The Trump Administration and Stone Age Thinking | Announces bike lanes are "woke" (and hasn't been funding transit infrastructure projects)

It goes without saying that to most people in the United States "Fuel" = Gasoline.  

General Curtis LeMay is famous for saying the US would "bomb Vietnam back to the Stone Age" in the quest to "win" the Vietnam War.

The Trump Administration is reducing American resilience in many ways:

• Denying climate change
• Defunding science and medical research, especially at universities--programs are being cut, people are being laid off, and acceptance of new graduate students and postgraduate fellows are on the wane
• But also in various government programs, including the Park Service, the Forest Service, the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and dismantling the National Center for Atmospheric Research because it focuses on climate change("What the US Would Lose If It Eliminates the National Center for Atmospheric Research," Inside Climate News)
• Promoting anti-vaccine beliefs and easing vaccine requirements and guidance, thereby increasing people's susceptibility to diseases that once were rare, like measles
• Ceasing health surveillance programs such as for germ-free produce, which likely has contributed to the current mass problem of cyclosporidia ("How Trump admin cuts have compromised food safety," CBS)
• Paying wind turbine companies to not build sustainable energy projects ("Here’s where Trump has canceled wind farms – and how states are pushing back," Christian Science Monitor)
• Deemphasizing support for electric vehicles, which helps to reduce the demand and dependence on fossil fuels, and puts the US automobile industry behind in the development of new technologies and their ability to compete with EV-focused companies especially from China ("Trump’s Isolationism Is Losing the Great E.V. Races," New Yorker, "The American E.V. Has Been Crushed. Will It Take the U.S. Auto Industry With It?," New York Times)
• Although the foolish/fuelish War with Iran has led to major rise in gasoline prices and a disruption in production and supply chains that will take years to unravel and this is encouraging the adoption of electric vehicles despite the lack of tax credits and other inducements ("California hopes to lure a new generation to electric cars, with help from rebates, high gas prices," Los Angeles Times)

Source: "Explainer: In gasoline-guzzling U.S., high pump prices can be political poison," Reuters.

• Firing competent military officials in favor of Christian Nationalists, and boosting them with testosterone, instead of focusing on how drones are completely changing the military "battlespace"
• Eliminating graduate military education programs at "woke universities" like Harvard, which means that military personnel are less well educated and innovative
• etc.

This to me, is a form of bombing the US back to the Stone Age.  Related is what historian Timothy Snyder calls the Trump Administration's actions as a form of "Superpower Suicide" where the country through its actions is reducing its power and relevance on the world stage.

A new car showroom.  The US automobile industry spends more than $12 billion per year on advertising and marketing, from manufacturing companies to dealerships to ancillary organizations financing cars, selling car warranties, etc.

To the Trump Administration, energy is derived only from oil (and coal and nuclear).  Not from solar, wind, or geothermal sources.  From the Politico article "The Trump administration wants more gasoline made in idled refineries from California to sunny St. Croix":

Three industry executives told the news outlet that the White House has had discussions about reopening refineries ranging from the Virgin Islands to California. “Energy security is national security, and America’s refining capacity is essential to ensuring the United States has continuous access to secure, affordable, and reliable energy,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement.

“The President’s National Energy Dominance Council will continue supporting the reopening of shuttered refineries and the construction of new ones to lower prices and strengthen our national security,” Rogers added.

In the meantime, truly advanced nations are building their resilience, which among other actions means a big shift away from fossil fuels.  In fact, China's ability to reduce their consumption has reduced what are the already high costs for gasoline as a result of the Iran War ("China's oil imports have plunged during the Iran war. How much will they recover?," Reuters).

Sustainable mobility as a financial and health resilience strategy and tactic.  You might not think so, but every transit user, bicyclist choosing biking over driving for trips, and pedestrians walking instead of driving, reduces the demand for automobiles and gasoline, and increases their household resilience by reducing dependence on expensive cars and gas--a new car now costs not quite $12,000 per year according to NerdWallet.

This in turn reduces the demand for gasoline, which when your President has already f* up availability and cost, helps the nation in times of strife.

E.g., wrt biking and not owning a car, that supported $100,000 of our mortgage in DC.  It also reduced other costs and saved time for me.  Plus, there were major health benefits--granted I chose to bike in 1990 because I knew there were health benefits and I had a paternal line history of heart disease, but my cardiologists and oncologists attribute my survival from heart disease and two cancers in part to 30 years of biking.  So far I've outlived my father and other relatives by at least 12 years.

Suzanne doesn't bike.  But she used transit (aided by the federal transit benefit, which is a big help).

Hill Family Biking is a community group in DC's Capitol Hill, promoting biking over driving, especially in getting kids to and from school.  This event had 450 cyclists of all ages.

Trump Administration Hostile to Transit.  So in terms of "Stone Age Thinking" it makes perfect sense that the US Department of Transportation, which is already defunding transit by not acting on applications ("Congress Budgeted Billions for Big Transit Projects. Trump Isn’t Spending It," New York Times),

Trump Administration is now expressly hostile to Biking/Biking isn't hostile to cars.  The Administration has recently made clear its belief that bike lanes are "woke" pro-diversity/equity/inclusion initiatives that are antithetical to a dependence on automobiles and gasoline ("Trump Cancels Trail, Bike-Lane Grants Deemed ‘Hostile’ to Cars," Bloomberg).  Relatedly, the Trump Administration refused to sign on to a UN Declaration on the importance of road safety ("The U.S. Alone Votes Against A Road Safety Declaration," Forbes).

From Bloomberg:

The Trump administration canceled grants for street safety measures, pedestrian trails and bike lanes in communities around the country this month, each time offering a simple rationale for yanking back federal aid: the projects aren’t designed for cars.

A San Diego County road improvement project including bike lanes “appears to reduce lane capacity and a road diet that is hostile to motor vehicles,” a US Department of Transportation official wrote, rescinding a $1.2 million grant it awarded nearly a year ago.

... the wave of cancellations issued Sept. 9 by the DOT demonstrates just how determined the administration is to promote the use of single-occupancy vehicles in cities and towns – and to thwart local governments’ attempts to develop other ways for residents to get around.

Hostile to cars?  Heterogeneous versus homogeneous mobility systems. What a joke.  This fits in with my point that while countries like Germany are fine with a heterogeneous approach to mobility--they are big on cars with big manufacturers like VW, Mercedes, and BMW, but at the same time they recognize transit is the best way to get around in cities, that traveling by train between cities is often more efficient and less environmentally costly than flying, and that biking is a good way to reduce demand for gasoline, parking spaces, space on the road, etc.

By contrast, the US forces as much as possible, policies to promote automobile and gasoline dependence, in part because the US is one of the largest producers of oil.  Germany is a big producer of automobiles, like the US, but they aren't much of an oil producer.  So they take a more balanced approach.

The US could hold up cities like NYC as a premier transit example, and Portland Oregon as a premier city for biking (there are many other best practice neighborhoods), and neighborhoods across the country as premier walking places, and accept a multi-modal mobility system, but instead it takes the one sided view and favors cars.

Even EVs, while better in terms of reduced fossil fuel demand, especially with the rise of sustainable energy generation complemented by batteries, are really just another form of automobile primacy--what I call "Next Generation Asphalt Nation."

The True Snowflakes are the Right.  The right has called the left "snowflakes" for promoting bike lanes, LGBTQ+ issues and the like.  But the right in shutting down all kinds of programs that challenge their narrow minded world view of what is "muscular" are the true snowflakes.

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Bike sharing/micromobility.  It's taken more than a decade but city bike sharing systems in places like NYC and DC have experienced a huge increase in take up over the past few years ("Citi Bike surge: Ridership increases, showing ‘critical’ need in NYC transit deserts, says advocacy group," amNY, "Bikeshare Beat: Capital Bikeshare breaks all-time annual ridership record," GGW).  

One factor has been expansion.  The other, increased deployment of electric bikes which are faster, easier to ride, and cover more distance more quickly compared to regular bikes.  

Plus, in cities bike sharing has the advantage of offloading parking/storage and security to a third party.

A person rides on an electric scooter on Congress Avenue in downtown Austin on Tuesday July 7th, 2026.  Photo: Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman.

Separately, "free range" bike and scooter sharing offered up by companies like Lime, Spin, and now Veo--sitting scooters further expand the willingness of people to use "micromobility devices" as primary forms of transportation ("What to know about the new rental scooters now on Salt Lake City streets," Salt Lake Tribune). 

These companies also provide coverage in cities without city-sanctioned dock based systems ("Austin riders turn to Lime, Bird scooters after CapMetro Bikeshare suspension," Austin American-Statesman).