Congress is frivolously spending the Highway Trust Fund for pet projects like walkways and bicycle paths, at the expense of our nation’s roads and bridges...
More than $2 billion has been obligated for 5,547 bike paths and pedestrian walkways
Particularly galling to McCain and Coburn is that Chairman of the House Transportation Committee Jim Oberstar (D-tk) is an "avid cyclist" who has a "zest for cycling that is as great as his enthusiasm for funding public infrastructure," the report spitefully reports, noting a news report that said the "passions often merge...
The most money--45 percent--has gone to off-road trails. Only 13 percent was spent on on-road bicycle infrastructure and only twelve percent on rails to trails projects. [see: http://image3.examiner.com/images/blog/EXID2429/images/Picture_2.png ]
The imbalance reflects a bias against bicycling as a form of transportation as opposed to a form of recreation. Fortunately, "Coburn and McCain's anti-cycling arguments apparently didn't sit well with their colleagues. Their efforts to strip 600 individual spending projects--many of them bicycle related--failed by a vote of 73 to 25, Reuters reports. The Senate will have to reconcile this bill with a similar one passed by the House in July before sending it to the President to sign into law."[see: http://www.examiner.com/x-2429-Bicycle-Transportation-Examiner~y2009m9d18-McCain-and-Coburn-launch-an-unsuccessful-fusillade-against-cyclists ]
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