Pibber

Maybe, as a long time anti establisment, voting, "liberal", rights loving american, you can explain how being anti establishment is a bad thing?

Oh, that seems to be the converse of what you believe? Ehhh.....

Nothing wrong with a working government of the people, by the people, for the people.

unterhausen

It can make sense in a place where it would increase bike use if it keeps a large number of cars off of the road. I doubt it makes economic sense in D.C.

dynodonn 

Seems that the Europeans are a bunch of candy asses then.

I-Like-To-Bike

Did you forget to mention the other traits that were referenced in the previous posts as being associated with the anti-establishment vibe seen so often here and on at least one other list?
Do you also wear with pride a label of "malcontent" and "self righteous"?

kickstart

When it becomes a pretentious affectation having no goal other than feeding ones ego, its a bad thing.
The same can be said for both ends of the end of the ideological spectrum, intolerance for different points of view as ones identity.

achoo

Also, when politics is practiced as a positional good.

For example, from one side of the political spectrum: "I'm better than you because I'm more tolerant."

Of course, the original columnist was playing at being better by being intolerant.

Notso_fastLane

A better article.. Someone post this to the WaPo one. The title alone should get the point across.

Brennan

Great article. I'm wondering how an anti-bike crusader ended up being the city commissioner of Portland!?!? Also, I disagree that the "bicyclists are freeloaders who don't pay road tax" argument is dying out. I still see it all the time.

alan s 

Bicyclist bullies try to rule the road in D.C. - The Washington Post

The Washington Post has the city's cyclists in an uproar, with a protest planned for this afternoon. While there is some truth in it, saying motorists could be justified in hitting cyclists is off the charts. Here is the text of the column:

--------------------------------------------

I have to hand it to the bicyclists in the D.C. area. They’ve got more nerve than an L.A. biker gang. And some can be just as nasty.

They fight to have bike lanes routed throughout the city, some in front of churches where elderly parishioners used to park their cars. They slow-pedal those three-wheel rickshaws through downtown during rush hour, laughing at motorists who want them to get out of the way.

RoadHolland

Photo from today's protest! Looks like a good turnout.

Andy_K 

I think what he's trying to say is something like this: "You bicyclists look real healthy. It would be a shame if anything happened to some of yous."

mgw4jc

"Biker terrorists"
Buwahaha!

Let's all get shirts and stickers that say, "Bicycling is not a crime."

mstraus

Seems like a war going on between cyclists and drivers. Can't believe some of the things I read in my generally bike friendly community on Nextdoor. Some drivers have real anger against cyclists. They see some cyclists behave badly, and then categorize us all the same way. They yell at cyclists for breaking laws, while drivers constantly break laws too (speeding, not coming to complete stop, running a red light or very yellow one, not signaling when turning, etc.). Seems to me the guy on a bike is at a higher risk from someone in a car doing then a driver is from a cyclists that follows the law or not.

I thought this article on the subject was interesting...
Cyclists: Motorists See You as Moving Targets | The Fit List | OutsideOnline.com

mgw4jc

I think the author was trolling for page views. With 1,500 comments, I say he has been successful.

Doohickie

Meanwhile, in Fort Worth, our mayor rides with us.

phoebeisis

Ski across frozen hell to destroy Nazi heavy water-now they have bike escalators?
Awfully costly solution when you can just walk up-pushing your bike?
And they maintain it in their bitter weather?
Doesn't "rust out" or get broken by ice melting freezing melting freezing?
I couldn't tell if they had to pay a bit-coin operated-or not?
Now I didn't see a hell of a lot of people using it
and it didn't look "much faster" than walking up

Awfully complicated approach to a simple situation-get off and walk your bike up.

Leisesturm

One day, all, non essential vehicle traffic will be gone from the streets of cities like D.C., NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago and other metro areas with five figure population densities. As I understand it, the entire European Union plans to be (urban) car free by 2050. In America it will not take longer than that, but the fight will be bloodier. America's baby boomers are just as stubborn in their car addiction as they believe the cyclist community to be in their car free advocacy. At least the cyclist community does not have the destruction of the biome as a consequence of its existence.

H

spare_wheel

Word.

physdl

The only way to increase the safety of cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers is education and enforcement. If bike safety, both from the perspective of the cyclist and the perspective of the driver was a substantial portion of the driver licensing curriculum in all states and taught in schools, everyone would be safer. As much as I don't like reading such blog posts, I see as many stupid bicyclists as I see stupid drivers (luckily, not many of either). Unfortunately, there are fewer minor repercussions for stupid bicyclists than for stupid drivers, and it ends up resulting in serious injuries. Just a month ago I watched as some idiot first salmoned on the bike lane and then took advantage of a brief lull in traffic to cross a relatively busy, 5 lane road at the top of a hill with poor visibility. Luckily he didn't decide to salmon down the hill that where he could've been going 30mph and seriously injured anyone biking up the hill in the lane.

Andy_K 

Bike lanes actually work toward this goal in a way that some people seem not to recognize. They take away parking spots. The best way to get people to take public transportation from the suburbs into the city is to make it difficult and expensive to park in the city. The Washington Post writer is clearly aware of this, but he's trying to subvert it by conjuring up images of elderly people on their way to church as the consumers of on-street parking. If that wasn't his implicit objective, his attempt to cast bike lanes going past churches as a negative image would be even more ridiculous than it already is. ("Bikes near churches! Who wants to live like that?! ... I mean, aside from Latter Day Saints.")

modernjess

In this age of political correctness how is it that the cultural thought police let him get away with slandering an entire group of people (cyclists) based on the actions of a few (a$$hat cyclists)

If he were to be calling out say Women Drivers or Asian Shop keepers or Migrant farm workers or LGBT activists etc. he'd be savaged and forced to resign.

Why are cyclists immune to the outrage that other groups enjoy?

Andy_K 

For starters it's still open season on middle-to-upper class white men. That's not to say "oh poor us" because in nearly all other respects the system is still very heavily biased in favor of middle-to-upper class white men. In any case, our society seems to tolerate attacks on middle-to-upper class white men, and (as seen in the WP editorial) the visible majority of cyclists are middle-to-upper class white men. Notice that he has nothing bad to say about the "black juveniles" who apparently used to be the majority of on-street cyclists in DC (even if his statements have the subtext of "because they didn't ask for anything").

Second, the vast majority of us are cyclists by choice. In our society, (with the previously noted exception) it is not "OK" to express contempt for a group of people based on a characteristic that is beyond their control, even if it's a characteristic they are very proud of. People who may be grouped based on their choices, on the other hand, are fair game for just about any extreme of hatred. Witness the vile polemics in the political arena.

Matariki

The pedestrians in the video were keeping pace, weren't they. To me, this seems more like a novelty than a real advantage to cyclists. Did the designers forget that legs can be used to walk? Also, it looked rather awkward for the users. I wonder how many injuries they have seen.

Rollfast

When they get to a corner or encounter other cyclists, then they might know.

Rollfast

That's Stretch Armstrong going on Plastic Man....