Alarmingly Ignorant Op-Ed on Bike Share in Washington Times

[jordash]

“HURT: Capital Bikeshare is making biking ugly, smugly”
by Charles Hurt

Highlights of this ridiculous op-ed include:

“…red communal bicycles you see peddled all over town by commune enthusiasts. (Say that fast, and it sounds like you are saying “commun-ists.”)”

“Oh, and the smugness with which these pedaling heroes pump away! I have seen proud drivers of Priuses look away in shame as they ease by in their bio-electric and sometimes spontaneously combustible vehicles.”

“My personal pride in the program reached a new level last week after reading about a woman in my neighborhood who was talking on her cellular phone. A thug rode by on a bike, slapped her and swiped her phone.”

Clearly it’s more important than ever to be vocal proponents of cycling. I don’t use Bike Share because I like my own bike, but it’s appalling to me to see others discourage a sound lifestyle decision: biking. Now, BikeShare isn’t beyond reproach but constructive criticism instead of mockery and a caustic op-ed is hardly productive to help cities suffering from overcrowded roads, an overweight nation, and a world in need of environmental infrastructure.

(Sorry, the article’s a bit old, but I felt compelled to post it)

Topic

[brendan]

Geez, does the Washington Times have a contract to have one of these anti-bikeshare articles/opinions written *every* week?

[jordash]

Then this isn’t a rare occurrence? I read it and was so baffled by the flawed logic that maybe I overreacted to a known fish wrap paper’s bluster.

[MCL1981]

This is the Washington Post. What do you expect?? Why do you even bother reading it?? Much like anything published or reported by WJLA, it is useless garbage.

[PotomacCyclist]

It’s actually the Washington Times.

The opinion piece already drew a lot of attention — and criticism — a few weeks ago. It’s kind of old hat now. It ruffled some feathers, partly because the author seemed to be hinting that CaBi users were somehow all criminals just because one person out of 2 million (bike trips) committed a crime using a CaBi bike. But I think most people will forget about it, precisely because the points were so outlandish. The “ugly, smugly” thing is just plain weird.

Interestingly, the Washington Post has also published misinformed op-ed pieces about cycling in the past as well. One notable editorial spoke to cyclists directly, saying that “if you want to share the roads, you have to follow the laws.” Of course, the Post was conveniently overlooking the fact that while many cyclists break traffic laws, so do most car drivers. And yet the Post never called for the roads to be closed off to car drivers for breaking traffic laws.

Fortunately, not all of the reporting and opinion pieces are so negative and hostile to cycling. The “ugly, smugly” piece merited maybe a couple days of attention, but nothing more. The biggest flaw with the argument is the fact that almost all of the other local D.C. area jurisdictions have clamored to join Capital Bikeshare. Alexandria is set to join as soon as this month. Montgomery and Prince George’s County will likely join the system next year. Fairfax County is now planning to join the bike network. If CaBi were such a broken-down disaster, why would all of the other local jurisdictions be so eager to join?

Everything in life has its critics. Not a big deal.

[MCL1981]

Oh. I suppose I should read a little slower.

[baiskeli]

Alarmingly Ignorant Op-Ed on __________ in Washington Times

Insert pretty much anything.

[Terpfan]

@PotomacCyclist 24669 wrote:

It’s actually the Washington Times.

The opinion piece already drew a lot of attention — and criticism — a few weeks ago. It’s kind of old hat now. It ruffled some feathers, partly because the author seemed to be hinting that CaBi users were somehow all criminals just because one person out of 2 million (bike trips) committed a crime using a CaBi bike. But I think most people will forget about it, precisely because the points were so outlandish. The “ugly, smugly” thing is just plain weird.

Interestingly, the Washington Post has also published misinformed op-ed pieces about cycling in the past as well. One notable editorial spoke to cyclists directly, saying that “if you want to share the roads, you have to follow the laws.” Of course, the Post was conveniently overlooking the fact that while many cyclists break traffic laws, so do most car drivers. And yet the Post never called for the roads to be closed off to car drivers for breaking traffic laws.

Fortunately, not all of the reporting and opinion pieces are so negative and hostile to cycling. The “ugly, smugly” piece merited maybe a couple days of attention, but nothing more. The biggest flaw with the argument is the fact that almost all of the other local D.C. area jurisdictions have clamored to join Capital Bikeshare. Alexandria is set to join as soon as this month. Montgomery and Prince George’s County will likely join the system next year. Fairfax County is now planning to join the bike network. If CaBi were such a broken-down disaster, why would all of the other local jurisdictions be so eager to join?

Everything in life has its critics. Not a big deal.

I never saw that Post op-ed, but that’s absolutely hilarious given how often drivers come out of the Post parking garage and totally ignore those of us riding down the 15th St Cycletrack. So much for the Post and rules of the road.

As for this Times op-ed, he’s largely off-base except for the docking station bit. Everytime I ride by Cabi docks downtown they’re always full or empty depending on when I ride by them which makes me wonder if folks ever end up having to walk endless blocks to find one. Although I would venture to guess Cabi has some smartphone-based system that lets you see if a station has bikes. The easiest response to the guy is if you want more traffic, fine, one day a year we will all drive a car to work and you see how much you enjoy the added traffic.

[KLizotte]

@Terpfan 24711 wrote:

The easiest response to the guy is if you want more traffic, fine, one day a year we will all drive a car to work and you see how much you enjoy the added traffic.

I wonder if bike commuters have reached critical mass here that if we did all choose a day to drive to work if it would really make a noticeable difference. Would be very cool if we could bring about total gridlock. That would certainly get people’s attention!

[txgoonie]

@Terpfan 24711 wrote:

Although I would venture to guess Cabi has some smartphone-based system that lets you see if a station has bikes.

There is one — it’s called Spotcycle. It’s not always easy to predict how much traffic each Cabi station is going to get. Particularly when a new one goes in, there are issues with balancing bike numbers. The system isn’t perfect, but they’re working on it all the time.

[pfunkallstar]

The Washington Times is like a confused teenager – it had its rebellious phase back in 2009-2010 against its “father,” i.e. the Unification Church, and now it is just trying to muddle its way through high school being the “outsider.” I can’t wait until it goes to junior college – EXCITEMENT.

[PotomacCyclist]

The Post wasn’t bashing cyclists completely, and they did point out illegal and dangerous behavior by car drivers. But the 2011 opinion piece was still a bit skewed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bicyclists-are-welcome-in-dc-but-they-too-should-obey-the-law/2011/04/29/AFHIexUF_story.html

[ShawnoftheDread]

@KLizotte 24716 wrote:

I wonder if bike commuters have reached critical mass here that if we did all choose a day to drive to work if it would really make a noticeable difference. Would be very cool if we could bring about total gridlock. That would certainly get people’s attention!

The differences between a good driving day and a bad driving day are so random and unpredictable that it would be impossible to chalk it up to any one event like adding a couple thousand bike commuters to the mix. I’ve flown to work on a rainy Tuesday morning in September and been stuck in traffic during a sunny, mid-August congressional recess.

[creadinger]

So usually when you write an opinion/editorial piece for a supposed respected newspaper you’re supposed to have a point right? What the hell is this guy’s point?! I realize the Times isn’t exactly a good source of anything, but why waste ink on something so useless? The whole thing is filled with snivelly little put down words here and there simply meant to denigrate CaBi and it’s riders. I would expect nothing less from a paper who’s only use is to stoke your woodstove, but seriously… “the genuises haven’t figured out how to stop bike theft”… really? And car theft has all but stopped once the industry introduced keys, door locks, and car alarms… ummm.

It’s basically a blog entry and a really bad blog at that! Someone in the comments said it sounds more like a piece that would come out of the Onion because it’s on the verge of being so ignorant and tasteless that it’s almost hilarious.

Wow, I always knew the Times was stupid, but this guy takes the whole stupid cake.

[thucydides]

@creadinger 24762 wrote:

So usually when you write an opinion/editorial piece for a supposed respected newspaper you’re supposed to have a point right? What the hell is this guy’s point?! I realize the Times isn’t exactly a good source of anything, but why waste ink on something so useless? The whole thing is filled with snivelly little put down words here and there simply meant to denigrate CaBi and it’s riders. I would expect nothing less from a paper who’s only use is to stoke your woodstove, but seriously… “the genuises haven’t figured out how to stop bike theft”… really? And car theft has all but stopped once the industry introduced keys, door locks, and car alarms… ummm.

It’s basically a blog entry and a really bad blog at that! Someone in the comments said it sounds more like a piece that would come out of the Onion because it’s on the verge of being so ignorant and tasteless that it’s almost hilarious.

Wow, I always knew the Times was stupid, but this guy takes the whole stupid cake.

The put down is the whole point. I suspect the author was inspired to become a writer after reading a poor imitation of someone who was inspired to write by a poor imitation of someone who was inspired to write by Dorothy Parker.

[OneEighth]

I’m kinda liking the idea of picking a day…maybe during bike-to-work month to have all regular commuters drive in…maybe with a window sticker or something that says “I normally ride a bike, how you like me driving instead?”

[Author]

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