Supporting the Real Freedom to Drive

Last week, the Trump Administration sent out a letter to governors across the nation launching a “Freedom to Drive Initiative.” Of course, as with most transportation policies coming from this administration, the details of the initiative are based on poor statistics at best and counterproductive to their goals at worst. But perhaps worst of all is a long-running misunderstanding by this administration—shared by a few loud neighbors here in Albuquerque—of what a “freedom to drive” actually means.

Freedom of speech means a right to remain silent. Freedom of assembly means a right to stay home. Freedom to drive means a right to choose other modes of transportation: the ability to drive when people want to, and not when they don’t. Where the federal Department of Transportation is highlighting a need to “build new roadway capacity” or “recover roadway capacity from other purposes,” we know that expanding roads alone does not solve congestion. Truly, the biggest proponents for a real freedom to drive are your favorite local active transportation advocacy organizations: like BikeABQ!

It is not freedom to be forced to drive two miles to meet friends for a drink because there are no safe bicycle routes. Or maybe there is a usable bike route to the nearby grocery store, but the city has programmed the traffic lights on the major street crossings to require you to wait two minutes each way in the name of improving traffic flow. Or maybe the city installed a protected bike lane next to your nearby community center, but refused to extend the protection to connect with the primary bike or bus routes because deference to traffic counts neutered the road diet? Freedom to drive means allocating space to other modes of transportation—especially in the most congested areas.

Congestion at Balloon Fiesta is simply a fact of life for motorists, but bicycle access via the North Diversion Channel gives an option to mitigate and avoid it.

It is also not freedom to drive when a crash closes the roads you expected to drive on: crashes made more frequent and deadly by the high speed limits and wide roads intended to help move car traffic. Nor is it freedom to drive when those roads are clogged with other motorists who are taking trips that could have been done in a more space-efficient vehicle, were the option available.

Moreover, as those examples show, this backwards focus on ensuring car supremacy does not only derive from the Trump Administration, but has influenced engineering decisions at our most local levels. Albuquerque has made substantial progress in recent years turning away from that culture: with new BAT lanes and lower speed limits on East Central, new HAWK signals on bike trail crossings, and upcoming protected bike lanes on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. 

So, where the Freedom to Drive Initiative is asking governors to identify their “worst congestion nightmares”, we ask Gov. Lujan-Grisham also look at Albuquerque’s Bikeway Plan to see where those stuck in congestion can finally be given a choice.