James Oberstar farewell

Posted on December 27, 2010 by .
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A letter from James Oberstar, the outgoing chairman of the US House transportation committee.

James Oberstar represented the 8th Congressional District in Minnesota since 1975 and was chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee since 2007, where he earned prominence advocating for Federal funding of bicycle projects. Oberstar lost his seat in the 2010 election when Republican Chip Cravaack edged him out by just 1.4% of the votes.

In his farewell from politics letter to the Transportation for American Coalition, Oberstar writes about a need for a new Federal intermodal transportation policy. Read his letter here.



See also:

  1. General James Jones and his bicycle commute
  2. Federal Safe Routes funding 80% distributed
  3. James Marsden rides a bicycle
  4. Tesla Motors and James Martin


  • http://www.facebook.com/psmithsf Peter Smith

    i still can’t understand how a hero of biking, and incumbent, in bike-friendly and often-liberal Minnesota, lost his seat. and nobody knew he was at risk? and nobody in the bike community had any idea he was about to lose his seat? tens/hundreds of thousands of active bikers in America, and we couldn’t rally to keep Mr. Bike Guy in his seat? it just doesn’t add up. i’m guessing he must’ve been so bad on so many other issues that nobody wanted to back him at all, regardless of whether he was right-ish on bike/transportation issues.

  • http://www.cyclelicio.us/ Cyclelicious

    @Peter – That’s correct, nobody knew Oberstar was at risk. Oberstar’s seat was considered safe; Cravack’s win over Oberstar by just 4000 votes came as a complete surprise.