essentially taking a big bite out of a delicious soot-flavored snowcone.
But that’s just the cost of doing business in a modern civilization… right?
Continue reading “Would you eat that?”

This and so much more:

Continue reading “People Powered Movement Photo Contest Winners Announced”

By Friends of the Earth
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There are plenty of common-sense ways to solve global warming that would not invite Wall Street manipulation, but would put us on a path to cut pollution to healthy levels and create the clean economy of the future.
Here are five ways policymakers, activists and ordinary citizens can get to work — without Wall Street:
#1 – Stop subsidizing fossil fuels. The federal budget contains more than $30 billion in subsidies that prop up big oil and other fossil fuel special interests. If we end these subsidies and channel the money to clean, renewable energy sources, we can cut the pollution causing global warming and create clean energy jobs.
Continue reading “Five Ways to Solve Global Warming Without Wall Street”