Sunday, September 30, 2007

Are bicycles a valid transportation option?























In an August 15th interview with Gwen Ifill on PBS's "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer", Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters hinted that too much federal money was being spent on bike trails and that was partially responsible for the bridge collapse in Minnesota. In the interview she said, "I think Americans would be shocked to learn that only about 60 percent of the gas tax money that they pay today actually goes into highway and bridge construction. Much of it goes in many, many other areas." She continued on to explain that "there are museums that are being built with that money, bike paths, trails, repairing lighthouses. Those are some of the kind of things that that money is being spent on, as opposed to our infrastructure." You can read the transcript of the entire interview here. You can also read a story about the interview at Salon.