Following London, Paris, Montreal, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Brussels, and many, many more cities worldwide, New York City has just launched its own bikeshare program, sponsored by Citibank. The reaction to the launch has been slightly more hysterical in that city than it was in others, though. Driven by a combination of things – New York’s general cycle-unfriendliness, the belief that it is a pet project of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and the American right’s depressing knee-jerk hatred of anything dubbed “environmental” – opposition to the “citibikes” has become untethered from reality and floated off into its own pocket universe. I present exhibit A, a Wall Street Journal opinion video on the topic, title “Death by Bicycle”:
That’s Dorothy Rabinowitz, who sits on the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, saying, with a straight face, that
Before this, every citizen knew, who was in any way sentient, that the most important danger in the city is not the yellow cabs. It is the bicyclists.
And that:
The bike lobby is an all-powerful enterprise.
And that:
Some enterprising new mayor [should undo Bloomberg’s changes] and preserve our traffic patterns.
Perhaps most amazingly, she goes on a long spiel about how Taxi Drivers have signs in their cabs warning them to watch out for bikes, and complains that nobody tells cyclists the same thing, which does nothing but demonstrate that she hasn’t actually seen the bikes:
The video is so unhinged that it’s actually starting to reflect upon the publication itself. Rabinowitz herself is high up at the paper, and as the Atlantic’s James Fallows writes:
I’ve always wondered how exactly to describe the temperament, the broadmindedness, the analytical subtlety, the Id that through the decades have shaped the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. Conveniently, the Journal has filled that need, via this video interview with one of its editorial board members. Henceforth when you read the Journal’s editorials, I invite you to hear this voice, expression, and tone.
The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein, meanwhile, says that the Journal “just ate the Onion’s lunch”, while Reuters’ Felix Salmon merely picks a few choice quotes to present “without comment”.
In short, if high-up members of your paper’s editorial board approach a bike sharing scheme as though someone had proposed to shoot their, and everyone else’s, puppy, try and keep them off-camera. It only ends badly.
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