 merrie says: Over $2 billion on 5,547 bike paths and pedestrian walkways, including $878,000 for a pedestrian and bicycle bridge for a Minnesota town of 847. An additional $2 million in federal stimulus funds for a bike lane along a deteriorating road in Pennsylvania, where exasperated local officials say the road is so bad they may be forced to drive on the bike path instead. $121 million for 63 ferry projects and ferry terminal facilities, including $1.6 million for a ferry boat program in Oklahoma that features Saturday morning cartoon cruises with Bugs Bunny and Wile E. Coyote on the ferry’s flat screen T.V.; $84 million for 398 pedestrian and bicyclist safety projects, including a brochure that encourages bicyclists to “Make eye contact, smile, or wave to communicate with motorists. Courtesy and predictability are a key to safe cycling”; $3.1 million in federal stimulus funds to make a historic canal boat a permanent floating museum in New York, in addition to * the $28 million already obligated for transportation museums from FY2004-2008; * $18 million for motorcyclist safety grants; which helped fund a “cruisin’ without bruisin’” brochure reminding bikers to “Obey traffic lights, signs, speed limits, and lane markings … and always check behind you and signal before you change lanes”; and * $3.4 million in federal stimulus funds for a road-kill reduction project in Florida, which will help turtles and other wildlife pass under a highway. Congress is being asked to borrow $7 billion from general tax revenues to only temporarily refill the Highway Trust Fund. Yet we must decide if we should make roadways and bridges more scenic, ... I've never understood why Transportation Highway funds get spent on anything other than highways and bridges. Isn't that what a gas tax is for? Using up gas & oil resources to pay to keep our roads safe and repaired or build new, safer roads. I'm sure there will be many replies from bike riders, that they also pay gas taxes when they drive their cars. Right, but gas taxes should go for roads/bridges, not bike paths or scenic touches. We kill more people in the U.S. on two-lane roads because they are unsafe, they were designed unsafe and they need to be fixed. With shoulders, straightened, widened. |
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