They are childless socialists. They could care less if a majority of san francisco are reliant on cars bc our muni sucks. They think it's ok to spend 2 hours getting to a school on muni that would be 30 min by car. They need to be stopped.
It's sad to me to see how bike activism in SF has veered from getting more bike lanes in the 1990s to trying to enforce an extremist vision of car-free urban life that's simply not realistic or even wanted by the vast majority of residents in the City.
The bicycle lobby, Transportation Alternatives and related grousp such as OpenPlans, are funded by/supported by some very wealthy people (Mark Gorton, Tom Kempner etc), big real estate and companies like Lyft (which now controls Citibike) and Uber.
Young affluent bicyclists (regular or Citibike) are basically former mass transit (subway) users - not former car drivers. So tNYC mass transit ridership and income is reduced.
The bicycle lobby pushed the City of NY to implement a "program" closing streets ("Open Streets") to vehicles. But not just small quiet streets - the bicycle lobby has even supported closing streets which have bus routes, thereby diverting buses which are heavily used by elderly, disabled, POC, women.
So very clear that the bicycle lobby is OK with sacrificing mass transit to benefit bicyclists.
This article would be so much better if it included the other sides perspective. One-sided news isn’t a thing. It’s just a drone of another echo chamber.
This has definitely been an Astroturf Campaign. I became aware of the campaign efforts during the first week of the Lake St pandemic closure when I (gasp) made a positive comment on Nextdoor message board. I was DMed by a woman who claimed to live in the Richmond District who wanted me to sign a petition on peopleprotected.com website that would permanently close Lake St. When I Googled the Guerrero St. address on the bottom on the petition, I noticed it was attached to the same woman who claimed to have lived in the Richmond District. Guerrero St is in the Mission District. This is when I became active in fighting against their efforts.
Thank you for writing about what is happening in other cities.
I am wondering if there are any corporations behind this Astroturf Campaign. Who would be interested in seeing a carfree San Francisco? Is it possible that companies pushing driverless Uber, Cruise, Waymo cars would be doing this? Or is it really a campaign being run by a group of younger narcissistic folks who have moved into the city (They tend not to be native SFers)?
I happen to be part of a 100 year-old cycling family. My grandfather was a professional veladrome racer and my father was an amateur racer. I grew up on a bike. What I don't understand, from all these small activist groups that are promoting cycling is that they are NOT promoting bike safety. SF Bike Coalition does offer Bike Safety classes but KidSafeSF does not promote proper bike safety, nor does People Protected, nor does Richmond Family Transportation Network, all groups who are pushing cycling in the city.
As a parent, teacher and part of an old cycling family, I find it beyond disturbing that these groups have gotten hoards of people out on the street for one of their many activist events but they have never staged an event that teaches people how to safely ride a bike.
Serious cyclists, and not of the ilk of the idiots we see breaking the law as they ride through SF, know that cycling is a dangerous sport so safety should always been on the top of every cyclist's mind as they ride. I grew up learning about cycling safety at a very young age.
Because I know cycling safety, like the back of my hand, because I learned it as a child from professional cyclists, it has been difficult to watch all the people take to the streets on bicycles and constantly break laws. It is awful to watch purported children's safety groups hold public street events where families do not know proper cycling safety so they are teaching their children how to incorrectly ride in the city.
The Western side of the city, in particular, doesn't have good mass transit, like the Eastern side of the city. Many of the biggest cycling activists, who are behind keep the streets permanently closed, live in the Eastern side of the city.
Well, this a great interview It pretty much explains almost everything we need to know about the bike coalition and what they want and what they expect. Major city streets don't need to be closed to accommodate both bikes and cars.
Like everything, there's a grain of truth here that has unfortunately been taken to an excess. It's a fact that fast-moving car traffic does not belong on city streets. It hurts business, it hurts safety, it hurts the environment. One need walk around any major city in the country, and it immediately becomes apparent that the areas of town where traffic is moving slowly are almost without exception the places where you'll see business thriving and real estate values increasing. Those are also generally nice places to ride a bike.
But the bike friendliness of those places is almost entirely coincidental. Slow traffic = good biking conditions, nothing else really matters. Not "bike lanes". Not "bike infrastructure". Not places with "no parking". And slow traffic also equals good business conditions, and good walking conditions, and good places for families, and better environmental quality, less noise, etc.
So the bike advocates are basically piggy-backing on the essential truth that slow traffic is good for cities to then get a lot of stupid things done that have nothing to do with making the city safer for bikes, much less for anyone else.
I I’ve in Jackson Heights, Queens, NYC. These biker bros infiltrated our Dept of transportation and are now making “Open Streets” all over NYC. In my neighborhood they took 26 blocks, yes 26 blocks, of a busy avenue and closed it to cars 13 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Some parts are completely closed to traffic. They also put so many giant flower pots, cement blocks and pylons on this stretch of avenue that emergency vehicles have been delayed getting through. We are protesting but nothing is stopping them. Please help us.
This is literally one sided—why not talk to a bike commuter? I commuted to work by bike for ten years. It’s an absolutely lovely way to get around SF and our weather is perfect for it (we own a car too, and use Muni). Cyclists deserve safe infrastructure as much as any other group. Most are just people trying to get from point A to point B, get a little exercise, and to avoid having to deal with parking. The caricature you paint, those people exist, but 95% of people on bikes are just… people.
"The insane bike people will treat them like they are against climate change." You need a better proofreader, since it is unlikely that this is what you actually meant to write. (Aren't we all against claimate change?)
Update. Citing your work directly, a politician in San Diego (see this substack) is criticizing the local bicycle coalition’s use of PPP money during the Covid 19 Pandemic.
They are childless socialists. They could care less if a majority of san francisco are reliant on cars bc our muni sucks. They think it's ok to spend 2 hours getting to a school on muni that would be 30 min by car. They need to be stopped.
It's sad to me to see how bike activism in SF has veered from getting more bike lanes in the 1990s to trying to enforce an extremist vision of car-free urban life that's simply not realistic or even wanted by the vast majority of residents in the City.
Nailed it. We're fighting back against the bike fanatics.
Thank you for posting it. It’s weird how all of bike phycholists who work for SFMTA live in Oakland as well as most of the activists.
Interestingly in NYC....
The bicycle lobby, Transportation Alternatives and related grousp such as OpenPlans, are funded by/supported by some very wealthy people (Mark Gorton, Tom Kempner etc), big real estate and companies like Lyft (which now controls Citibike) and Uber.
Young affluent bicyclists (regular or Citibike) are basically former mass transit (subway) users - not former car drivers. So tNYC mass transit ridership and income is reduced.
The bicycle lobby pushed the City of NY to implement a "program" closing streets ("Open Streets") to vehicles. But not just small quiet streets - the bicycle lobby has even supported closing streets which have bus routes, thereby diverting buses which are heavily used by elderly, disabled, POC, women.
So very clear that the bicycle lobby is OK with sacrificing mass transit to benefit bicyclists.
This article would be so much better if it included the other sides perspective. One-sided news isn’t a thing. It’s just a drone of another echo chamber.
This has definitely been an Astroturf Campaign. I became aware of the campaign efforts during the first week of the Lake St pandemic closure when I (gasp) made a positive comment on Nextdoor message board. I was DMed by a woman who claimed to live in the Richmond District who wanted me to sign a petition on peopleprotected.com website that would permanently close Lake St. When I Googled the Guerrero St. address on the bottom on the petition, I noticed it was attached to the same woman who claimed to have lived in the Richmond District. Guerrero St is in the Mission District. This is when I became active in fighting against their efforts.
Thank you for writing about what is happening in other cities.
I am wondering if there are any corporations behind this Astroturf Campaign. Who would be interested in seeing a carfree San Francisco? Is it possible that companies pushing driverless Uber, Cruise, Waymo cars would be doing this? Or is it really a campaign being run by a group of younger narcissistic folks who have moved into the city (They tend not to be native SFers)?
I happen to be part of a 100 year-old cycling family. My grandfather was a professional veladrome racer and my father was an amateur racer. I grew up on a bike. What I don't understand, from all these small activist groups that are promoting cycling is that they are NOT promoting bike safety. SF Bike Coalition does offer Bike Safety classes but KidSafeSF does not promote proper bike safety, nor does People Protected, nor does Richmond Family Transportation Network, all groups who are pushing cycling in the city.
As a parent, teacher and part of an old cycling family, I find it beyond disturbing that these groups have gotten hoards of people out on the street for one of their many activist events but they have never staged an event that teaches people how to safely ride a bike.
Serious cyclists, and not of the ilk of the idiots we see breaking the law as they ride through SF, know that cycling is a dangerous sport so safety should always been on the top of every cyclist's mind as they ride. I grew up learning about cycling safety at a very young age.
Because I know cycling safety, like the back of my hand, because I learned it as a child from professional cyclists, it has been difficult to watch all the people take to the streets on bicycles and constantly break laws. It is awful to watch purported children's safety groups hold public street events where families do not know proper cycling safety so they are teaching their children how to incorrectly ride in the city.
The Western side of the city, in particular, doesn't have good mass transit, like the Eastern side of the city. Many of the biggest cycling activists, who are behind keep the streets permanently closed, live in the Eastern side of the city.
Well, this a great interview It pretty much explains almost everything we need to know about the bike coalition and what they want and what they expect. Major city streets don't need to be closed to accommodate both bikes and cars.
Like everything, there's a grain of truth here that has unfortunately been taken to an excess. It's a fact that fast-moving car traffic does not belong on city streets. It hurts business, it hurts safety, it hurts the environment. One need walk around any major city in the country, and it immediately becomes apparent that the areas of town where traffic is moving slowly are almost without exception the places where you'll see business thriving and real estate values increasing. Those are also generally nice places to ride a bike.
But the bike friendliness of those places is almost entirely coincidental. Slow traffic = good biking conditions, nothing else really matters. Not "bike lanes". Not "bike infrastructure". Not places with "no parking". And slow traffic also equals good business conditions, and good walking conditions, and good places for families, and better environmental quality, less noise, etc.
So the bike advocates are basically piggy-backing on the essential truth that slow traffic is good for cities to then get a lot of stupid things done that have nothing to do with making the city safer for bikes, much less for anyone else.
I I’ve in Jackson Heights, Queens, NYC. These biker bros infiltrated our Dept of transportation and are now making “Open Streets” all over NYC. In my neighborhood they took 26 blocks, yes 26 blocks, of a busy avenue and closed it to cars 13 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Some parts are completely closed to traffic. They also put so many giant flower pots, cement blocks and pylons on this stretch of avenue that emergency vehicles have been delayed getting through. We are protesting but nothing is stopping them. Please help us.
Bicycle advocacy got taken over by the woke neo-racist crowd awhile ago.
https://sdbikecoup.substack.com/
This is literally one sided—why not talk to a bike commuter? I commuted to work by bike for ten years. It’s an absolutely lovely way to get around SF and our weather is perfect for it (we own a car too, and use Muni). Cyclists deserve safe infrastructure as much as any other group. Most are just people trying to get from point A to point B, get a little exercise, and to avoid having to deal with parking. The caricature you paint, those people exist, but 95% of people on bikes are just… people.
Geez, what a hateful twat this author is. Sounds like Ayn Rand.
It's "pedaler", not "peddler," you opinionated fool.
"The insane bike people will treat them like they are against climate change." You need a better proofreader, since it is unlikely that this is what you actually meant to write. (Aren't we all against claimate change?)
Update. Citing your work directly, a politician in San Diego (see this substack) is criticizing the local bicycle coalition’s use of PPP money during the Covid 19 Pandemic.
https://twitter.com/LoriSaldanaSD/status/1597643647188496385?s=20&t=dVcZ7GEPItYkVbTLyMe8tg