The Statewide Transportation Improvement Program holds five public meetings in July to discuss which South Dakota roads get refits in the 2012&ndash2016 cycle. Some of my neighbors will likely be attending to complain about not getting those third and fourth lanes for Highway 34 from Madison to Colman.
But if we're worried about economic development—and with personal income and state tax revenues not as good as we might have hoped, worry may be warranted—perhaps we should consider building more bike lanes. A new study from the University of Massachusetts supports previous findings that dollar for dollar, bike lane construction creates more jobs than road construction:
Looking at 58 projects in 11 states, the researchers found that cycle-oriented infrastructure created 11.6 jobs for every $1 million spent, versus 7.8 for road-only projects. Pedestrian projects were in the middle, creating 9.6 jobs per $1 million. This is in line with the findings from the last study, which focused on Baltimore, Md. So basically, we need to get cracking on those bike interstates if we want to save the economy. And after building bike infrastructure solves the job crisis, using bike infrastructure can help you save money on transportation! Bikeonomics at its best [Jess Zimmerman, "Bike Lanes Create Jobs," Grist, 2011.06.27].
If life is a highway, I want to ride it... on my bike! Build for bikes, and build jobs!
Maybe I am just stupid, but I'd rather see no road construction than to see the multi-year disaster that is Hwy 34 from I-29 to the MN border.
South Dakota is not the same as the East Coast. We don't have the population densities that would return the same benefits bike lane construction gives in Massachusetts. We have this other thing called "Winter" that dramatically shortens the biking season for normal people.
I'm all for bike trails, BUT it appears the local landowners are very opposed.
Healthy living is lousy for South Dakota's economy, Cory. Sanford Health, RCRH, fast food, SDSU ice cream, gasoline sales, ethanol production, sales of crew cab duallys, ATVs, and Republicans all would suffer if people exercised.
You've got to just fix yourself and your goddesses and screw the rest of the red staters. They'll kill themselves off in due time.
Larry brings up an interesting twist in our health-care system. Doctors and hospitals make money when people get sick or injured. If people were more physically active in general (I hate the word "exercise"), and if they ate better food, doctors and hospitals would make less money! The insurance companies, however, would probably benefit.
I suspect that landowner opposition to bike trails through their properties has more to do with liability than with any sort of nuisance factor. Who wants to get sued for a couple of million because someone had a bike accident on their land?
Larry, this Republican (meaning me) would not suffer if more people exercised. In fact, if we could get a couple of dozen serious swimmers to move to Lead, maybe we could keep our little rec center pool open, and I really love that doggone puddle. But then, I'm a weird Republican, favoring Kucinich care and population control and limited military involvement around the world and the legalization of cannabis ...