Washington State, according to Pedestrianist, plans to spend 59.66 percent of its federal stimulus money on highways. Interestingly, that’s actually on the low end of the scale—more than states like New York (37.59 percent) and Illinois (52.8 percent) but significantly less than places like Texas (77.18 percent) and Montana (86.04 percent). So we’re doing better than most. On the other hand, our senator in charge of appropriations is reportedly doing nothing to get infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians included in the Senate version of the stimulus bill.
Highway Spending in the Stimulus
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lorax dont speak for pederasts barnett
There’s nothing to spend stimulus money on in Montana or Texas except roads; they’re not going to spend billions on outhouses in national parks or mass transit between Missoula and Billings.
There are many issues that are as important, if not more important, than transportation policy.
It’s a little messed up that our region gets totally hung up on the viaduct and bike paths when our public schools are going to shit.
Actually, teve @3, a lot of the problems with our education system in this country are the result of bad transportation and land-use policy over the last several decades. Car-centered development drove the expansion of suburban sprawl and enabled white (particularly wealthy white) flight, depriving urban schools of the tax base that generates capital for education. Those processes also left urban public schools with a more difficult pool of students on average.
People often argue that people don’t want to live in the city because of the bad schools, but they actually have the causation backwards. People moved out of cities because they were chasing a suburban fantasy, and that created the bad schools. It’s a reinforcing negative cycle, though, where reversing the trend isn’t as easy as starting it was. But certainly if we get transportation policy right it will be easier to fix the problems with our schools.
@4 Right Cascadian. Right.
We should “enable” wealthy whites to move where they want to. We should force them into complying with the will of the “guvment” to live more dense, even if they desire to live less dense and enjoy the beauty of silence and quiet sparse neighborhoods.
If that means that inner city schools are slightly less “stellar” than better funded more affluent communities that is just the way it goes. Children are promised an education… not a top notch education.
Ohh and Cascadian.. the causation isn’t backwards. They aren’t “chasing a suburban fantasy” Who said it was a fantasy? It is EXACTLY what they seek and accomplish! They are living in safer neighborhoods without trashy neighbors who have suspect morals and values, they moved to an area where all the houses around them are kept up with people living in them who can afford to keep them well maintained to sustain the neighborhood value.
Where is the negative cycle? Just because it doesn’t force them to live more dense and co-mingle with the lower classes if they don’t prefer to?
Seriously?
Build more lanes on the highways! We need to keep up with the AUTOMOBILE DRIVING MAJORITY of the public who WANT more lanes! Remember folks the MAJORITY gets to decide the issue, and we want an 8 lane 520 bridge, contrary to what the urbanistas here think we should have.
We have the $$$ and the majority vote on our side.
But you keep living in your fantasy world Cascadian.
Nobody’s ever ‘just sayin’, are they?
I would like to see some of the money go toward bike infrastructure – things like completing the Burke-Gilman Trail, digging bike underpasses at certain key intersections, and repaving the most neglected roads in SLU, Georgetown, and Northgate. Projects that create segregated infrastructure should be a priority. It would be a big improvement in safety to get bikes away from car traffic and into routes designed for their very different vehicle dynamics.
Just Sayin’ apparently lives on Mars, because his/her/its vision of both urban and suburban life is completely detached from reality.
Most obvious example: those horrible undesirables are moving to the suburbs and exurbs because, thanks to gentrification (i.e. white people moving back), the city is way too expensive.
@1 for the incredibly obvious win.
Look, the reality is that we’re lucky it’s not 90 percent road building.
Count your frakin blessings.
if it’s road REPAIR, like the bridges on i-5, and not road EXPANSION, then i’ll live with it.
hey, just saying, did you know that there will still be congestion when they add lanes to the 520? did you know that the bigger and more numerous the highways, the bigger and more numerous the traffic jams? if you don’t believe me, go visit LA and drive around town for a couple days.
also,
“Children are promised an education… not a top notch education.”
really? you mean lucky rich kids get a good education, and unlucky poor kids are shit out of luck? we just watch the brutal cycle of poverty and under-education tear apart huge segments of our society? is that really a good idea? or do you think poor kids deserve their shitty education because their parents, being poor, have “questionable morals.” How about we throw the sick idea that Money Equals Respectability out the fucking window, because it’s obviously a fantasy.
America is a wealthy nation that should be able to provide a top-notch education to ALL of its children — but it chooses not to.
maybe all of the “urban blight” the rich whites hate would be effected positively by a universally excellent education system? Or is that too socialist. It’s easier to believe in Horatio Alger America rather than work to make life better for everyone.
ps, we should also spend money to get people to ride bikes because more people riding bikes is better for everyone, even the assholes in the big truck who shot me with a BB gun that one time