Transportation Department Embraces Bikes, and Business Groups Cry Foul - Green Inc. Blog - NYTimes.com

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has announced a “major policy revision” that aims to give bicycling and walking the same policy and economic consideration as driving.

“Today I want to announce a sea change,” he wrote on his blog last week. “This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of nonmotorized.”

[But if the vast majority of US travel is done via motorized vehicles, shouldn't motorized vehicles be favored?]

In 2001, an estimated 403.9 billion person-trips occurred in the United States (table 1). The two most common modes of travel were passenger vehicle (86.4 percent) and walking (8.8 percent).

Does LaHood envision an America where half of all person-trips are non-motorized?