;)
Another step toward the bikepocalypse
Monday, August 9, 2010 at 06:00AM Here's an odd local story (the man is pictured standing just a couple of blocks from my house). Our neighboring town of Arlington has decided to redesign the main street through town (Massachusetts Avenue), to allow for easier and safer bicycling.
The gentleman pictured, Mr. Berger, objects. He is motivated by "a deep distrust of government". And he fears "that the redesign would make it difficult for emergency crews to pass through snarled traffic, endangering lives."
I haven't seen the plan, and can't judge how well it would actually work. But, as I have wondered before, why does opposition to bicycles always take on such a melodramatic tone? Mr. Berger seems to feel that the Mass Ave. exists in a state of nature, untouched by the hand of man, or oppressive government. Clearly any road redesign will involve government action. Just, in this case, government action of which he does not approve. Car-oriented design is just natural, dammit. Why mess with it?
And this "emergency vehicle" thing gets trotted out in all sorts of urban design issues, from raised pedestrian crossings to alleys. It's childish. Yes, I picture a flood of bikes, like Peking before capitalism, so dense that fire trucks are stranded, wailing their sirens desperately as small children are burned alive in their ramshackle Arlington slums.
Now, maybe he can't actually say, "I think bicyclists are a bunch of smug jerks, and don't want them in my town. Every time I see one I want to run over him." But that is, I think, what underlies a lot of opposition.
Reader Comments (3)
No, you've got it wrong. Bicycles are un-American: the innocent-seeming thin edge of the wedge of left-wing European domination. Our liberty is being eroded one spoke at a time! Check this out, if you don't believe me:
http://www.denverpost.com/election2010/ci_15673894
Really, the mind boggles...
There was a story in the Globe some years ago about an advertising guy who commuted from the South Shore to downtown Boston by bicycle. He was always getting buzzed by guys in pickup trucks. He thought to himself "My whole job is trying to persuade people of things. What can I do to keep these guys away from me?" So he put a sign on his bike: "Ex-wife got car." They no longer tried to run him off the road; they leaned out of the truck window yelling "I know how it is man!" His not ex-wife was not amused.
Interesting, and a touchy subject, connected as it is with class, and other issues. It really is guys in pickup trucks who seem enraged by my very existence. They yell things, cut me off, blow their horns. Incidentally, yelling at people on bikes from a moving car is virtually useless. I can never hear what they are saying, though it does not sound like advice about a shifter upgrade. I'm not sure what's going on here. I'll have to think about it.