Driving with blinkers

When horse drawn carriages were the preferred method of getting around town, horses which were inclined to be skittish would be fitted with blinkers, short flaps of leather which restricted the horse's peripheral vision and so decreased the likelihood of the horse rearing or bolting. It often seems to me that policy makers in transportation feel more comfortable wearing their own metaphorical blinkers.
In the current recession, there has been much talk of stimulating the national economy by improving the infrastructure. When it comes to transport infrastructure so many people think only of roads. They do not consider there are other means of land transport like rail, walking and cycling. What makes this blinkered attitude so frustrating is that cycleways and footpaths don't cost as much to build as roads. We get more bangs for our buck if we put the money into these types of infrastructure.
When we read the New Zealand Council for Infrastructure Development's report on transport infrastructure needs, we see not just an obsession with roading, but also with roading which will reduce congestion. The cost to the economy from road congestion is much less than the cost from road crashes caused by poorly designed roads, yet making roads safer is not the major concern of the Council. If we wanted a quick way to reduce congestion then improving cycling and walking facilities will produce a better result because cycleways are quicker and easier to build and a bicycle takes up lass space than a car.
The detractors of the National Cycleway project seem to be long on derision and short on argument. The experience of the National Cycle Network in Great Britain is that a route developed primarily for tourism and recreation soon becomes the preferred route for people commuting to work or using their bicyles for other transportation purposes like shopping.