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Posted on 05/26/2009 5:42:24 AM PDT by SJackson
(CNSNews.com) - Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood told a group of reporters at the National Press Club on Thursday that he wants to “coerce people out of their cars.”
In Newsweek magazine last week, nationally syndicated columnist George Will published a piece critical of Lahood, entitled, “Ray Lahood, Transformed--Secretary of Behavior Modification.”
“He says he has joined a ‘transformational’ administration: ‘I think we can change people's behavior,’” Will reports that Lahood said over lunch.
Lahood, a former Republican congressman from Peoria, Ill., has become a champion of using the Department of Transportation and federal transportation spending to get people to take trains, busses, and ride bikes instead of driving cars.
At the National Press Club on Thursday he attempted to respond to George Will’s column and to explain his vision for using the power of government to change people’s transportation behavior and to change the nature of American residential communities.
“We want to really--and notwithstanding the fact that George Will doesn't like this idea--the idea of creating opportunities for people to get out of their cars--and we're working with the secretary of HUD, Shaun Donovan, on opportunities for housing, walking paths, biking paths,” said Lahood. “If somebody wants to ride their bike, if--to work or to the place of employment or to other places--mass transit, light rail--creating opportunities for what we call livable communities.”
The moderator of the press club event asked Lahood: “Some in the highway-supporters motorist groups have been concerned by your livability initiative. Is this an effort to make driving more torturous and to coerce people out of their cars?”
Lahood answered: “It is a way to coerce people out of their cars.
“Yeah,” he continued, “I mean, look, people don't like spending an hour and a half getting to work. And people don't like spending an hour going to the grocery store. And all of you who live around here know exactly what I'm talking about. You know, the dreaded thing is to have to run an errand on a weekend around here or to try and get home at 3:00 in the afternoon or even 5:00 in the afternoon.
“Now, look, every community is not going to be a livable community. But we have to create opportunities for people that do want to use a bicycle or want to walk or want to get on a streetcar or want to ride a light rail,” said Lahood.
Lahood suggested to the reporters that George Will is the only person opposed to using the government to promote mass transit and bicycling over driving a car.
“And the only person that I've heard of that objects to this is George Will. Check out Newsweek magazine,” said Lahood.
Lahood then made a joke about the fact that some conservatives believe that the way he wants to use the Department of Transportation represents an increased government intrusion in people’s lives.
“Some conservative groups are wary of the livable communities program, saying it's an example of government intrusion into people's lives,” said the moderator. “How do you respond?”
“About everything we do around here is government intrusion in people's lives,” said Lahood. “So have at it.”
Someone should tell Ray Lahood that this is what car jackers due back in the ‘hood.
two words: arrogant putz
These silly pusbags think they are running a banana republic, with the climate to match.
And most of your rank and file guilty white liberals believe that they will be exempt from the requirement that you give up your SUV.
They really aren’t pleased that some of us won’t live in the urban beehives.
First it’s coerce, then it’s mandate.
Some people have no idea what living in the country is like. They never get out of their little enclaves in the city.
Three words: ten buck gas
They want to force you into the cities, to “hive up”, because that lifestyle is more “sustainable”.
The key problem is right there. The government bureaucrats think it is their JOB to intrude on our lives. They'd like to do that well, of course, but I don't think it ever occurs to them to question whether or not "intrusion" is really what government is intended to do.
You and your Communist Obama piles do not have the Constitutional authority to tell a single person where, or how, to live.
I just believe that enough has gone on in the past 100+ days that if this illegitimate administration starts to try to make things really bad for commuters to try and get them to move into the cities (for easier control) then I think many of the saner Dims (contradiction in terms?) will help in the revolt and toss your sorry rear ends out into the street.
Undoubtedly.
But I’m talking about your average citizen who believes because of their present wealth and democRat voting record that they’ll be able to keep THEIR SUV while everyone else is “coerced” into giving up theirs.
Well, if Newsweek said it...
Newsweek never met a liberal, lefty government-wielding cause it didn't support.
Is there a single person in Congress who has been outside a city or outside the Beltway?
For a group of people who have THEIR OWN SUBWAY transportation system——exclusive to them and them only, they sure have hutzpah.
Where I live, there are far more trucks than cars, and I would like to see a day when everyone who does NOT drive a car / or does NOT wish to be crammed onto a train or subway as a nice target for terrorists to just sit down and refuse to go anywhere for the day.
Do without the products and services those people provide.
Do without the money spent by those people in the economy.
Truly a General Strike of those who still want the freedom to drive their own vehicles.
Here in Nevada, there are ranch driveways that are more than a mile long.
Someone should tell us how we can get our groceries home from the nearest Super WalMart that is 35 miles away. There are no buses between here and there. No trains. I’d like to see my 76 YO mother ride her bike there and back.
They all think we all live in cities like they choose to do.
When the thugs in Washington give up riding around in their limos and motorcades, I might consider driving less. Not before.
This is really going to get under people’s skin. Americans cherish their automobiles, and will not be happily separated from them.
Idiot. Complete and utter.
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