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Transportation Secretary Against Bikes?

Published October 17, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (BRAIN)—A Salon.com story went after U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters for anti-bike remarks she made on PBS's "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer."

Salon's Katharine Mieszkowski wrote:

"Peters spoke against a proposal to raise gas taxes to shore up the nation's aging infrastructure. The real problem, the secretary argued, is that only 60 percent of the current money raised by gas taxes goes to highways and bridges. She conveniently neglected to mention that about 30 percent of the money goes to public transit. She then went on to blast congressional earmarks, which dedicate 10 percent of the gas tax to some 6,000 other projects around the country."

"There are museums that are being built with that money, bike paths, trails, repairing lighthouses. Those are some of the kind of things that that money is being spent on, as opposed to our infrastructure," Peters said on the show. The secretary added that projects like bike paths and trails "are really not transportation."

Click on link for full Salon.com story.

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