Picture: William F. Buckley and Minnesota College Republicans, 1986. That’s me on the right with my Wm. F. Buckley Signature Model clipboard and signed copy of Up from Liberalism.

“Complaint is profanation in the absence of gratitude.”
- William F. Buckley, Overdrive

William F. Buckley passed away two days ago. The conservative intellectual was one of the heroes of my youth. In those days – from the late 1970s through the late 1980s – I idolized a diverse pantheon that also included George Will, Bruce Springsteen, Woody Allen, and John McEnroe. Yes, I was odd.

As Will and Buckley’s names indicate, I was a conservative then, though with time and experience I now accept the labels liberal or progressive. Born in 1965, growing up in the Minneapolis suburbs, influenced by a father and other family members who voted Republican, reading U.S. News and World Report, and witnessing the rise of Ronald Reagan, I was drawn to the ideas of the conservative movement, particularly its anticommunism.

The maps in U.S. News left little doubt about the perils of the Cold War: there were the red areas controlled by the Communists and the blue areas of the freedom-loving West. This was, I learned, an epic struggle for control of the world and, ultimately, our own self-determination. Despite all that I’ve learned since then about American injustice and imperialism, I still accept the broad outlines of that outlook on the Cold War, and I do not regret that position. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday the Minnesota House voted to override Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s veto of a state transportation funding bill. The override - a first for Gov. Pawlenty’s administration - means that the state will raise its gasoline tax for the first time in 20 years, raise the sales tax in the Twin Cities metro area to support transit development, and raise motor vehicle license tab fees - all to fund badly needed road and transit repair and upgrades.

Raising taxes during a recession is a painful decision, but today we have many more vehicles driving more miles than we did 20 years ago, and they are heavier vehicles to boot. That means roads and bridges are being pounded and need to be repaired. Other roads have become unsafe and need to be updated. At the same time, we simply have more people, and investment in transit is necessary to end the costly traffic gridlock in the Twin Cities. The increase in the gas tax was long overdue, since gas tax receipts have been eroded by inflation. Our investment in transit is also long overdue. Minnesota is finally maturing into a 21st-century state.

The Republicans who crossed party lines to vote in favor of the bill deserve praise, not vilification. Even the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce supported this bill.

But don’t think we’ve solved our transportation problems with this bill. According to MinnPost’s Steve Berg, “The new law will fill about 25 percent of the state’s transportation shortfall, estimated at nearly $2.5 billion a year.” And so we muddle on.

For more analysis of the vote and issue, in addition to the excellent article by Mr. Berg, see commentary by another MinnPost writer, Britt Robson.

Thank goodness the Upper Midwest has meteorologist Paul Douglas helping to draw attention to the threat from global warming. These words from Mr. Douglas’s StarTribune weather column today really caught my attention:

“Paul, you pinhead, doesn’t our recent arctic streak prove that global warming is a hoax?” With all due respect, no. From -11 last Wednesday to 44 yesterday in St. Paul, 48 in Red Wing, these local, erratic weather spasms are not the same thing as long-term climate trends measured globally over the last generation. Worldwide 2007 was the 5th warmest, last year the 10th warmest for the U.S. since 1895. So what? “Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters - disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life - the threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism.” More left-leaning spew from the liberal elite? No. Those are but a few of the conclusions from a secret Pentagon report, recently obtained by the U.K. newspaper, The Observer. “Climate change should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a U.S. national security concern,” says the lead authors. I don’t consider myself an alarmist or a so-called “warmist”. I am a realist. No, science is never 100% certain about anything, but what is the more acceptable risk, taking some action now and being wrong, or doing nothing, rolling the dice, gambling that a 37% spike in greenhouse gases will have no effect? It’s basic risk analysis.

Wow. I agree with what Mr. Douglas has said here, but I think the report he is citing is not all that recent. The Observer article he cites is dated February 22, 2004. I guess “recent” is a rather loose term.

Still, Paul, thanks for bringing this up. I’m hearing more about “global climate chaos” lately, so the 2004 (or earlier) report is still relevant.

Let’s elevate global warming to a national security concern and deal with it. Those of you concerned about national security, please read the peer-reviewed science (or the work of a journalist who has read it) and get on board this train. It also has room for those of you who want to make and save some money from clean energy and energy efficiency.

To understand why so many people sing the praises of Davis as a pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly community, see this Streetfilms video, “Davis, California, a Platinum Bike City.”

An e-mail from the League of American Bicyclists recently educated me about how Davis, California, became the “bicycle city.” It contained an obituary notice for Frank C. Child, former chair of the economics department at the University of California-Davis, who was a key player in the development of the bicycle network in that city.

Mr. Child’s story, summarized below in an obituary from the Sacramento Bee, is a testament to the role that citizens can play in transforming their communities:

Mr. Child joined UC Davis in 1962 and became the second chairman of the economics department the following year…. [He] arrived in Davis after living for four months in the Netherlands, where bicycles were the dominant transportation mode. Eyeing the city’s flat terrain, he and his wife, Eve, launched a grass-roots effort in 1964 to establish a system of bicycle lanes on Davis streets.

The couple organized a core group of citizens who lobbied, collected petition signatures and backed successful City Council candidates who supported bike lanes. In 1966, the Davis council voted to create the city’s first bike lane, spawning a national transportation movement.

“All the bike lanes in the United States today are descendants of what started in Davis,” said Ted Buehler, a graduate student at the UC Davis Institute for Transportation Studies.

The action delighted Mr. Child, who sold his second car and bought six bicycles for his family to get around Davis. He also helped persuade UC Davis Chancellor Emil Mrak to close large portions of the campus to automobile traffic to promote cycling.

“My father had a three-speed Raleigh with a wire basket for his briefcase on the handlebars that he rode for years,” Bill Child said.

In an opinion piece published yesterday in the StarTribune, Blue Cross and Blue Shield CEO Mark W. Banks, M.D., summarized the results of a study by his organization and the Minnesota Department of Health on the costs of treating obesity in the state. I discussed that study in a February 4 post.

Here are some key excerpts from Dr. Banks’ essay:

The Minnesota report states that healthier eating — combined with 30 minutes of physical activity a day — can significantly reduce some of the most costly illnesses to treat. The Minnesota Department of Health estimates that a more physically active Minnesota population could lead to a 30 percent reduction in heart disease, strokes, colon cancer, and osteoporosis; and 18 percent fewer cases of type 2 diabetes and hypertension.

However, the solution is not simply an issue of individual willpower. Realistically, if Minnesota truly wants better outcomes, we need to create a “state of health.”

What would happen if we created environments across Minnesota that encouraged more walking and less driving? What if it was as easy to find fresh fruit on our lunch breaks as it is to get a double cheeseburger to go? And how much more likely would we be to get moving if physical activity was something that blended naturally into our daily routines, instead of being a task reserved just for the gym? The changes would be dramatic.

Kudos to Dr. Banks, Blue Cross, and the Minnesota Department of Health for pushing hard on these issues.

According to a nice February 18 article in the L.A. Times by Ronald D. White, Californians are driving less often and using less gasoline. Even in southern California they are driving alone less often, although the number doing so is still almost 75 percent of all commuters. The article takes a look at many types of commuting, from vanpooling to mass transit to cycling.

Here are some excerpts:

Americans are getting serious about using less gasoline, confounding some economists who have argued that most people can’t reduce their driving much because they have to get to and from work and make those necessary trips such as shopping and chauffeuring their children around.

The truth is more complicated, according to some energy experts: When the price reaches a certain threshold or the driving reaches a peak point of aggravation, people are willing to give up personal space and independence. Read the rest of this entry »

Aside from government, there is no more influential force in transportation decision-making than the business community. My hopes for that community and its role in improving the transportation system were raised when, a few months ago, I looked at what the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had to say about transportation.

What I found was a clear statement that the United States needs to take a multi-modal, sustainable approach to transportation:

America’s transportation and infrastructure system, once a marvel of the modern world, has been stretched beyond its capacity and has fallen into disrepair. A decaying transportation system costs our economy more than $78 billion annually in lost time and fuel. The Chamber advocates for a comprehensive approach to solving the nation’s looming transportation infrastructure crisis. Specifically, the Chamber believes that a multi-modal and intermodal vision must increase capacity, reduce congestion, and improve the efficient, safe, sustainable movement of goods and people throughout the country and world.

As I explained in a comment I made on the Locally Grown Northfield web site, where I first referred to this quote, there are four words here that stand out for me: “comprehensive,” “multi-modal,” “intermodal,” and “sustainable.” (”Intermodal” refers to movement from one mode of transport to another, as from a car to a train.) These are not words that I was expecting to see from the U.S. Chamber, because I don’t see them from the local Chamber where I live. Read the rest of this entry »

In its December 2007 issue, Scientific American Body published one of the best articles I’ve read on the topic of the relationship between the “built environment” - our roads, buildings, etc. - and our health. The article, by Kathryn Brown, presents some of the relevant statistics; describes efforts by “built-environment advocates” in communities such as Atlanta, Georgia, and Columbia, Missouri; and examines the scientific debate on how best to build communities that foster physical activity.

I was especially interested in the paragraphs below (emphasis added), which describe research that shows the positive influence of densely populated, mixed-use communities on physical activity. (Mixed-use communities mix different land uses together - residential, commercial, recreational, public, etc. - to give people shorter distances between different destinations.) Just to show that I’m interested in an open inquiry, I’ve included the author’s brief discussion of a Heritage Foundation editorial that questions the role of the built environment in determining a condition such as obesity. Read the rest of this entry »

StarTribune reporter Sarah Lemagie has written a nice article about the Northfield, Minnesota-based bike company, Rawland Cycles, and its founders, Sean and Anna Virnig. See also a January 3rd post I did on Rawland and also my conversation with Sean.