Ald. Mell has a reputation of badmouthing bike riders. The most experience most alderpersons have with bikers is downtown, where the dense mix of bikes (esp. couriers), pedestrians, autos, cabs and buses can be illuminating, but sampling skewed.

Mell's criticisms, nonetheless, may still have some validity. I have no problem if--and only if--bike riders are treated equally like other users of the same spaces, but that generally doesn't happen in these parts. Cars rarely come to a stop at stop signs, observe turning restrictions, or properly yield to pedestrians (in the absence of crossing guards/traffic assistants), but alderpeople (and police officers) don't get hot and bothered about those examples.

Providing additional dedicated bike lanes would help to decrease such dangerous interactions. But then this is the city that changed clogged one-way streets downtown to install counter-traffic bus lanes, until too many pedestrians were being plowed over.