Ben Goldman

A few weeks ago, Streetsblog wondered aloud if House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) was coerced into riding a bicycle during a recent interview on 60 Minutes. It was a tongue-in-cheek question prompted by Cantor’s outspoken opposition to federal bike-ped programs. But it did not amuse Thomas L. Bowden, Sr., chairman of Bike Virginia and a board member of the Virginia Bicycling Federation. Bowden, a self-described “hard-core Republican bike commuter,” wrote an opinion piece in Saturday’s Washington Post calling out Streetsblog — which Bowden says is one of his favorite blogs — for our treatment of Cantor:

One day before President Obama’s State of the Union Address, the Alliance for Biking and Walking has released its 2012 Benchmarking Report. Once again, the report indicates, nonmotorized transportation is getting shortchanged by federal funders, while pedestrians and cyclists make up a disproportionately large share of all traffic fatalities.

Good news out of the Sierra Club Green Transportation Campaign, whose national conservation organizer Rachel Butler brings our attention to Minneapolis’s first ever Bicycle Account [PDF]. The compilation of cycling-related data shows a marked increase in the number of cyclists and a steadily decreasing injury rate to go along with substantial investments in bicycle infrastructure on city streets.

Speaker John Boehner called the House of Representatives back into session yesterday, while the Senate will reconvene next Tuesday. And not a moment too soon: A number of major transportation laws will expire shortly, with calls to action coming from both sides. After all, many of these laws are extensions of extensions, and each side is hoping to claim a victory in an election year.

Earlier today we brought you a story about a new and potentially dangerous technological innovation –Facebook in cars. To help end the week on a higher note, here’s some far more encouraging news on the transportation tech front.

Earlier this week, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Mercedes-Benz USA unveiled “mbrace2,” an in-dashboard service that enables the use of Facebook, Yelp, and Google behind the wheel. The service will likely be available in all 2013 models.

Stop me if you’ve heard these before:

As Congress prepares to reconvene and take up the payroll tax cut extension yet again, a movement is forming to restore the transit commuter tax benefit to 2011 levels.

Of the 46 recently-announced TIGER grant recipients, 18 projects had at least a “substantial freight component,” according to the Coalition for America’s Gateways and Trade Corridors. Over $232 million — 45 percent — of this latest round of the popular transportation funding program will go to freight projects. That’s a very impressive share, considering that traditional federal funding mechanisms tend to neglect freight.