HICAGO -- With the sun-glittered Lake Michigan at his back, Al Gore proposed $25 billion in mass-transit subsidies meant to clean up smog and traffic. He underscored that his ''new way of thinking'' about environmental policy won't force drivers onto the bus.
''Don't tell me that there's a great groundswell to get rid of cars and to push people into mass transit whether they want it or not,'' the Democratic presidential candidate said yesterday. ''That's the old, tired way of thinking. ... The new way of thinking is, hey, give people a choice.''
To facilitate a ''green'' choice, Gore offered what he dubbed his ''Keep America Moving'' initiative - third in this week's series of campaign proposals to encourage, through tax breaks and subsidies, the development and mass use of environmentally friendly technologies.
Yesterday's offering, a 10-year package that the campaign priced at $25 billion, included:
Unspecified ''new federal investments to convert municipal- and school-bus fleets to clean-burning fuels'' and equip them with emergency radios, anti-lock brakes, and other safety features.
An unspecified increase in federal grants for the construction of new subways or light-rail systems, or the extension and upgrade of routes.
Unspecified ''financial incentives'' to clean up neighborhoods around transit stations so that people are more likely to use them.
Gore, whom Republican presidential contender George W. Bush has tried to paint as an environmental extremist, bent over backward to reassure Americans who are intent on driving themselves.
''They should have that right always,'' he said, campaigning on the downtown Navy Pier with Mayor Richard Daley, brother of Gore's new campaign chairman, William Daley.
