Barack’s policy on bikes

Barack Obama is no slouch when it comes to creating online reach-outs. The new and statesmanlike Change.gov is from the ‘Office of the President-Elect’. It features videos and the ability to upload your own “inspiring stories from the campaign and Election Day.”

He’s got his work cut out when his administration pushes out the existing one (Iraq, global financial meltdown, Tina Fey Re-Orientation Program), but if his 80-percent-reduction-in-greenhouse-gasses pledge is to have legs he needs to do the unthinkable: cut car use.

Of course, he can’t put it like that. Instead, he puts it like this:

Build More Livable and Sustainable Communities: Our communities will better serve all of their residents if we are able to leave our cars, to walk, bicycle and access other transportation alternatives. As president, Barack Obama will re-evaluate the transportation funding process to ensure that smart growth considerations are taken into account.

A few months back, Barack Obama made some promises to bike trade leaders:

In a private 20-minute meeting with members of the Bikes Belong board of directors, [Barack Obama] told them if he were elected president he would increase funding for cycling and pedestrian projects. And…he would support Safe Routes to Schools programs.

He also told them he seldom makes promises on what he would do if elected president, but that this was a promise he would keep.

Stan Day, SRAM’s president, said that Obama “gets it.” He pointed out that Obama understands that bicycles can be part of a solution to issues as diverse as health care, obesity, energy and environmental policy. “He does his homework and he can connect the dots,” he said.