Obama's transportation policy to force people out of their cars

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has announced a new manifesto for the Obama Administration's transportation policy. Needless to say, automobiles don't play into it very prominently.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has announced that federal transportation policies will no longer favor “motorized” transportation, such as cars and trucks, over “non-motorized” transportation, such as walking and bicycling.

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“Today, I want to announce a sea change,” LaHood wrote. “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.”

LaHood's vision is one where Americans commute to work partway on foot or bicycle and partway on public transportation. “Walking and bicycling are efficient transportation modes for most short trips and, where convenient intermodal systems exist, these nonmotorized trips can easily be linked with transit to significantly increase trip distance," he said. In other words, get people out of their gas-guzzling cars so they can commute to work without polluting.

LaHood's Department of Transportation has teamed up with the EPA and the HUD to form the Partnership for Sustainable Communities. This alliance was supposedly set up to search for ways to make transportation more environmentally-friendly, specifically through the use of stimulus grants to green projects. But at a recent talk at the National Press Club, LaHood revealed the real aim of the partnership.

“Some in the highway-supporters motorist groups have been concerned by your livability initiative,” said the moderator at the National Press Club event. “Is this an effort to make driving more torturous and to coerce people out of their cars?”

“It is a way to coerce people out of their cars,” said LaHood.

The moderator later asked: “Some conservative groups are wary of the livable communities program, saying it's an example of government intrusion into people's lives. How do you respond?”

“About everything we do around here is government intrusion in people's lives,” said LaHood. “So have at it.”

LaHood recently made a splash crusading against Toyota for accusations of unsafe vehicles. Those accusations were later revealed to be exaggerated. Many wondered at the time if LaHood was attacking Toyota to enrich GM and Chrysler, which are currently owned by the federal government. Now it seems the real goal of the Obama Administration is to force people out of their cars altogether in the name of the environment.