Stimulus grants reveal Obama's plans for transportation

More on Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood's admission that he wants to coerce people out of their cars. The most powerful weapon in the arsenal of the Partnership for Sustainable Development is the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant. $1.5 billion was allotted in the stimulus for these grants, which are supposed to be awarded "on a competitive basis for capital investments in surface transportation projects that will have a significant impact on the Nation, a metropolitan area or a region."

In reality, the grants were used to pump money into so-called "green" transportation projects, particularly those that emphasized bicycling and public transportation. Within hours of the data being released, the Sierra Club was crowing about how walking and cycling were "big winners" on their website.

We took a closer look at the more than 50 TIGER grants that were awarded by LaHood's Department of Transportation. Of these, three funded projects exclusively focused on cycling and walking, including a $23 million bike path through Philadelphia and southern New Jersey. A further 14 of these grants went to projects that encouraged multiple forms of transportation. Most of these were so-called "multimodal" initiatives, which were usually projects that did some fixing up of existing roads while retrofitting or connecting them with bike paths and rail lines. The DOT says these projects were intended to "encourage transportation options" -- in other words, get people out of their cars and onto a train, bus, or path. Rail service cleaned up under TIGER with 11 new grants. Six more went to ports and five to buses. The remaining 12 were spent on highways and roads.

Some of the funding went to green bugaboos that had little to do with transportation. One $14 million grant went to make Maine's ports more environmentally-friendly. Another $22.3 million went to a business park in Rhode Island that is home to several wind power companies.

Of the TIGER grants, which were supposed to be awarded on the basis of effectiveness, less than a quarter went to road and highway projects. This is despite the fact that 91% of commuters drive to work in their cars. This is the future of transportation according to Obama: railroads, bicycles, and running shoes. LaHood's Department of Transportation has been kicking money to other forms of transportation at the expense of the good old-fashioned American car.

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.