Government Bikers: Let A Thousand Pedals Bloom
“Pity the poor American car when Congress and the White House get through with it — a light-weight vehicle with a small carbon footprint, using alternative energy and renewable resources to operate in a sustainable way. When I was a kid we called it a Schwinn.”–P.J. O’Rourke, Driving Like Crazy
You shouldn’t joke like that, P.J.; this administration has a habit of legislating the punchlines.
Our beloved government has just solved the Unintended Acceleration Crisis.
Also the Obesity Crisis, the Crowded Highway Crisis, the Parking Crisis and Tom Friedman’s “We’re Not Enough Like China”-Crisis. Not to mention the “We’ve Just Got Too Many Darn Jobs!”-Crisis.
Let’s kick the tires and look under LaHood:
Today, I want to announce a sea change. 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.
From Shopfloor, the blog of those evil businessmen who want to impose jobs on all of us the National Association of Manufacturers:
Treating bicycles and other non-motorized transportation as equal to motorized transportation would cause an economic catastrophe. If put into effect, the policy would more than undermine any effort the Obama Administration has made toward jobs. You can’t have jobs without the efficient movement of freight.
Pedicabs will not overcome those bottlenecks.
Now normally here we’d put in a statement about how bicycles are great, we need to fund infrastructure for bikes, federal support, blah, blah, blah. And, sure, more power to them. But c’mon! A great nation and modern industrial economy cannot operate if executive branch agencies are incapable of making a distinction between bicycles and trucks.
Obama has seen the future–and it looks like a weird mixture of Leave It To Beaver’s neighborhood and 1970′s China.
Those vaunted Green Jobs of the Future? Rickshaw drivers and newspaper delivery boys.
(This will be helpful when the government takes over the newspaper industry, too. Officially, I mean.)
Look at from their point of view; there are just too many car and truck-makers anyway.
Clearly, the government is poised to take over the bicycle companies on behalf of the United Bike Workers union. So when the inevitable wheel-rationing begins, I’ll be ready–I’m learning to ride a unicycle now.
UPDATE: One of the bicycle’s many bonuses: they’re not susceptible to unintended acceleration takeovers caused by cosmic rays. Except for takeovers caused by “Cosmic” Ray LaHood, naturally.
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