We may not have invented the automobile but we sure did perfect how to build a society that is totally dominated and subjugated by it. Unfortunately much of the industrializing Third World is following our lead directly into this trap.

This is what we need to "walk away" from, not the industry and car itself. The car is a very useful tool as long as it is used wisely and made more clean and sustainable.

If one needs to get to a job only two miles away, it should be obvious to all that a bike is the best, most convenient and appropriate means of transportation. Within a mile it must be walking. Into a major dense metro area, train and mass transit. If you live on a farm in the rural Midwest and its 25 miles into town then yes; its best and most appropriate to do that trip in a car! In most of America unfortunately we are far from this balance and the automobile is all too often the only means for even the shortest trips.

I can tell you from countless trips to Germany that is not the case there. Germans love their automobiles and its industry as much as most of America. They would never abandon it. Talks of the German government helping to bail our Opel (GM's German subsidiary) show this. However because the German government is looking to help out its auto industry doesn't mean it's abandoning sustainable transportation. Far from it.

As in Germany we in America need to find that balance. Heck! We'll need trucks and other vehicles to build the sustainable transportation infrastructure of the future. I know I want those vehicles made here in America!

The implication is that we could get rid of the automobile and cut our work week by 10%. How is that a bad thing?

If he had suggested as much, there would be an uproar.

the fact is that 1 job in 10 in the US is dependent in some form or other on the auto industry

So what? We didn't prop up other kinds of manufacturing when it all moved to China. We're trying to prop up agriculture, with mixed results. The government is not a jobs program, and the longer we prop up failing business models the longer it takes to move on to something more productive.

If Obama will lie about verifiable facts, I wonder where else he's stretching the truth

The first plank of his speech was about energy independence. The most direct, cost effective, and least painful way to move toward that goal is to reduce VMT. I was hoping Obama had the cajones and foresight to see that.

One could make the case that is a reasonable thing to do here as well.

What the president needs in transportation policy is to adopt a moderate position, pointing out to Americans that European cities (Munich is my most recent favorite) have both excellent roads and numerous excellent transit options. They haven't walked away from anything. They've just achieved a finer balance than we have.

How does one take apart or comprehend these speeches? For example, last night the president made a committment to curing cancer. The full quote: “Our recovery plan will invest in electronic health records and new technology that will reduce errors, bring down costs, ensure privacy, and save lives. It will launch a new effort to conquer a disease that has touched the life of nearly every American by seeking a cure for cancer in our time.”

Huh? I'd be all for curing cancer, but notice how this goal -- an enormous and perhaps untenable effort of basic and clinical research (most famously prioritized by the federal government in the National Cancer Act of 1971) -- is sort of an afterthought to electronic records reform in the quote above.

This is what grabbed my attention from the speech last night. I don't know what to make of it. And I certainly cannot make heads or tails of more earthbound details of the speech, such as: the level of committment the president wants to give to liveable streets. It sounds to me like this falls somewhere between propping up the auto industry and curing cancer. Tea leaves, anyone?

Which is the reason why the best federal transportation policy is no federal transportation policy.

Let's say the Dems really did reform health care, lifting a burden off state and local governments, and really did impose some kind of carbon cap or tax, making conservation and alternative energy pay? And let's say that left no money for federal infrastructure spending. The feds take health care, state and local take transport. I'll take that deal.

Forget the words. The numbers come soon.

Oh, he'll say the right things here and there, but Congress will perform its usual city/anti-city, Democrat/Republican split--and many Democrats will join the Republicans for reasons Larry noted above--thus ensuring that no real change will happen. Also don't forget that most of those workers Obama's pandering to in Detroit are Democrats.