Bicycles and feet moving on up

You may not have noticed. It didn’t shred much tread on the news wires, but nonetheless it has the sound of a major change in policy. When it comes to moving people, the government of the United States now considers bicycles and shoes the equal of automobiles. I say, it’s about time.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood made the announcement on his blog March 15. (Yes, Cabinet secretaries now reveal policy not in old-style press conferences and mailings, but on their blogs and Facebook page.) “Today, I want to announce a sea change,” he said. “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.”

He said the Department of Transportation now recommends states make a radical attitude shift: “Treat walking and bicycling as equals with other transportation modes.” The department issued an official policy statement, with regulations and recommendations. It said when designing road projects for federal funding, states should include “well-connected walking and bicycling networks.” It said “DOT encourages transportation agencies to go beyond the minimum requirements, and proactively provide convenient, safe and context-sensitive facilities that foster increased use by bicyclists and pedestrians ...”

From the viewpoint of someone who spends most of his commuting time on foot or pedal, this is extraordinary. Anyone who has used a bicycle as a means of transport, not just a recreational toy, soon realizes the asphalt world is not built with them in mind, and a lot of the people moving about in heavy automobiles consider you a nuisance, or worse, competition. And being a walker can become a life-altering experience. Nationwide, more than 43,000 pedestrians have be obliterated by automobiles in the last decade, carnage far out of proportion to their numbers, and studies show many of these deaths occurred simply for want of a safe place to cross the street.

How this new policy will change things is being argued, and probably won’t be clear for some time, but what it seems to say is that when designing road projects for federal funding, the planners will have to consider the probability that cyclists and pedestrians will be present, and to allow for their safe passage, and if you do this there is a higher likelihood you will receive the federal funding you yearn for. This would be the “sea change” LaHood mentions. It might not be so radical for this region. You have to compliment the various transportation planners around Wenatchee for giving cyclists and walkers some thought. It shows in recent projects. This was done despite plentiful opposition from the prevailing culture, which ranks parking spots far above cyclists in order of importance.

As seen from the saddle, this new federal attitude is overdue, and great news. It is also ridiculous. The idea that you can end the car culture with a blog announcement is fantasy, so much so that when Republicans in Congress heard the news they asked if DOT still had mandatory drug testing. The truth is, reality has four wheels. For every 100 motor vehicles taking people to work in the United States, there is slightly more than half a bicycle. Even in bicycle-friendly Portland, Ore., the percentage of commuters on bicycles is about 6 percent, according to Census data, and that is astounding. It drops off from there very quickly. Obviously, if you are building a road you are going to spend 99 percent of the effort to accommodate automobiles, because that’s what it’s about.

But, at least automobiles are no longer the whole show. That’s something. It’s official and it’s good.

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