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Friday, January 20, 2006
Mark Kennedy: Let the kids play in traffic
Wow, Smartie has a post on 394's toll lanes and Mark Kennedy that's well worth reading. What really caught my eye is this statement from Mark Kennedy:
While Minnesotans sit in traffic, we're spending billions in federal gas tax dollars on things like bike paths, bridges to nowhere, and Amtrak. It's time to end the old ways of doing things and for new ideas based on common sense.
If Kennedy didn't like the transportation bill, maybe he shouldn't have consponsored it. Maybe he shouldn't have voted for it. Twice. Amtrak received $1.2 billion in funding in the bill, to help serve 9.3 million passengers. In California. Nationwide, Amtrak serves 25 million passengers annually.
I understand Kennedy railing against Amtrak. That's been a right-wing talking point for years. The strategy seems to be to fund it just enough to keep it on life support and then complain that it doesn't get out more. But bike paths? What's Kennedy got against bike paths?
It's true that the transportation bill Kennedy voted for (twice) contained billions for bike paths. The figure surprised me, too. How many adults do you see biking to work? Not many. Seems a waste, right?
Wrong.
Who does bike? CP, for one. Plus a few million kids trying to get to school. Big Sister Hammer lives about a mile and a half from her elementary school, but there's no way I'd ever let her walk across a 6 lane highway during the morning commute. So the billions Kennedy rails against now (but voted for...twice!) are going to build paths to get kids to school safely.
Dear Mark Kennedy: Why do you want kids to die on the way to school?
