| 031 | 5 Stimulating Wishes | 2009-01-12 |
With a new President taking office in a few days, the political grind is in full force. All the states political officers are jockeying for the stimulus money promised by the new President to be. I have heard that great chunks of money would be given for the much needed projects of rebuilding schools and repairing roads and bridges. While some projects are needed, hints of the pork barrel spending are surfacing too.
I will be the first to admit that pork to some is bacon for others. For example, I am not a fan of recreational ATVs for lots of reasons and would therefore be against any spending that would make it easier for ATV use (trails, etc.); any spending would be pork to me. The ATV rider would think differently, he would look at any improvements of trails as pure bacon.
For my biased stimulus wishes:
- All road improvements must include bicycle lanes or paths.
- Expand Interstate Bike Route.
- Develop more long distant bike paths (as with Rails to Trails programs - http://www.railstotrails.org ).
- Finish and fund long distance trails such as the CDT (Continental Divide Trail - http://www.cdtrail.org ) and the American Discovery Trail (a cross-country route - http://www.discoverytrail.org ).
- Improve America’s Walkabilty ( http://www.walkinginfo.org ) in all towns and cities.
It was very hard to whittle the list to just five wishes. To help, I decided on a theme and let my wishes support the theme. Improving our human powered transportation would make America a better country.
Many other proposals interested me, such as the schools, some road projects, and adding police officers. But, whatever the projects for the stimulus plan, I hope the program puts Americans to work and improves America as a country advancing us for the next hundred years.
Happy trails.