Living Car Free - NPR Bike to work blurb

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View Full Version : NPR Bike to work blurb


gwd
05-21-07, 09:18 AM
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10279746

Its about biking to work in DC. The comment about "murderous buses" isn't true, I find the bus drivers the best drivers in the city, but recently here there have been some inexcusable accidents involving busses and pedestrians. I have mixed feelings about this type of single try coverage of bike transportation. The thing about avoiding Dupont Circle is weird too. I frequently bike around the circle, its easier on a bike than in a car. On a bike you can choose to bike through the circle or around depending on how you feel. In a car you can get stuck in a lane which might not be the lane you want.


Roody
05-21-07, 09:58 AM
Well, Bike to Work Week (or month in some cities) is designed to get stories like this on the air and in the papers. Unfortunately, the lazy boilerplate journalism that results is trite and predictable -- and concludes falsely that bike commuting is dangerous and unpleasant. There were dozens of stories just like this one all over the country:

Unprepared and stupid reporter tries bike commute for one day, usually doesn't like it, fails miserably, harbors resentment for the editor or producer who assigned her to the lame story, and displaces that anger to the murderous buses and the narrow streets. The bicycle "experiment" is deemed a failure, and NPR (or whoever) lays the issue to rest until next year.

Meanwhile, the real story is never reported. Millions of us bike-commute every day--happily and successfully. Even in Washington of the "murderous buses", as gwd pointed out.

manual_overide
05-21-07, 11:09 AM
This one is a bit different than the usual B2WW stuff that appears in most papers:
http://cinweekly.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070516/NEWS/705160339/1067/rss05


Roody
05-21-07, 11:12 AM
This one is a bit different than the usual B2WW stuff that appears in most papers:
http://cinweekly.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070516/NEWS/705160339/1067/rss05
Yeah, that's more like it. :)