Reframing a "Highway" Bill

We need to stop calling it the "Highway Bill". It should never fund mostly highways ever again. It's just like the needed reframing of the "Farm Bill." Michael Pollan has called for it to be called the food bill.

Doing so starts with the recognition that the "farm bill" is a misnomer; in truth, it is a food bill and so needs to be rewritten with the interests of eaters placed first. Yes, there are eaters who think it in their interest that food just be as cheap as possible, no matter how poor the quality. But there are many more who recognize the real cost of artificially cheap food--to their health, to the land, to the animals, to the public purse. At a minimum, these eaters want a bill that aligns agricultural policy with our public-health and environmental values, one with incentives to produce food cleanly, sustainably and humanely.

If we follow this logic to its transportation end, we should be calling the transportation bill something else entirely. Livable mobility bill? This means that the bill should be written with livability placed first. Is that so hard a goal? Let's try Michael's paragraph replacing the food words with transportation words.

Doing so starts with the recognition that the "highway bill" is a misnomer; in truth, it is a livable mobility bill and so needs to be rewritten with the interests of people placed first. Yes, there are people who think it in their interest that driving just be as cheap as possible, no matter how poor the quality. But there are many more who recognize the real cost of artificially cheap driving--to their health, to the land, to themselves, to the public purse. At a minimum, these people want a bill that aligns transportation policy with our public-health and environmental values, one with incentives to move us cleanly, sustainably and humanely.

Sounds pretty good huh? If you have something better than the livable mobility bill, let's hear it.