Photo by by buba69 on Flickr.

The Times: A NYT editorial yesterday argues Obama must “give mass transit the priority it deserves and the full financial and technological help it needs and has long been denied” in the upcoming transportation bill. According to the Times, the current stimulus proposal floating around Congress would allocate $30 billion to “highways and bridges” and $12 billion to transit, a “far healthier mix.” It’s especially healthier if most or all of that $30 billion would repair roads and bridges rather than adding new ones to nowhere. Via Louise and The Overhead Wire.

The Post: The Washington Post endorses the light rail Purple Line. “Two decades of dithering is long enough,” they say. “Community support is coalescing around light rail. The onus is on Montgomery officials and state leaders to support the route. The County Council, which will vote to recommend a route late this month, is expected to overwhelmingly support light rail.”

The citizens of Greenbelt: At recent visioning sessions to collect input on the future of Greenbelt, residents favored “maximizing available transit resources to provide efficient services throughout the community, improving pedestrian and bicycle experiences throughout the community and improving overpasses,” says the Gazette. Well, two out of three ain’t bad.

Baltimore Sun letter writers: In a letter published Saturday, Greg Cantori of Pasadena, MD explains that it’s not too late to cancel the ICC. Just look at “the nightmarish 1970s-era Interstate 70 bypass that was supposed to run through central Baltimore and would have bisected Leakin Park, Federal Hill, Fells Point and Highlandtown and, imagine this, involved a bridge across the Inner Harbor.” Despite construction also having begun, activists managed to block that and save many precious Baltimore neighborhoods.

Plus other stuff: Rob Goodspeed discusses the pros and cons of brick sidewalks, a topic hotly debated recently in Dupont Circle; some Washingtonians are moonlighting as pedicab drivers to make more money amid bad economic times; and Parking Today has some choice words for a recently-revealed unpublicized NYC policy to reduce parking tickets by one-third for anyone who asks.

If we add bike lanes, the terrorists have won? During the 2005-2006 Maryland State Police surveillance of peaceful protest groups, writes the Post, “troopers monitored — and labeled as terrorists — activists devoted to such wide-ranging causes as promoting human rights and establishing bike lanes.” Watch out, maybe those scary people will use Twitter to plan their bicycle route to commit the terrible act of promoting civil rights! The only solution is to violate their civil rights!