{"id":22883,"date":"2011-09-14T07:41:57","date_gmt":"2011-09-14T12:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=22883"},"modified":"2011-09-14T11:52:30","modified_gmt":"2011-09-14T16:52:30","slug":"skidding-past-every-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=22883","title":{"rendered":"Skidding Past Every Point"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dan Haugen, who we last ran into a few years back when we taught him a little about research<\/a>, writes for “Midwest Energy News” – which is funded by an alt-energy pressure group – about\u00a0Minneapolis’ new biking director<\/a>, which recently survived a challenge in the Minneapolis city council even as the city lays off firemen.<\/p>\n

The rationale is – well, both typical and mildly troubling (emphasis added):<\/p>\n

\u2018An investment, not an expense\u2019<\/p>\n

Across the country, cities like Portland are hiring bicycle and pedestrian coordinators to help attract not only federal project dollars<\/strong> but also to make their cities a more attractive place for workers who want the option of living without a car, says Joan Pasiuk, director of Bike Walk Twin Cities, which promotes non-motorized transportation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, you have to spend taxpayer money to get other taxpayers’ money:<\/p>\n

Chicago has had a bicycle coordinator for a decade and a half. Omaha hired its first bike coordinator last year. Even cities like Miami and Phoenix that probably don\u2019t come to mind as major bicycling hubs have hired for similar positions in recent years.<\/p>\n

\u201cCities are seeing this as an investment, not an expense,\u201d says Pasiuk.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And there you see the spread; cities that are broke, or cities that are doing well enough that they can afford some of the petty luxuries like, well, biking coordinators.<\/p>\n

It’s an odd set of priorities for a city that’s flirting with “broke”.<\/p>\n

I had to mention this:<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the health savings. Researchers in the Netherlands found that despite being at higher risk for injury, cyclists enjoy \u201csubstantially larger\u201d health benefits compared to drivers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But if you read this blog, you knew that two years ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: \u00a0I changed the reference to MN Energy News in the first graf; it’s “Funded by”, rather than “a front for…”, the pressure group. \u00a0It was pointed out to me – civilly, mind you – that the phrase “front” casts an unnecessary aspersion. \u00a0I’ve reworded accordingly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dan Haugen, who we last ran into a few years back when we taught him a little about research, writes for “Midwest Energy News” – which is funded by an alt-energy pressure group – about\u00a0Minneapolis’ new biking director, which recently survived a challenge in the Minneapolis city council even as the city lays off firemen. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,20,17,104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biking","category-democrats","category-minneapolis","category-trains-and-automobiles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22883"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22898,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22883\/revisions\/22898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}