This Seems Promising.

On Tuesday, Some people in suits who like bikes gave a report to some other people in suits who work in Washington. The first group of people in suits are trying to tell the other people in suits that bicycling is good for the country, and for the American people. WHAAAAAAAA????...

I know I know, it seems obvious, and redundant and my thought was "we need to spend money to work up a 46 page report on this? I could have shown up on capital hill, told all those stodgy whosawhatsits 'see here now, we're gonna do more for bikes see' and that would have been that". But after reading the article and reading (portions) or the report it seems to also be about asking for money to fund more programs to get more people to practice "active transportation".

At first I was confounded "Active Tranpsortation?" is that like trains that move... more than other trains? I wasn't sure. So in the report I found the definition. It turns out "Active Transportation" is Governmentin' speak for "Walking" or "Riding a bike"

You see, when you're Governmentin' you can't ever call things what they actually are for two reasons: first because when you're Governmentin' you have to use large difficult words and phrases to prove that you're smarter than the next guy, and the second reason is because most likely if you were to call it what it is someone who is abject to it will shoot it down on the grounds that they have some allergy to the word you use without even hearing the plan. I know there are plenty of folks who are Governmentin' who are abject to walking, riding a bike or anything else that's not giving tax payer money to fat-cat bankers so I totally understand the need for "replacement phrases".

Whatever you call it, walking & bicycling or "Active Transportation" this report indicates that it does the population a whole lot of good, and that more people should be doing it and that the government should spend some cash on getting more people to do it. If you've read this blog more than say, once, you'd know that I'm all about getting people out of their cars and onto bikes. Now I know that often times folks can't ride bikes (a tragedy) so I'm telling you to do the next best thing and walk, or if you have to, take public transportation, or do a combination of all three, just get out of your dang ol' 4 wheeled earth killer! Ahem... sorry about that, I get a little carried away from time to time. The report has been presented, so lets do our part. Start writing to your senators and congressman, in support of Active Transportation (walking/bike riding). Tell them to read the report, and tell them to support it! Do it! Do it Now!

Want more info? great. Here's the link: www.railstotrails.org