Transportation funds go to rich white bikers in D.C.
Why are affluent, educated, and employed whites riding taxpayer-subsidized bikes? “It is a way to coerce people out of their cars,” – Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood
From ReasonTV
Capital Bikeshare, which rents bikes at more than 165 outdoor stations in the Washington D.C. area, serves highly educated and affluent whites.
There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, except that the program has received $16 million in government subsidies, including over $1 million specifically earmarked to “address the unique transportation challenges faced by welfare recipients and low-income persons seeking to obtain and maintain employment.”
The program is part of a recent explosion in taxpayer-subsidized bike rental services, which have also hit the streets of Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston , Denver, Boulder, Houston, Minneapolis, Broward, Madison, Omaha, San Antonio, and Des Moines.
Capital Bikeshare’s latest user survey finds that 95 percent of its regular patrons have college degrees, 53 percent have a Masters or Ph.D., and 80 percent are white. Fully 0 percent have only a high school diploma and just 7 percent make less than $25,000 a year. More than 90 percent were employed and 14 percent reported they were college students, suggesting that very few welfare recipients are using the service.
Capital Bikeshare is run by Portland-based Alta Planning + Design in partnership with four jurisdictions: Alexandria, VA; Arlington, VA; Montgomery County, MD; and the District of Columbia. So far, the program has received $15.9 million[*] in state, local, and federal subsidies.
Why are affluent, educated, and employed whites riding taxpayer-subsidized bikes?
ReasonTV Correspondent Kennedy investigates.
[*]: Government funding for Capital Bikeshare is collected separately by each jurisdiction, and breaks down as follows: District of Columbia ($10.3 million), Montgomery County ($3.1 million), Arlington ($1.9 million), and Alexandria ($600 thousand).
Produced by Jim Epstein, with production help from Joshua Swain and D.C. Pedicab.
About 2 minutes.
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Editor’s note: usACTIONnews.com posted this warning in April 2010 –
Obama’s Transportaion Dept. wants you out of your car -”It is a way to coerce people out of their cars,”
Matt Purple at American Spectator explains the anti-car philosophy of Obama’s Department of Transportation:
Billions of dollars are being wasted pushing bike paths to nowhere. “People across America who value bicycling should have a voice when it comes to transportation planning. This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized.” -Secretary LaHood
By Matt Purple at American Spectator
At a National Press Club event last year, a panel moderator decided to quiz Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood on his department’s policy. “Some in the highway-supporters motorist groups have been concerned by your livability initiative,” he said. “Is this an effort to make driving more torturous and to coerce people out of their cars?”
“It is a way to coerce people out of their cars,” answered LaHood, with a blunt frankness rare for a politician. [emphasis added]
These days, the Department of Transportation is sticking its nose into everyone’s lives. DOT has teamed up with the Environmental Protection Agency and Housing and Urban Development to create the Partnership for Sustainable Communities. Their actual purpose is somewhat foggy and loaded with Orwellian language — something about creating more “livable” and “healthy” environments. As transportation goes, that means creating more “choices” for commuters: the choice to leave your car at home and take the train, for example. Or ride your bike. Or walk.
It’s an alarming fact that’s eluded even many conservative commentators: The core of the president’s progressive agenda is to fundamentally change in the way we move from one point to another.
….
As LaHood wrote not long ago, “Today, I want to announce a sea change. People across America who value bicycling should have a voice when it comes to transportation planning. This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized.”
Perhaps LaHood’s most important responsibility so far has been the awarding of $1.5 billion in Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grants. Recipients were supposed to be transportation projects that “will have a significant impact on the Nation, a metropolitan area or a region.” But many of LaHood’s choices seemed like sepia-toned throwbacks to the Industrial Era. One was a $23 million grant for a bike path through Philadelphia and southern New Jersey. Many more went to rail projects. Others were aimed at green bugaboos and had little to do with transportation at all. One $22.3 million grant went to a business park in Rhode Island that’s home to several wind power companies.
Fourteen of the TIGER grants were spent on projects that were “multimodal” — a new buzz word in the Obama age referring to multiple modes of transportation. In Obama’s America, seen through a dreamy progressive lens, just as many people travel on trains and bicycles as in cars.
Obama’s Sec.of Transportation Ray LaHood is anti-car, his Energy Sec Chu is for higher gas prices “like those in Europe”, his EPA fines refiners for not using a nonexistent fuel blend. Can we stand 4 more years of this insanity?
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