DCCommuter

The local NPR affiliate, WAMU, aired a commentary today:

"Commentary by Marvin Kalb - bikes & cars
Commentator Marvin Kalb has some thoughts about cars and bicylces -and why it's a good idea they should never meet on our already crowded local roads. "

He basically repeated all of the anti-bike lines -- they don't belong on the road, they don't obey the law. The commentator was Marvin Kalb, a former network correspondent. You can listen at : https://www.wamu.org/audio/mc/05/06/mc050624-8041.ram

I can't believe a usually reputable NPR station would air this crap. There's a saying in the editorial biz that you are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts, and his commentary is rife with factual errors. This is junk I would expect on the letters-to-the-editor page of a small town, not NPR in the Nation's Capital.

You can give feedback by calling (202) 885-1213 or emailing metro@wamu.org.

77Univega

--- Thanks for the audio link. I listened to the audio segment and Kalb was complaining about his experience with bicyclists who were deliberately impeding the flow of vehicular traffic.
If that had happened to me, I would complain too.

CB HI

Your kidding, right.

His entire rant was GET THE HELL OFF MY ROADS. He was even complaining about bicyclist riding through Rock Creek Park. Notice the word PARK, as in roads not designed for Washington DC rush hour commuter traffic. Yet large numbers of commuter motor drivers go that route and several are very rude to the cyclist that commute or recreational ride through the park. If he came upon the cyclist as fast as he states, he was far exceeding the 25 mph limit. I wonder how many tickets he has gotten for speeding through the park, since he complains abut cyclist not getting tickets.

His final point, the car is KING and you cyclist had better watch out for me; if you ride in the road I have a right to road rage against you.

At least now I know the name of one of the road rages in Rock Creek Park .

CB HI

Sorry, but I have heard too many Paint and Path, the roads are dangerous, get off them, car is King type of things on NPR to consider them reputable. Although I must admit that this segment is one of the worst.

Think of the bicycle education we could do with the 100 million tax dollars they just got.

phinney

I feel the same about NPR every time they have a commentary on a subject of which I am knowledgeable.

clintbike

Here's my response to WAMU:

This letter is in response to Marvin Kalb's commentary on bikes and cars. As a regular NPR listener over the years, I have enjoyed your broadcasts. In fact, NPR is all I will listen to on the radio. However, I recently heard commentary from Mr. Kalb that was both narcissistic and shocking.

As a person who commutes to work by bike, from Occoquan to Rosslyn actually, I know what it is like to get around by bicycle in the DC area. It isn't easy, considering the fact that our transportation system is centered around the automobile -a reality I'm sure most Washingtonians realize when they are stuck in traffic for hours on end. My commute consists of riding on roads, bike lanes, and bike paths. I want to get to work as soon as and as safely as I can, without holding up any drivers. But there are parts of the commute in which there is nothing I can do but wave to drivers behind me to come around. Yes, it slows them down by at least five seconds, but unless they are self-important, they are usually cordial and go by without even having to get out of the lane.

Mr. Kalb is probably not one of those people. In his commentary, he complains about people riding on the road even though they had no bike trail or bike path to ride on. Then he vents by making his uncontrolled emotions seem like they are forced on him. This becomes frightening when he says, "Bicyclists, watch out...Cars are the king of the road." This is aggressive and threatening language. And are cars really the "Kings of the road" when they are stuck in a traffic jam?

I have never heard anything like this on NPR. I don't listen to the radio to be bullied and that's just what Mr. Kalb is trying to do. His opinions and ideas are pompous and half-baked. I could empathize with him more if he offered better solutions to our bicycle/automobile challenges, but when he says that better education is one of them, I have to ask, "Is the education going to be for Mr. Kalb?"

I'm alarmed NPR would broadcast this commentary. It's irresponsible to publish the opinions of a man who has the capacity for road rage and even more so when that man is controlling a machine that could be used as a deadly weapon against a cyclist.

wabbit

Like it or not, NPR can air this crap- it's freedom of the press. It doesn't mean they endorse it, though.

The 'cyclists' he talked about sounded like morons. No one I know is as oblivious to traffic; the ones I see who are like that are not roadies. But he complains about them at 9:10 am, and seems surprised to see them ANYWHERE. The one thing I didn't hear him say was that 'cyclists aren't really athletes'. What a shmuck.

Daily Commute

"I stayed behind the cyclists. I fumed and I steamed, but I could do very little. . . . Cyclists, I think, had better beware. . . . So dear cyclists, please, please stay out of my way. . . ." This sounds like a threat of violence. It's worth an e-mail to the station. The link is in the first post.

When you e-mail, please stay polite. Rude, insulting, or threatening messages won't help our cause.

In addition, DC area cyclist groups should lobby the station for an apology or a rebuttal. Clear Channel often has to apologize for stuff like this. They generally end up putting on pro-cyclist PSA's as penance. We should hold NPR to a higher standard than Clear Channel.

CB HI

You call the cyclist morons based on Mr. Kalb’s description. Mr. Kalb appears to be a road rager, based on his own words. To him any cyclist that does not immediately ride into the adjacent ditch so he can speed by, is not paying attention. The roads in Rock Creek Park are narrow, no shoulder, winding and often only 1 lane each way. They are not intended as motor vehicle commuter roads (see map).

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=washin...0.085659&hl=en

Note how many other roads around the park Mr. Kalb has available to use. I do not know the speed limit in the park now, but when I use to ride through it, the limit was 25 mph. Even when I was riding at 22 mph through the park, I would on occasion get a moron like Mr. Kalb who got angry because they could not drive 40 mph when behind me. On the areas the road is winding, I paid more attention to my driving rather than constantly looking at the car behind me. That would probably classify as “oblivious to traffic” in Mr. Kalb’s mind. Some car occupants would throw coffee, some would simply yell “Get off the road a$$hole” as they got their change to pass and continuing to exceed the speed limit..

How can anything Mr. Kalb says about cyclist be relied upon as accurate, rather than just more rage?

CB HI

Agreed, what was good for the Clear Channel idiots should be good for NPR, at least to make up for the verbal assault on cyclist.

larue

Oh I definitely wrote them about that piece. The ahole practically threatened all cyclists by saying "cyclist beware" and "stay out of my way."
It's ridiculous they would air such hateful bullcrap.

Daily Commute

Freedom of the press protects NPR from government censorship, not from our criticism.

-=(8)=-

Just be glad its NPR who listnership is relatively tiny compared to a larger broadcast
organization. Could you imagine if for some reason a moron like Limbaugh had a
vendetta against cyclers and got his braindead, Pavlovianoid puppets to go along with it ?
Open season an any bike would be a reality.

H23

Wow. That Kalb guy had the audacity to complain about _bicycles_ impeding him??

For christ's sake, that ******* was driving in Washington DC!! Anyone who drives in DC experiences daily soul-crushing bumper to bumper traffic.

I have never seen a cyclist impede traffic in DC for more than a fleeting moment. He is clearly complaining about being delayed for literally an instant of time and making it sound like this is a big deal.

cycleup

Here's the letter I'm planning to sent to WAMU

"I saw Marvin Kalb's recent commentary for Metro Connection referenced on a national biking forum. I couldn't believe that a national figure like Mr. Kalb would say anything as absurd as what was being described on the forum so I took a listen to your archived version. It was with building amazement that I listened to Mr. Kalb's express his desire to ethnically cleanse DC's roads of cyclists. How can someone with pretensions to a national profile get away with saying things so out of line with both the law and common decency?

I've seen the roads through Rock Creek park (I lived on the East Coast for many years and enjoyed visiting DC often) and I'm quite sure that those roads have (or at least deserve) a 25 mph limit. Bicycles can easily keep up with traffic on such roads and the fact that Mr. Kalb "suddenly" came upon the cyclists suggests that he was breaking the law and thus endangering not just cyclists but other drivers (what if it had been a slow sightseer around that corner? Does Mr. Kalb think that no one ever sight sees on weekday summer mornings in Rock Creek Park? Does he have any idea why it might be irresponsible to race through a park in 3000 plus pounds of automobile irrespective of whether there are cyclists present?)

It's both legal and necessary for cyclists to commute on such roads. Given the national security implications of our dependance on foreign oil and the 1700 American service men and women who've given their lives so Mr. Kalb can drive to work he ought to be commending commuting cyclists for their patriotism, not trying to terrorize them.

Mr Kalb owes all the road users of Rock Creek park an apology. WAMU ought to consider who it pays for commentaries more carefully. And Mr. Kalb ought to get counseling before he kills someone."

Do folks think this is over the top?

twahl

Interesting you bring up Rush and his listeners as a potential threat to cyclists when it was a 75 year old Harvard professor at the Kennedy School of Government who was born in one of the more liberal cities in the country (NYC) that made the comments that have everyone so fired up. The reason NPR needs public funding is because this type of irrational diatribe doesn't draw enough of a listening audience for the network to be self-sustaining, yet there are your tax dollars at work supporting Kald and Cookie Monster.

Note: yes, I know Sesame Street doesn't benefit nearly as much as a lot of NPR and PBS programs do, but that didn't keep liberals from throwing that out as a tragedy of reduced funding, did it?

Travelinguyrt

Kalb is a radio dinosauer, let out to pasture years ago and wound up on NPR. Hasn't had an original thought since the Eisenhower years.

Daily Commute

To be fair to NPR, it's on the air at least as many places as Clear Channel, and this is the first major anti-bike rant I've read about. This kind of thing is par-for-the-course at the private stations.

And I agree with the criticisms of Kalb's originality. There are lots of intelligent things he could have said about bikes and traffic, but he just ranted. Both he and NPR can do better.

Guest

I'd take out the "ethnically cleanse" part. Just say "cleanse". He didn't mention anything about ethnicity, and there's no comparison to other countries that do ethnic cleansing. In fact, the comparison does a disservice to the seriousness of "ethnic cleansing". Just use "cleansing". That works well all by itself without bringing in ethnicity (which Kalb never discussed).

I like how you mentioned the foreign dependence on oil, but the sentence is incomplete, and it sounds a bit like you're reaching, unless you re-word it so that it has some real relevance. Something like:

Spellcheck and grammar check! There are syntax and spelling errors in your statement.

Re-do it in MS Word, then grammar and spell check it, then re-post it for other opinions.

Otherwise, a good letter.

Koffee

pseudobrit

NPR is not PBS.

Your local PBS station may buy NPR news broadcasts and air them, but they are not an "NPR station" because there is no such thing as an NPR-run station, just as there are no AP or Reuters stations/newspapers.

There is a common perception that NPR and PBS are the same and they are not.

This guy is a local problem, not an NPR one. Sounds like he needs to learn to drive.

pseudobrit

See above and stand corrected.

CB HI

Right on target.

twahl

PBS and NPR are both part of CBP.

Click the link, be educated, and quit being a pompous ass.

CB HI

Why bash Rush Limbaugh when he has never attacked bicyclist and has never given any indication that he will.

If you really must attack a conservative radio host, then go after Mike Gallagher.

Mike Gallagher Bio

He defended the first pair of clear channel idiots that attacked bicyclist. Although he couched his comments by declaring he would not call for nor condone violence (as the other idiots have) he supported their views that bicyclist should get off the road. He felt that it was wrong for the idiots to loose their jobs because of their on air comments.

By the way, all 3 clear channel anti-bicycle segments were local host. None got a national audience until bicyclist complained about the segments. Two prior NPR “bicyclist should not be on the road” segments were distributed nationally. Sadly, I think the NPR segments did more damage to bicyclist. NPR segments were presented calmly and gave an air of factual basis. Marvin Kalb's and the 3 clear channel rants were likely seen as over the top and uncalled for.

-=(8)=-

Rush Limbaugh has a huge audience. Way more than any NPR show gets.
I used the word 'imagine' indicating this was just a theoretical situation....
You could insert the name of any radio personality and the crux of the post would be the same.
Howard Stern, IMus, etc.....Limbaugh was just the first personality to come to mind.