Trump's War on Bicycles Runs Into His War Against Iran

In the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, the viewer eventually learns (spoiler alert!) that the villainous Judge Doom (played by Christopher Lloyd) is the sole owner of the Cloverleaf Corporation, which plans to destroy Toontown to build a freeway and decommission the city's effective public transit system. In the movie, Doom is thwarted. In the reality of 1940s Los Angeles on which the plot is based, car culture was born.

I don't know whether Donald Trump ever watched Roger Rabbit. If he did, I imagine that, when he wasn't leering at Jessica Rabbit, he was identifying with Doom. At least that is the inference one must draw based on the policies Trump's administration is pursuing.

Immediately after Sean Duffy was confirmed as Transportation Secretary in January 2025, his department issued a press release announcing the end to various efforts to combat or even measure climate change and decrying "woke" policies of the prior administration. Apparently, bike lanes and pedestrian trails are woke. In September of last year, the administration canceled funding for creating such lanes and trails around the country. Why? Because they are, according to the Department of Transportation, "hostile to motor vehicles." As in other contexts, so too here, every accusation is a confession. 

I have been bicycling since I was three years old. I consider myself lucky to have been struck by a motor vehicle only once. (A pickup truck cut the corner on a turn and sideswiped me. I suffered mere road rash, although my front derailleur was damaged, so I had to bike to the shop without the use of all of my gears.) However, like just about anyone who cycles regularly, I have had close calls, often involving suddenly opening car doors. The close calls were much more frequent when I lived in New York City, given the density of cars. My experience is entirely typical. Thus, one of the main reasons for investing in bike lanes and closing motor vehicle access to certain urban thoroughfares is safety.

And it works. Thus, a recent government study found that the installation of bike lanes along part of 15th Street through the National Mall in Washington, D.C. "reduced all roadway crashes by 46 percent and bicycle injury crashes by 91 percent." It also eased automobile traffic. Win-win. So naturally, the Trump administration sought to eliminate the bike lanes and revert to the prior arrangement, with its greater dangers to cyclists and slower traffic for cars.

Yesterday, a federal district judge found that the administration's plan to eliminate the bike lanes was arbitrary and capricious. She thus granted summary judgment to plaintiff Washington Area Bicycle Association and blocked the elimination of the bike lanes. The core of the judge's reasoning is that the government failed to take account of any real data or to provide a remotely plausible justification for its decision. That strikes me as entirely correct because it is a matter of public record why the Trump administration opposes bike lanes: bicycles are woke and must get out of the way of manly cars.

Readers familiar with my penchant for occasional snark may think I'm joking, but I'm not. The policy of the Trump administration--across the Departments of Transportation, Energy, Interior (responsible for the Mall as a National Park), Defense, and everywhere else--is to promote gas-guzzling as against renewable energy, public transportation, bicycles, and just about anything associated with environmentalism, even if doing so undercuts public safety and even if it makes life worse for drivers of and passengers in automobiles.

The Trump administration does not appear to be pursuing these policies simply because it is in the pocket of big oil. Recall that U.S. oil company executives were not part of the decision to attack Venezuela and were not especially enthusiastic about being handed its oil fields. That is not in any way to deny that the most corrupt (and overall worst) president in American history has courted and received the support of fossil fuel interests. He plainly has. But his administration's zeal for petroleum-fueled internal combustion engines and hostility towards any kind of alternative reflects not just policy-for-payola. It is dogma.

Dogma eventually loses out in a contest with reality, however, and the reality is that, as even Trump's Energy Secretary recently admitted, retail gasoline prices will likely remain high into next year. (To be sure, he then recanted, but he appeared to do so only because his honest assessment angered the Blusterer in Chief.) Higher gas prices will have ripple effects, some of which are already occurring: greater reliance on public transportation and renewable energy, increased purchases of electric vehicles, and . . . wait for it . . . more bike-friendly transportation infrastructure. 

Let me be clear. Trump's decision to make war on Iran and his repeated threats to attack civilians are immoral, illegal, and unconstitutional. They are already having disastrous consequences for countless people all over the world. I am not in any way saying that the war is beneficial because it has led to higher oil prices. What I am saying is that incentive effects of those higher oil prices will somewhat mitigate the cruelty and stupidity of Trump's domestic cars-at-all-costs policies.

-- Michael C. Dorf