Bicycling

LaHood: Rail-Trails Are the Best Health Care Program

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood became a darling of the bicycling advocacy community last year when he jumped up on a table at the National Bike Summit and affirmed his support for biking, later declaring "the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized."

By Tanya Snyder

4:56 PM EDT on October 12, 2011

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood became a darling of the bicycling advocacy community last year when he jumped up on a table at the National Bike Summit and affirmed his support for biking, later declaring “the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized.”

Now LaHood says that biking and walking is not only good transportation policy; it’s good health care policy.

Speaking at the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy’s 25th anniversary reception last weekend, LaHood said the rail-trail program “has done more for health care than anything we’ve ever done in America. Rail-trails have contributed so much to people’s good health over the last 25 years — also preventing heart disease, and providing the kinds of opportunities people have looked for, for a long, long time.”

City health departments are getting on board with active transportation, with many health officials promoting biking and walking as a path to good health. Perhaps the innovative partnership between USDOT, EPA, and HUD should make room for Health and Human Services too?

We’ll bring you more of the LaHood-bicycle-lovefest tomorrow, when the secretary publicly endorses the NACTO bike guide, the most bicycle-friendly street-planning guide out there for engineers.

Tanya Snyder

Tanya became Streetsblog's Capitol Hill editor in September 2010 after covering Congress for Pacifica Radios Washington bureau and for public radio stations around the country. She lives car-free in a transit-oriented and bike-friendly neighborhood of Washington, DC.

Bicycling | Bike/Ped | Rails-to-Trails Conservancy | Ray LaHood | U.S. DOT

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