PEA RIDGE — This year I attended a transportation conference in Newport, R.I. (The taxpayers of Arkansas did not pay for it) Newport was charming; it has friendly people wearing preppy pink collared shirts and Birkenstock shoes. It had quaint homes for lodging, top ranked restaurants and great mansions to tour. I enjoyed the city.

The conference was another matter.

Basically, we heard representatives from the Obama administration telling us how we should rearrange our state transportation system to fit their ideal vision of an urban utopia.

People should move to the cities and live in second story homes and apartments; the stores and offices will be on the first floor. Cars are a great evil;

they pollute the atmosphere and isolate folks from each other. We should build cities so people will not need cars; we will walk where ever we need to go.

Forget building roads and highways. States should build walking and bicyclepaths and even horse trails.

We were shown photos of Colorado cities that have reinvented themselves into this perfect scenario.

A lady from a rural state leaned over and whispered, “Who do they think will be growing the vegetables and raising the livestock?

Who will deliver the food and supplies to the cities?” I replied, “Its kinda hard to bicycle to the nearest hospital emergency room.”

I’m not against urban centers functioning in this format. I’ve lived in some rather large cities: Washington, D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, Kansas City, Honolulu. Each city had parks and walking trails. They also had many choices for transportation. Nice, but I personally didn’t enjoy living in that setting.

I returned from the conference and discovered the Obama agenda has invaded our state. There is much talk now from the local regional mobility authority about a commuter train here in our area.

This approach works if the train/metro stops are close to the work centers as in Washington, D.C. If not, then we must have a much larger bus fleet to transport people from the train stops to their jobs.

A commuter stop at Walmart main offices, the University of Arkansas and NorthWest Arkansas Community College are probably the only three places that would have enough people embarking to justify a metro stop. For other stops, it’s haul people around in buses to other locations.

I have friends in Washington, D.C., who walk 10 minutes to a bus stop, ride another half hour on the busto catch the metro which is another 20 minutes to downtown Washington, D.C. It takes time to stop at each station and let people enter and leave the vehicle.

They pay for this transportation twice each day.

This must be done even in terrible weather. If one is elderly or handicapped, it’s a daily ordeal. There isn’t much relating going on during these trips. As one person said, “We might as well be in our own cars.”

Did I mention Amtrak has never paid for itself? The government is still subsidizing it.

While riding the metro has never been my favorite pastime, I like walking trails. Bella Vista has some of the prettiest and the Pea Ridge Battlefield is wonderful for walking or horseback riding.But these trails can also be dangerous. Fayetteville Park has seen crime increase, and most women are nervous walking alone on any isolated pathway. We will have to increase our police force to monitor those 40 miles of newly planned regional pathways.

I appreciate Mr. Walton’s recent donation to help build the trail, but am disappointed that funds from the Arkansas Highway andTransportation Department will be diverted to this project rather than the Bella Vista Bypass. But I understand - President Obama has an agenda.

The feds dangle dollars in front of states to tempt them to join its agenda. Every administration does it.

In some areas, it might work. In others, it’s a waste of money. Remember the big push to build windmills?

Behind every new government fad is someone waiting to make big bucks from the change. Repeat after me: Al Gore.

I beg the people of Arkansas to ask their elected officials to, please, slow down. This will probably pass when President Obama leaves office. End congestion by building roads not following fads from D.C.

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Editor’s note: Donna Hutchinson is the state representative for District 98, serving Bella Vista and the western area of Pea Ridge.

She can be contacted at [email protected].

Opinion, Pages 4 on 12/08/2010