(Submitted to www.whitehouse.gov)
The “Let’s Move” campaign encourages children to exercise each day for good health. If more Americans (children and adults) exercised while commuting to work or school, we would be healthier, without spending any extra time to exercise.
40% of vehicle trips are less than 2 miles. Many of these trips would be suitable for bicycling, if safe routes were available. However, relatively few Americans are willing to brave the fast motorized traffic that is part of most cycling trips. Many Americans would bike more, if they had safe routes. In Portland, Oregon, 6% of trips are by bicycle, but 60% of residents say they would bike more often, if safer routes were available, such as quiet backstreets filled with ‘bike boulevard’ signs, and dedicated bike paths physically separated from the highway.
American cities should be upgraded to support safe walking and cycling for Americans of all ages. These investments will be extremely cost-effective, because each pedestrian or cyclist requires a small fraction of the space and weight limit of each automobile. The investments will improve public health by increasing exercise, reducing air pollution, reducing traffic congestion among the remaining cars still on the road, and reducing traffic fatalities. Electric cars will merely reduce air pollution without addressing the other concerns.
Please increase the level of federal transportation funding for complete pedestrian/bicycle networks safe for all ages. The “80-20” rule for transportation funding, with 20% devoted to public transit, is obsolete because less than 2% of funding goes to pedestrian/bicycle infrastructure. 20% of Americans do not drive cars at all. “80-20” assumes that everyone who can drive alone, will drive alone. If we accept that assumption, then we accept that motorized vehicles will continue to kill more than 100 Americans every day, while permanently maiming hundreds more, and wasting millions of hours daily in traffic congestion. Widening the roads will not fix traffic congestion—if it could, then LA would be traffic-free by now. Electric cars will not fix it either.
The White House website says that
“Investments in high speed rail and advanced car batteries will lead to the transportation systems of the future.”
The “transportation systems of the future” are visible today in places such as Denmark and Germany, combining high speed rail with safe bicycle networks.
