Today’s Headlines

Raising State Gas Taxes to Cover Transportation Budget Gaps “No Longer Taboo” (Governing, AP)
But Shouldn’t We Start Moving Toward Taxing Miles Driven Instead? (CityLab)
RealClearPolitics Looks at Obstacles Facing Trump’s Rumored Infrastructure Plan
Toyota Employees Will Sit in Suburban Texas Traffic On Their Way to Work for Car Company (Dallas Morning News)
Economist Looks at the Promise and Struggles of Expanding Rail in Los Angeles
Indianapolis Transit Supporters Test Water for Suburban Tax to Fund Transit Expansion (CBS 4)
Increasingly in Denver, Streets Aren’t Just for Cars Anymore (Denver Post)
Instead of Charging More, Portsmouth, NH, Hopes New Garage Will Solve Parking Crunch (SeacoastOnline)
Northern Virginia Man Installs Homemade Sign Telling Drivers Not to Stop for Pedestrians and Cyclists (NBC 4)
NJ High School Students Face Severe Consequences for Bike Ride That Slowed Down Car Traffic (Hunterdon Review)

Vooch

Proud of the teenagers riding bikes in streets. We can expect this movement to expand
Michel S

I grew up in Hunterdon Co, NJ, and there’s a reason I’ll never move back. Most developments are spread very far apart, there are no sidewalks let alone shoulders on the roads that sometimes narrow to one lane, and there are no street lights making travel at night hazardous. Until you get a permit or a license, you are utterly dependent on your parents for transportation. The students (almost in spite of themselves) make salient points about the lack of transportation options and safe access to roads for younger people in Hunterdon, but instead they are criticized as troublemakers or pranksters; the students themselves seemed to think of it only as a joke.

The principal admonishes his students for not “realiz[ing] how much they could have impacted others,”and for not “see[ing the whole picture],” but it is the adults in the community who have their blinders on. They have created a super-fragile transportation network completely dependent on automobiles to the point that it only takes 23 students on their bikes to bring the entire community to a standstill.

One student summed it up perfectly: “It’s not illegal to bike to school, and 513 doesn’t have a bike lane, so how is it our fault?” Exactly.
Jesse

Raising kids in a car-dependent suburb is almost a form of child abuse.
AMH

Incredible that biking is considered “obstructing traffic” even in these parts. Oh, but “someone like a doctor could have been trying to get to an emergency”. Sure, but do you ticket the thousands of drivers who cause actual traffic jams on a daily basis?
Kevin Love

Whereas actual child abuse is to launch a fine particle lethal cancer poison attack upon innocent children by driving a car. I see that in the City of Toronto, their Public Health department reports that motor vehicle operators poison and kill 280 people per year in Toronto. And the victims are disproportionately children and the elderly.

I wonder how many children in New Jersey are poisoned and killed by car drivers each year? Dying of cancer is a horrible way for a child to die.

See:

http://www1.toronto.ca/City%20Of%20Toronto/Toronto%20Public%20Health/Healthy%20Public%20Policy/Report%20Library/PDF%20Reports%20Repository/2014%20Air%20Pollution%20Burden%20of%20Illness%20Tech%20RPT%20final.pdf
AMH

Amazed that no one even tried to make that crazy VA guy explain himself. “I saw someone hit by a car that didn’t stop, so I’m telling drivers not to stop” obviously makes no sense, but they let him get away with saying “Whether you agree with me or not, I’ve shown that one person can make a difference.” Yes, if making a difference is endangering people’s lives by telling them to ignore the law!