The proposed House GOP transportation bill is no friend to transit and would represent a drastic reduction in Federal transit funding.

In general the goals of transit advocates, rail advocates, cycling advocates, and in general anyone who isn’t for making life easier for single occupancy 4 wheel vehicles are in general complementary.

Those in the cycling advocacy community would do well to team with organizations and companies who lobby for more transit spending to help get a more reasonable transportation bill out of Congress.

That’s out of touch with what Americans want and is so deliberate that it smacks of vindictiveness rather than sound policy.

Did you read all of Andy’s letter?

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Size-Doesn-t-Matter–Transportation-Bill-Must-Offer-Choices.html?soid=1102316596448&aid=8TPq4LSTqaU

Here’s another part of it:

“Chairman Mica and Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) are hell-bent on cutting out funding for anything other than cars and trucks, seemingly oblivious to the disastrous impacts of 60 years of sprawl, air pollution, congestion, dependence on foreign oil and millions of needless highway fatalities. That’s out of touch with what Americans want and is so deliberate that it smacks of vindictiveness rather than sound policy. The reality is that Americans want choice. At the individual, community and national level we need more people bicycling and walking rather than less. We need fewer people trapped in a system that forces them to make even the shortest trips by car because there are no safe alternatives. We need robust and dedicated funding for transit, bicycling and walking to keep up with the demand for these critical modes of transportation.

The reality is that bicycling and walking make up 12 percent of all trips today despite decades of under-investment in these two modes. In combination with transit, they take on even more importance; and sadly bicyclists and pedestrians account for 14 percent of all fatal traffic crash victims on our nation’s highways. That’s a national tragedy we can’t afford to ignore. Programs such as the Transportation Enhancements, Safe Routes to School and Recreational Trails programs have proven to be cost-effective, popular and successful programs in improving safety and offering real choices to Americans. And they make up just 1.5 percent of transportation spending over the past 20 years.”

LOL! Not only that, but all the columns in that freeway traffic interchange are also tilting left!

Now, lemme tell ya, I’ve worked in and around civil engineering and heavy highway construction for most of my 45+ years of working life, and I’ve NEVER seen columns built that way.

If the “new direction” for the Repubs is to start doin’ it that way, I can’t think of a single industry expert who’ll be on board!

And isn’t that a Freemason symbol created by the support beams and overpasses of that freeway.

Now I’m really confused. Better call Prof. Langdon.

In the LAB HQ, they must have their stinger in a glass case on the wall labeled, “In case of congressional idiocy, break glass.” I like to at least imagine Andy Clarke eyeing that stinger from his desk and wondering, Maybe now is the time.

And maybe I vastly overestimate the influence of LAB. Perhaps that sting would go unnoticed by Congress. Perhaps if it were noticed at all, it would be the first time the elected representatives noticed that LAB existed, and the mental note would be, LAB = nutty advocate.

Here’s that link again to contact/sting Congress yourself.

I think that there is value is being diplomatic and not appearing to be a nutty advocate in the opposite vein when approaching these issues, but this proposal requires some serious uproar from many different groups.

The cover of their proposal could have been produced by The Onion. They are begging to be ridiculed. I think the League should oblige them.

Check out “The Exquisite Irony of the House GOP Transpo Bill Cover” from Streetsblog.

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” – Abraham Lincoln

It also allows me to smile with a certain grim satisfaction. When the Republican party disrespects such a large proportion of the American population in this manner, it is only a matter of time before some people who count wake up … and clean their clock in an election.