Senator Tom Coburn is a persistent critic of transportation “enhancements” and the author of a failed amendment earlier this year to strip bicycle and pedestrian projects from a spending bill. His latest waste list includes two bike paths. Coburn told the Washington Times, “When we run $1.4 trillion deficits, the money we spend ought to be a high priority for the American people as a whole.” To which LaHood retorts: “What he really means is that, because he doesn’t get bikes, no one else does either.”

LaHood goes on to cite an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act project extending a bike trail between downtown Minneapolis and the new Minnesota Twins stadium.

“I guess a better connection to Minneapolis’s central business district doesn’t count as infrastructure to some folks,” the secretary wrote. In fact, projects aimed at improving biking, walking and livability are central to both economic recovery, livability and future prosperity.

“We don’t call that waste,” LaHood concluded. “We call it progress.”

The anti-bike and anti-pedestrian amendments Sen. Coburn offered would have allowed states to ignore a requirement (since 1991) in transportation law requiring states to spend 10% of their surface transportation budgets on what’s known as Transportation Enhancements (TE). Maybe that sounds like an unneccessary transport buzzword, so to simplify it somewhat, TE essentially covers the things that don’t fall under the much broader categories of highways or transit. TE includes things like bike trails, new sidewalks, complete streets, streetscape improvements, and converting abandoned rail corridors to rail-trails, among many others.

With that in mind, it was interesting to see how Senator Coburn characterized the amendment in the summary on Thomas:

To remove an unnecessary and burdensome mandate on the States, by allowing them to opt out of a provision that requires States to spend 10 percent of their surface transportation budgets on enhancement projects such as road-kill reduction and highway beautification.

So if you thought that TE funded things like the super popular Capital Crescent Trail in DC (used by commuters every day) or the Silver Comet Trail in Atlanta, Ga., you might be confused to read the summary and find out that it’s about “road-kill reduction.”

From our partners at Bikeleague.org, here’s a breakdown of the vote.

Democrats voting for Sen. Coburn amendment:
Klobuchar (MN)
Bayh (IN)
McCaskill (MO)
Feingold (WS)
Webb (VA)

Republicans voting against Sen. Coburn amendment:
Bond (MO)
Cochran (MS)
Voinovich (OH)
Collins (ME)
Murkowski (AK)
Snowe (ME)
Shelby (AL)