DATE: Thursday, August 7, 1997              TAG: 9708070001

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: B11  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Opinion 
SOURCE: Patrick Lackey 

                                            LENGTH:   96 lines

MORE THAN A PITTANCE, PLEASE, FOR PEDESTRIANS AND BIKERSSOME MONEYED INTEREST WON'T BE ENTIRELY HAPPY UNTIL AMERICA IS ENTIRELY PAVED FOR CARS.

During an 18-year-period through 1991, the federal government spent $40 million on bicycle and pedestrian trails around the country. That's not $40 million a year. That's $40 million altogether. By federal standards, an annual average of $2.2 million is less than chump change; it's not quite a penny per citizen. No wonder biking and walking are dangerous in many American cities. As politicians are fond of saying, ``We can do better.''

Actually, we have. Under the federal Intermodal Transportation Efficiency Act, called ISTEA or ``ice tea,'' about $1 billion in federal funds has gone for such trails since 1991, usually in cities attempting to reduce air pollution and traffic congestion. For comparison's sake, automakers spend nine times as much each year just advertising cars: showing happy dogs, well-behaved children and beautiful people riding in them. Still, $1 billion over five and a half years is not chump change.

ISTEA expires Sept. 30, and the American Highway Users Alliance - oil companies, automakers and road builders - would like more transportation money spent on roads and less on what the alliance would probably consider frills - bike and pedestrian trails and, for that matter, mass transit.

Some moneyed interests won't be entirely happy until America is entirely paved for cars, so every highway is 100 lanes wide and all that separates one from another is a parking lot.

Roads do seem a trifle crowded during rush hours. Half the reason for that is simply population growth that fanned out. The other half a reason is women's entry into the work force over the past two decades. If they'd stayed home and made do with their husbands' paltry salaries, men's commutes would be shorter. Rush hour might still be only an hour long.

I have a few thoughts and theories about walking and biking, both of which I favor, even though I don't own a bike. My thoughts and theories refuse to coalesce into a single story, so I'm presenting them here as separate nuggets of varying value. Altogether, they support the notion that the United States ought to spend more than a penny a person on bike and pedestrian trails.

* * *

George Tucker, whose accounts of Hampton Roads history please Virginian-Pilot readers every week, is dapper and razor-sharp at age 87 because he never learned to drive. You are liable to see him walking anywhere, his heart pumping at a healthy pace, his mind racing.

* * * Two women who worked just across Independence Boulevard from Pembroke Mall told me several years ago that they drove to the mall to shop over their noon hours. Crossing the busy, wide street on foot struck them as too dangerous, even with a stoplight.

* * *

My two-block-long street in Virginia Beach has no sidewalks. Little kids walk, run and skate in the street. Rarely, but often enough for danger, an idiot speeds down the street. Come to think of it, the street is named after a race-car driver. When a child is killed or injured by a car, the news will be shocking and yet unsurprising.

My elderly neighbors walk to the grocery store, more than a mile away. Part of the way, of course, they have to push their cart in the street. They have to go up and down curbs. But they're accustomed to walking. They retired here from New York City.

* * *

Most of the most dangerous urban regions for pedestrians are fanned-out Southern metropolises such as Atlanta or Dallas that fail to provide for pedestrians. Walkers are 11 times more likely to be killed by a car in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., than in Pittsburgh, Pa. Of course, the Florida walkers tend to be older than the ones in Pittsburgh. Forced to rely on their own wits and agility to navigate oceans of concrete, they don't always make it.

* * *

In California, pedestrian deaths account for 19 percent of all motor vehicle deaths, yet less than 1 percent of federal highway spending related to safety is allocated to pedestrian projects. Apparently the lives of drivers are more highly valued than the lives of pedestrians.

* * *

A Virginia Beach woman I know bikes 30 miles a day. As a distance runner, I'm not amazed that someone bikes 30 miles daily, though I couldn't. What amazes me is that a car or truck hasn't killed her. Hampton Roads' roads lack shoulders. In the rural areas, where a runner or biker can get up a head of steam and really rack up the miles, there are steep-sided ditches where shoulders ought to be. Runners, at least, get to see cars headed at them and can dive into a ditch. For bikers, cars scream up from behind.

* * *

My car commute to downtown Norfolk is right at the national average time of 22 minutes. From time to time, I'd rather bike or even run the 10 miles to work, weather permitting, but there's no safe route. There might as well be a federal law requiring me to drive a car to work, requiring me to pollute the air and burn a natural resource.

In short, we need more trails for bikers and walkers. Also skaters. A skating commuter could cover 10 miles in no time and arrive at his or her job invigorated and ready to work. (Note to employers: Be sure to provide showers.)

Fools like me who would prefer to bike, skate or run to work should be encouraged to do so, thus freeing the roads for everybody else.

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