Slate: The ‘war on science’ is over. Now what?

Slate has an interesting article on science in the Obama era.

here are a few passages that grabed my attention:

“We’re at the close of the Bush administration’s years of attacks on the integrity of scientific information—its biased editing of technical documents, muzzling of government researchers, and shameless dispersal of faulty ideas about issues like global warming.”

“It would be the gravest of errors for researchers to simply return victorious to their labs and fall back on a time-honored stance of political detachment. If the war on science is over, we’re now entering the postwar phase of reconstruction—the scientific equivalent of nation-building.”

“To succeed in the postwar landscape, science communicators must find better ways of talking to people on their own terms and making research meaningful in their lives.”

“Science is more important than ever—something our new president fully recognizes. Yet for most Americans, science is probably becoming more distant, not less; it’s harder to locate and identify, and it’s often more aggressive toward their core beliefs. In this context, scientists certainly shouldn’t retreat to their labs. Rather, they should reach out to the public like never before.”

image citation: http://www.cottonaustralia.com.au/media/scientist_in_lab.118.JPG

transportation policy cont.

After reading over both Barack and Hillary’s transportation policy statements, I have to go with Hillary as the more detailed and believable.

Barack’s statement uses the right key words like smart growth, livable communities, hubs, and sprawl but there are no teeth to his statements. For example he says, “as president, [I] will work to provide states and local governments with the resources they need to address sprawl and create more livable communities.” What types of resources?? How does he know what they need?? This is a lousy ending sentence to the only paragraph on metropolitan planning and sprawl.

Hillary on the other hand does not use any of the modern city planning lingo but does give some hard numbers to back up her ideas. Basically, she throws down the “B” word several times. 10^9 sounds like a lot of money! it sounds like she cares. As a friend pointed out, a “B” is about how much it costs a single city to do any major transit project, so how is her campaign promise going to make a dent in the much needed urban planning nightmare we are sleepwalking into.

Reading both plans reminded me of political promises that are sometimes hard to fulfill. In my former neck of the woods, piedmont NC, a planned rail system went belly-up because it didn’t make it high enough on a list for federal funding. The Raleigh-Durham region lost out because it couldn’t “prove” that riders would use the proposed rail service. The proof was supposed to come from passenger counts on the current regional bus service, which is all well and good, except that the regional route (between cities route) only ran 3 times in the AM and 3 times in the PM. Tell me how that level of service is supposed to equate to train ridership?? Anyway, the big losers are the poor commuters stuck on I-40 between here and there who could have been cruising by rail reading the paper instead of stuck in traffic breathing each others exhaust.

I think that both Hillary and Barack could do a better job of weening Americans off the “car culture” instead of making promises about fixing the nations aging infrastructure. Perhaps we should let our interstates get a few more potholes! They should also start a livable cities boot camp that every US and State DOT employee can take sensitivity training on how to address the needs of pedestrians, bus riders, train riders and bikers. It would be like Hamburger University, but without the drive-thru.

Anything the candidates do for transit would be better than the current administration, which has a 2009 budget that recommends sending transit funds to the highway trust fund, a veritable black hole (see article in smart growth america).

democratic candidates transportation policy

I was trying to find out what the Democratic candidates views were on transportation policy. All I found was that Barack was my new bicycle and this picture of him on a tricycle.

Actually, there was some thought on the topic in Planetizen, Smart Growth Online, and StreetsBlog. Lots of comments and feedback from readers, although there is little content in the way of political plans to draw on. I’ll have to read more and comment once I’ve digested it all.

A one-sided article for Barack Obama in the Oregonian drawn mainly from a quote reproduced below:

As president, Barack Obama will re-evaluate the transportation funding process to ensure that smart growth considerations are taken into account. Obama will build upon his efforts in the Senate to ensure that more Metropolitan Planning Organizations create policies to incentivize greater bicycle and pedestrian usage of roads and sidewalks, and he will also re-commit federal resources to public mass transportation projects across the country. Building more livable and sustainable communities will not only reduce the amount of time individuals spent commuting, but will also have significant benefits to air quality, public health and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

These concepts are further flushed out in a longer series of Barack website statements reproduced in the Transportationist blog.

Hillary Clinton’s website provides a similar story, but with much more detail:

Increase federal funding for public transit by $1.5 billion per year. Increased public transit usage is arguably the best strategy for ameliorating the energy and environmental costs of transportation. As energy costs rise, more people will rely on public transportation. Today, only 5% of Americans commute by public transit, but doubling that figure could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 25%. Public transit is also critically important to people who live in urban areas and rely on buses and trains for travel to work and school. Moreover, as the population ages, an increasing number of people will need public transit as their ability to drive diminishes. Hillary will increase federal investment in public transit by $1.5 billion per year to ensure needed capacity expansions and service level improvements.

Link federal public transit funds to local land use policies that encourage residential developments that maximize public transit usage. Over the next 25 years, a large percentage of the buildings we live, work, and shop in will be rebuilt or newly built. This presents a significant opportunity for the federal government to encourage sensible residential and commercial development that are linked to, and encourage, public transit usage. Local areas seeking large federal investments in public transit are already required to have land-use plans and policies that make investing in a high-density transit system worthwhile. Today, these requirements are focused mainly on commercial developments and not enough on residential considerations. Hillary will encourage the sort of dense residential concentrations needed to support public transit systems by better linking public transit funding with residential land-use policies. This will help to discourage sprawl and fight congestion.

Invest an additional $1 billion in intercity passenger rail systems. In the 21st Century, intercity passenger rail should be a viewed as a critical component of the nation’s transportation system. It is an environmentally efficient alternative to highway driving and short flights; it relieves congestion on roads and airports; reduces the emission of automotive pollutants; and it stimulates economic growth by linking metropolitan areas. States have been left to pursue intercity rail projects with only modest federal support. Hillary believes that greater federal involvement is needed to maximize the potential of this transportation mode. She will increase federal investment in intercity passenger rail by $1 billion over 5 years in order to help finance capital projects. These investments are in addition to those made in Amtrak.

In my last attempt I google imaged the candidates with search term “Barack Obama bicycle” and “Hillary Clinton bicycle.”  The only current image that came up was Bush Jr. holding up a brand new mtb.  Still looking for a politician in North America that rides to work!