Washington, DC just became the first city in the nation to launch a technologically advanced public bike share program. I actually saw one of these things in action last week, and in general I think this is a very good idea.

However, I think the official launch is too small, and it is ridiculous that tax dollars are paying for it.

SmartBike DC will rent 120 bikes at 10 self-service racks mostly in the downtown area, including near the Gallery Place, Shaw and Judiciary Square Metrorail stations.

“We want to start small and start slow,” Sebastian said. “We don’t want the first-time people . . . we’re trying to keep this simple at first.”

Many of the kiosks are near streets that host some of the city’s 34 miles of bike lanes. Thirty-one miles’ worth have been added in the past seven years.

Why? If this is a good idea, and for once I actually think that it is, why start small? Starting small only makes it difficult to attract people – you’re naturally catering to a much smaller audience. If you want this to have mass appeal, make it available for the masses.

In my opinion this is minor compared to a larger problem:

In most cities, bike sharing is a public-private partnership between city governments and outdoor advertising companies. The District’s program will be maintained by Clear Channel Outdoor and is part of a 20-year bus shelter contract.

To help cut through the crap – this means that Clear Channel Outdoor has either been given free ad space, or deeply discounted ad space, on city bus shelters. Clear Channel Outdoor then sells this ad space and that’s how they make money off of this scheme. In return, they provide the bikes to the city free of charge and maintain them, plus the city gets to keep all of the revenues from the $40 annual subscription fee.

This sounds like a good deal for the city, but it’s not. Clear Channel Outdoor is a business that exists to make money. They are making more in profit off of the ad space than it costs to run the bike service – that’s why they’re doing it.

So DC is giving up lucrative ad revenue from its bus shelters, in order to not pay for a bike program that doesn’t cost as much. This leads to a net loss for DC.

Look at it with basic math – the subscription is $40, and let’s make some assumptions about the cost of the bikes and the ad revenues. Let’s say there is a one-to-one ratio of bikes to ad spaces, the bikes each cost $99 to buy, maintain, etc.., and each ad can bring in $100 (remember, since Clear Channel Outdoor needs to cover their costs and make a profit they have to be making more than the bikes cost). Under the current arrangement, for each bike, Clear Channel Outdoor will bring in $1 in profit, and DC will bring in $40.

But if the city did the whole thing, they would bring in $41 (they’ll pay $99 for the bikes, and make $100 from ad revenue + $40 from subscriptions, so $140 - $99 = $41) – so they’re not getting a good deal under the current arrangement - they’re losing $1.  In actuallity, the loss is assuredly much larger - Clear Channel Outdoor wouldn’t sign on without being able to make a decent profit.

There’s only one reason you would do this – it’s not financially feasible to do it as a private company. You would have to charge so much for the bike subscriptions that it would be prohibitively expensive and no one would sign up. So DC has decided to keep the cost for users low while masking the true cost of the program under the free ad space.

Now you can argue the merits of the benefits to society of having these bikes on the roads, and thus the need to subsidize them, but even that doesn’t explain the current fee structure.

If you want to make the judgment that these things should be subsidized and the cost kept low, you still need to understand that the city pays the cost of these bikes either way. Either they’re going to absorb all of the costs themselves up front, or they’re going to lose them indirectly through the ad revenues.

The argument that Clear Channel Outdoor doesn’t need as much infrastructure is bunk – they are an advertising sales firm – they have to create the same infrastructure that the city does. The revenue from the ads is obviously enough to cover these costs and then some. DC is on the losing end of a bargain. They are eating the whole costs either way, but they are getting less revenue under the current scheme.

In my opinion, this program should be completely privately operated, and the revenues should be derived from user fees, just like Zipcar. That is certainly more expensive, but it also has benefits that currently don’t exist. For instance, I can guarantee that service would be better under a totally private structure – right now, any increase in service starts to cut into the profit Clear Channel Outdoor makes off of ad revenue. So at some point, the service will start to suck because it isn’t profitable for Clear Channel Outdoor. If we forced this to be an entirely private enterprise, there is an incentive for the company to provide good service, and expand the availability – otherwise they won’t be in business. It may be more expensive to the users for it to be private, but it’s never going to be as expensive as driving or riding mass transit, so it’s still a bargain.

There is some more idiocy surrounding this though:

In the United States, cities including Portland, Ore., and Austin have experimented with more low-tech versions, in which “beater bikes” were painted one color and made available for use. Most were vandalized or stolen after a short time.

Guess what DC’s bikes don’t have? Bike locks. Guess how much you get fined for losing a bike? $550. It’s not very convenient to have to carry a bike lock around all day on the off chance I might need it. Inconveniences like this are the kinds of things that turn off potential riders. Get some locks on these bikes, get more of them on the streets, and do it without using tax dollars.

It calls for photographing, and scanning the license plates of, cars and trucks at all bridges and tunnels and using sensors to detect the presence of radioactivity.

Data on each vehicle — its time-stamped image, license plate imprint and radiological signature — would be sent to a command center in Lower Manhattan, where it would be indexed and stored for at least a month as part of a broad security plan that emphasizes protecting the city’s financial district, the spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said.

Talk about a heinous abuse of government power.

Listen to me people – this does not make you safer. The only thing you are ensuring is the erosion of your privacy and civil liberties.

This thing is supposed to cost $40 million in FY08. New York’s mass transit system is falling apart and suffering from a massive budget deficit. The city is throwing around idiotic congestion pricing proposals because they can’t find enough money to fix things, but they have plenty of money to spy on you. Doesn’t that seem strange?

New York wants to base this system on London’s infamous surveillance network. The problem with that is the London cameras don’t do anything to reduce or prevent crime.

A comparison of the number of cameras in each London borough with the proportion of crimes solved there found that police are no more likely to catch offenders in areas with hundreds of cameras than in those with hardly any.

In fact, four out of five of the boroughs with the most cameras have a record of solving crime that is below average.

The cameras don’t prevent terrorism either. They didn’t stop the terrorist bombings of the London Underground on July 7, 2005, and they won’t stop anything in the future.

Please, for you own sake, ask yourselves how this makes you any safer.

How will compiling this data help stop terrorists? It’s a very simple question. Ask yourself if this would stop you if you were a terrorist.

Many commonly available chemicals can be mixed together to form chemical weapons or explosives. This plan won’t stop that.

This plan relies on radiation detectors, but how smart does a terrorist have to be to figure out that they need to assemble the dirty bomb elsewhere and then drive it in? I’ve got news for you, once the bomber starts on his way, he’s not stopping for roadblocks. You’ll have very little notice, and even if he doesn’t make it all the way downtown, he doesn’t need to. He can detonate it somewhere outside the city and still kill untold thousands of people.

This system does not protect you. But it does allow your government to collect massive amounts of information that can be used for all kinds of nefarious purposes. Think it won’t happen – how many stories do you see about corruption in the paper? Who is going to monitor this to make sure it doesn’t get out of hand?

I don’t think we should give every jihadist a free one way ticket to lower Manhattan, but you have to ask yourselves what you want to give up to get nothing in return.

I am a veteran. I fought the “war on terror”. I have friends who are from New York and had friends and relatives killed on 9/11. This isn’t an abstract concept to me. I understand the danger, but no number of high-jacked airplanes or dirty bombs will cause the downfall of our society. Don’t let your elected officials trick you into believing otherwise – as Franklin Roosevelt said, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”  He uttered those words at a time when our society faced real existential peril from the Great Depression and the beginning rise of fascism overseas.

Terrorists aren’t the ones that will be hampered by something this foolish, citizens will be. While you’re busy paying exorbitant taxes to put your license plate in a database, terrorists will be memorizing where these cameras are so they can avoid them and hit you when you think you’re safe.

The surrender of your personal freedom out of paranoia is what they are counting on.

In the end, the only loser is you.

The road to totalitarianism is paved with eroded and revoked civil liberties. I find it interesting that New York authorities aspire to create a “ring of steel”. “Ring of steel” sounds eerily similar to “iron curtain”.

Success?

The question of how successful New York’s Summer Streets was this weekend is hard to answer, and different sources give different accounts. It seems that many businesses think it was a disaster, while most pro-bicycle organizations think it was a great success.

The impact on businesses seems to depend on the type of business you run.

Mark Barbosa, manager of Manhattan Cabinetry near East 30th Street, said his sales dipped 50 to 60 percent compared to a typical Saturday.

Barbosa said most of his customers arrive by car, and while they swarmed in once vehicular traffic was permitted after 1 p.m., the rush did not compensate for the morning lull.

Food places, on the other hand, were thrilled by the spike in revenues from hungry cyclists and pedestrians.

A Subway sandwich shop down the block reported a 10 percent increase in sales, and a Guy & Gallard eatery a block away raked in an extra $500, compared to average Saturday sales.

But the overall impact of this is unclear – if food stores make substantially less than other stores, their 10% increase could be a drop in a huge bucket of economic loss compared to other businesses.

The problem is New York didn’t seem to have a very concrete way to gauge the success of this event. 

How will the city assess whether the program works? Officials haven’t been all that clear on that point.

Or is this success?

Please tell me that before we embarked on this great social experiment, we had someone sit down and figure out what “success” means.

Please tell me that “success” is defined a little more concretely than “people having fun”.

Please tell me that “success” is measured more accurately than through Mayor Bloomberg walking a block or two down the street and using his anecdotal experience to determine if he likes what he sees. I’m probably wrong – he probably also asked his buddies at Transportation Alternatives what they thought of it. I’m sure their answer was completely thorough and unbiased.

At the very least, the city should have had some plan to measure the increase or decrease in business revenues along the route and count the number of participants. That measurement effort would cost a total of about $100K tops, and it would be well worth it.

It may be great that a few thousand people were “happy,” but it’s also great if you don’t kill the businesses that make these neighborhoods so “livable” in the first place. Determining if Summer Streets will cause 25 businesses that pay $4,000 in taxes to shut down would be worth the $100K investment in metrics collection. It seems wise to know if you’re helping or hurting things.

If the New York Times is correct and there was really no plan to measure the “success” in units of measure beyond hopes and dreams, this is complete and unforgivable irresponsibility.

I looked at a lot of pictures today. (Gothamist.com has a pretty good selection – some show empty streets, some show crowded streets) In the vast majority of them, I saw no more people on the streets than I would probably have seen on an average Saturday on the sidewalks. The only difference was that people were wandering aimlessly in the streets this weekend. Hooray.

Predictably, idiotic commentary from places like Cap’ n Transit shames anyone who dares ask for something as simple as a measure of success to help determine if it would be smart for us to do this every week.

After I got home, I realized how annoyed I was by the headline and focus of Sewell Chan’s City Room post, Will Car-Free ‘Summer Streets’ Work?. Of course this is a large sum of money spent on police and planning, and a potential disruption for businesses along the route. But still, that Chan must be a hit at parties:

“Hey Sewell, guess what? Next Saturday I’m having a few friends over for some beers and conversation. What do you say?”

“I don’t know, Bob. Do you think it’ll work?”

Seriously, what kind of a question is that? Of course thousands of people came out and had a lot of fun. Does that count as “working”?

Here’s my favorite part:

Chan must just be really used to the NYC press rut where, when confronted with a new livable streets initiative, the reporter’s first response is to stick a mike in a car window, and their second is to interview a shopkeeper about lost business.

Well, when we replace tens of thousands of people in cars who are buying things with “thousands” of people on foot who aren’t buying things – we’re undermining the very fabric that your livable city is built on. Journalists are right, and in my opinion obligated, to report on these issues and question the choices of elected officials.

The verdict on Summer Streets is still out, but New Yorkers ought to be demanding to know the criteria being used to decide it.

Overruled by DHS

In case you weren’t paying attention, the Department of Homeland Stupidity recently wiped its ass with the fourth amendment and threw it back in our collective faces.

Citizens’ personal electronic devices are now subject to search by Customs and Border Patrol personnel when you enter the country. This doesn’t mean you have to show the computer, it means that without suspecting you of a crime they can take it from you, turn it on, go through all of your files, and keep it for a “reasonable period of time” before returning it to you.

It’s funny they use the word “reasonable” – a similar word is also found in the amendment that DHS just castrated:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I’d also like to point out that this amendment clearly states that probable cause is necessary – in other words, you have to be suspected of something. Notice that there also needs to be a clear description of the intent for the search and the things that the government is trying to seize – you can’t just go on a trolling expedition.

To anyone who reads this and thinks, “well, I’m sure they’ll be reasonable about this” – look no further than the TSA’s gross abuse of power and ask yourself why Customs Officers should be any different? And if you feel it’s still OK, ask yourself if you think police should be able to walk into your house whenever they want and rummage through your closets for no particular reason, because that’s pretty much the equivalent of this DHS policy.

Does anyone really feel safer because of this?  How long until we allow these clowns to search emails or monitor the websites we visit in the interest of national security?  They already do that somewhere - it’s called China.

The ninth circuit unanimously upheld this nonsense – reasoning that laptops are like luggage and could therefore be searched. Guess what – unless there is some reasonable suspicion on your luggage, that shouldn’t be subject to search either.

You don’t give up your rights as an American citizen when you leave the country. These kinds of searches are completely antithetical to the Constitution, and we’ll all be a lot better off when the Department of Homeland Stupidity goes the way of the dodo.

Inducing demand?

One of our readers, Eric W, brought up a very interesting point the other day.

We hear a lot about the “induced demand” hypothesis - If you expand road capacity, more people will use these roads, which will become more congested.

This hypothesis is the leading talking point in favor of slowing the growth of road capacity, while speeding up the development of mass transit systems like subways.

For argument’s sake, let’s assume that the “induced demand” hypothesis is correct.

Eric W’s question is: Why does “induced demand” only apply to road capacity, but not subway capacity?

If you build more subway lines or purchase more subway cars, won’t more people use them, making them more congested?

Following the logic, shouldn’t we slow the growth of subway capacity in order to prevent this “induced demand”?

Variable-speed escalators

[use] infrared motion sensors, [and] the escalators will slow to a crawl of just 15 feet per minute when no one is on them, compared with the normal full speed of 100 feet per minute. The escalators will gradually accelerate to the full speed, over a period of a few seconds, once a rider steps on them.

The 35 escalators that are part of the experiment include 12 escalators at the 34th Street-Herald Square station on the B, D, F, V, N, R, Q and W lines in Manhattan; 8 escalators (4 of which have been installed) at the Roosevelt Island station on the F line; 5 escalators (2 of which have been installed) at the Jamaica-Van Wyck Boulevard station on the E line in Queens; and 10 escalators (6 of which have been installed) at the Parsons/Archer terminus of the E line in Queens.

According to the article, this will save electricity as well as maintenance costs. MTA projects that each of these escalators will save $1800 per year.

Sounds great – but I have to ask, is this actually going to save any money?

Sure, MTA says it will save $1,800 per escalator, per year – that’s a $63,000 savings per year savings for all 35 escalators. Over the 35 year life span of these escalators, that saves $2,205,000 total. But what is the cost of the new escalators?

A perusal of Volume II of MTA’s 2009 Preliminary Budget yields the following information:

The Jamaica – Van Wyck Boulevard replacement will cost $19.84 Million for 5 escalators, and the Parsons/Archer Terminus replacement will cost $35.06 million for 10 more escalators. That’s a total cost of $54.9 million, or an average cost of $3.66 million per escalator.

Looking through the budget, I saw two other escalator replacement projects – one at the Roosevelt/Queens Boulevard Station to replace two escalators, and another that replaces one escalator in each of the following stations: Bowery, Whitehall, and East Broadway. The total cost allocated to replace these “constant speed” escalators is $1.99 million or an average cost of $.398 million per escalator. That means the new variable speed escalators appear to be nearly ten times more expensive than the constant speed escalators.

Now, construction costs can vary by location, and escalator costs can vary by length, but the stations receiving the new variable-speed escalators are fairly standard – not too deep, or too tall. By contrast, two of the stations set for constant speed escalator replacement are relatively deep – the Bowery and Whitehall stations – and would presumably have comparatively longer escalators.

So we can’t claim that the new variable-speed escalators are more expensive because they are longer than average, or because the construction costs are higher – the stations they are to be installed in are above ground, which leads me to believe they should be easier to access than underground stations on Manhattan.

Why the huge discrepancy in cost then? Is it solely due to the price differential required for the new technology?

If so, New Yorkers may want to rethink this supposed “savings”. You’re going to spend an extra $3.262 million to save $2.205 million over the 35 year life span – in other words, you’re not saving anything, you’re actually going into the hole by over $1 million.

Given MTA’s long list of current troubles: declining revenues from gas taxes, declining revenues from tolls, abysmal maintenance, poor service, filthy stations – all compounded by a record ridership  – shouldn’t New Yorkers be asking themselves if they need to implement new taxes on cars, or fare hikes to fix a problem that partially boils down to poor management oversight. Shouldn’t we ask MTA to get their house in order before we start to look for more handouts? Shouldn’t we expect government workers to exercise fiscal responsibility and not waste millions in the short term to save thousands in the long term?

And a big thumbs down to the New York Times on this one. This is the second time in as many weeks that I have pointed out a lack of diligence on their part – the first instance challenged their use of Transportation Alternatives’ unverified (and in my opinion, wildly exaggerated) number concerning the number of bicycle commuters in New York. 

The 1st Amendment protects freedom of the press for a reason – the press is supposed to be our governmental watchdog and root out fraud, waste, and abuse. Articles like these influence public opinion and affect policy decisions that cost New Yorkers tens of millions of dollars per year. The New York Times shouldn’t just regurgitate MTA’s press release without verifying it, or asking if the “plan” makes sense. The fact that they seem to have done so without any explanation makes me scratch my head and wonder – what’s going on over there?

The breakdown is as follows:

• $6.98 billion in lost time
• $354 million in wasted gas, based on 2005 prices. (In today’s prices, the cost would be about $681 million)
• $33 million in environmental damages

Another way to look at this is that, for every hour a driver sits in rush hour traffic in the Chicago area, he loses $14.58, or $3,014 a year.

Perhaps the most interesting finding is the fact that congestion is about as pervasive on arterial roads as it is on highways.

Only in the city of Chicago itself is congestion greater on the expressways than on arterial routes. In every other part of the region, the percentage of vehicle-miles and vehicle-hours traveled under periods of congestion are higher on arterials than on expressways. Likewise, the majority of total vehicle-hours of delay occur on arterials, rather than on expressways, with the exception of Chicago outside the CBD.

In other words, once you get off the main highway, traffic is just as bad if not worse. This makes sense, since arterial roads usually have fewer lanes, more intersections, frequent traffic lights, left hand turns, and are often lined with gas stations, shopping centers, and businesses.

So the question is, what to do?

The report offers some suggestions:

• Make better choices about land use and development patterns
• Provide more information to drivers on traffic patterns
• Introduce some element of pricing to motivate people and businesses
• Improve transit alternatives

The answer is most likely a combination of smarter development/planning, mass transit expansion, and yes, more road capacity to meet demand.

[Read the full report]

Add filth to the growing list of problems with New York’s subways.

A Post survey of dozens of stations found a decrepit, aging system fraught with overcrowded trains, crumbling platforms and stations, unfinished repair work, serious rat and cockroach infestations, mystery ooze dripping from ceilings and termite-eaten signs.

[NYC Transit President Howard] Roberts’ response: It’s extremely bad, and it isn’t going to get better any time soon.

Riders also related stories of a gross lack of communication as well as frequent misinformation within the system.

Mr. Roberts is a clown. MTA can find money to fund art for its stations, poems for its subways and buses, and staff an Office of Film and Special Events, but apparently asking that the stations not smell like piss is just a bridge too far. Roberts’ solution is basically to do nothing to try to curtail waste or prioritize his funding. What awe-inspiring leadership.

Roberts makes one interesting observation though:

With the MTA reporting a steep decline in revenue, especially at bridges and tunnels, straphangers won’t see any improvements. The two proposed fare hikes, Roberts said, would “only maintain the status quo.”

Oh man! Rising gas prices have driven people off the roads onto this system that can’t handle them, and now we have no money since MTA’s funding is dependant on people driving.

I wonder where you’ve heard about this problem before? Probably yesterday when I wrote about it, or maybe last week when I did the same.

The doofus (or doofuses) who dreamed up the current funding structure for MTA should be sent back to first grade to relearn the basic principles of math and logic. When you encourage people not to do something, you cannot count on them to fund something else by continuing to do it anyway. Eventually you get your wish and realize that you are a moron.

Disrespectful, ungrateful

Today, several members of the U.S. cycle squad arrived in Beijing for the Olympic Games wearing black respiratory masks.

The idea apparently was to make a political statement about air pollution, the environment, and possibly global warming.

I have a few comments for these U.S. athletes.

First, we the taxpayers are the USOC is sending you to China to race your bikes, not to make environmental statements. Please remember this.

Second, China is the host and you are the guests. Please show some respect.

Third, due to the intensely geo-political nature of these games, you are de facto U.S. ambassadors to China. You represent all of us. Please start acting like it.

Fourth, until you win your races and prove that you’re worth a damn, your opinions are insignificant. Please shut up.

Fifth, if this is really important to you, don’t go to Beijing at all. A half ass protest just makes you look foolish and selfish - I care about this cause, but not enough to forgo the opportunity to win a medal.

We often hear about how we need to not be so arrogant in our foreign politics. This applies to ordinary people as well as our elected officials.

UPDATE: August 8, 2008, 7:12 PM

Since this story first broke with a frenzy, the U.S. cyclists have apologized, and stated that they were not trying to make a political statement. No evidence has emerged to the contrary.

If we take them at their word, my 1st, 4th, and 5th comments above are no longer relevant. However, the fact remains these cyclists’ actions were incredibly rude and thoughtless. My 2nd and 3rd points stand.

The whole idea behind congestion pricing is to alleviate congestion – in other words to take cars off the roads. Assuming congestion pricing would work, this will mean that you have less drivers paying the tax, and the other drivers who were priced off the roads simply get displaced onto mass transit.

Right now, New York’s MTA is in a hurt locker. They have horrible service and reliability problems, their maintenance is shoddy, and they are experiencing declining revenues despite a record ridership so high that they don’t have enough room on the trains. Putting more people on these trains will only compound MTA’s problems – there isn’t room for any more riders.

The only way to accommodate more people will be to expand the system’s capacity, but since the riders MTA already has can’t come close to covering the costs – currently they pay about 39% of them – that means you’ll have to get the money from the congestion tax again, and oops, no more drivers.

What will you continue to do – escalate the congestion pricing until you take all the cars off the roads? The argument is that the people who can afford to pay will do so – that’s great, so are the roads going to be free and clear for the 100 or so people in the city rich enough to pay oppressive escalating fees for public goods while 99% of the population waits for trains that aren’t coming?

The congestion tax is not your solution. New York estimated that they would bring in $500 million from the tax – that’s only a little more than half of the money you need, clowns. Currently a little over 15% of your federal gas tax pays for mass transit. New York charges an additional 41.2 cents on every gallon of gas and charges a sales tax on top of it. A large portion of that pays for mass transit. 33% of MTA’s budget comes from “dedicated taxes” – the majority of which comes from the Petroleum Business Tax and the Metropolitan Mass Transportation Operating Assistance Account – gasoline tax based revenue streams. So a congestion tax is a double whammy to MTA. Not only will you no longer get the congestion tax revenue once cars stop driving, but you’ll no longer get the gas tax revenue either.

This simply illustrates the absurd paradox that policymakers in this country have placed mass transit in – you want to encourage people to stop driving, but if they do stop, you’re screwed.

Mass Transit funding needs to be uncoupled from the gas tax. Mass Transit riders may not like the idea of a fare increase, but the harsh reality is that the only real solution here is to make the mass transit riders cover the fair share of costs for their system. We need to stop kicking around the idea that a congestion tax on cars will be mass transit’s salvation. The truth is that any successful implementation of a congestion tax could be mass transit’s apocalypse.

A typical day in Biketopia

This just in - Governor Paterson announced yesterday that New York may sell much of its infrastructure including roads, bridges and tunnels to “close a massive budget deficit.”

Luckily, a mysterious private financier has emerged to bail New York out of its predicament – a shadowy figure named… Dewis Lerkins.

Though the origins of Mr. Lerkins’ massive wealth are shrouded in mystery, it is whispered that he made his fortune speculating in the real estate market. After the market crashed, he aggressively lobbied the morons in Congress to bail him out of his loan obligations, allowing him to walk away with a significant windfall.

Mr. Lerkins has offered to buy all of the bridges, ferries, and tunnels into Manhattan as well as the island’s roads, subway, schools, police, and fire departments.

Though the deal is still in negotiations, Mr. Lerkins felt confident enough that the deal will go through to call a press conference and announce his new Sustainable Plan for a Livable New York - 2009.

According to Mr. Lerkins:

“I have stood by for far too long and watched as our city ran itself into the ground at the expense of reasonable, people-oriented, sustainable growth and planning. It ends today. I have partnered with the Livable Streets Movement to give New York’s bicycle community what it has sought for over three long decades – I give you Biketopia!”

“Beginning immediately after the finalization of the deal, bridges will close to all automobile traffic coming into the city – cars will only be allowed to leave. This will free New York’s streets overnight from the burden of traffic congestion and its associated social ills. This ban will affect all vehicles.”

When asked how New Yorkers will obtain food and goods, Mr. Lerkins responded:

The only concern in Biketopia - Notice how Biketopia's industrious inhabitants have cleared the land to grow food.

“This is a small inconvenience compared to the relief from the costs of automobiles’ negative externalities. I ask that New Yorkers re-envision their city as a place that now sustains life in a more human and compassionate way, no longer beholden to machines. Some will have to sacrifice and hand carry or bike the goods from long distances into the city – but hey, they already do this in the third world, are you telling me New Yorkers can’t rise to this challenge? New Yorkers can decide for themselves which blocks they want to level in order to clear land to grow the food they don’t want to haul in from outside. But I do have them covered on consumer goods. We will allow donkey carts to ship in Frisbees, hackey-sacks and of course, bicycles – all priced at rates that cover the back-breaking labor and expense of the shipping. That should be all they need to be happy.”

Mr. Lerkins went on to add:

“Biketopia!! Biketopia!! Biketopia!!…”

Responding to a question about how New Yorkers will maintain their infrastructure, Mr. Lerkins offered a reasonable solution:

“It hasn’t gone unnoticed by me that Biketopia will still need roads that are safe for cyclists, and nice enough to be considered “liveable streets”. Thus I have a moderate pricing scheme that will allow us to maintain our infrastructure. Every bicyclist crossing into New York via a bridge, tunnel or ferry will have to pay a base toll of $1,237.86. This will allow us to cover the roughly $662.4 million in construction and maintenance costs that NYC DOT needs. We will institute a sliding scale on top of that to levy more expensive tolls during peak times to account for any of the other supporting infrastructure and externalities not easily attributed to direct construction and maintenance costs. I forsee no negative economic impact from this plan – after all, from an economic point of view, this makes perfect sense.”

“I know our 21,870 bike commuters are eager to rise to the occasion and help us to build Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia!…”

When asked about his plans for the rest of the infrastructure he purchased, Mr. Lerkins responded:

Biketopia's school children learn to hate evil cars

“Schools will immediately start teaching global warming for 7 hours per day. They will abolish science (particularly the scientific method), math, and reading since these can be used to challenge the global warming dogma and question our abolishment of automobiles based on shaky environmental rationale. Instead they will spend the last hour of school teaching kids how to run red lights and stop signs on bikes while speeding the wrong way on sidewalks with no helmets.”

“The NYFD will no longer have trucks, so they will all wear new Smokey the Bear outfits to remind New Yorkers that “only they can prevent city fires.” I will also have them establish one fire pit in the direct center of each city block so that at night New Yorkers can have giant marshmallow roasts and sing kumbayah as they wile away the hours in a virtual paradise on earth.”

“MTA’s trains were purchased because they couldn’t cover their own operating costs. But I recognize that this is a critical component of Biketopia, so I will immediately double fares so that we are no longer dependant on gas taxes to subsidize this system. Ridership won’t really increase because I will have no more capital to expand the system. So most people will switch from cars to bikes – BIKETOPIA!!! – to get around because they are more flexible, fun and good for the earth. But I will use smoke and mirrors to keep mass transit riders happy. I plan to sell ice cream in every third car since the AC doesn’t work. The train horns will be replaced with that cute jingle that the ice cream truck plays, and I will paint them red and white stripes in a candy cane pattern.”

A policeman's only responsibility thanks to Biketopia's miraculous effects on crime

“The NYPD will initially have a tough task enforcing the new traffic patterns since bicyclists are vastly more dangerous to pedestrians than cars are, but eventually pedestrians will accept the utter supremacy of the bicycle and police can turn their attention to more important tasks associated with BIKETOPIA!” We will establish a division of 5,000 officers to get cats out of trees, another division to root out global warming “deniers” and send them to schools for “re-education,” and a third to prevent people from getting too overly happy and harmoniously coexisting to the point where society stops working – which is the natural outcome of…Biketopia!”

In exchange for this relief from burdensome tasks like providing the infrastructure and services that citizens actually require, the State of New York reports that it will be able to fully fund all of its important pet projects like the lottery, fringe benefits for State Employees, the Empire State Stem Cell Trust Fund, the state Military and Naval Affairs office (who knew New York had its own navy?) and a host of other dripping pork.

Mr. Lerkins seemed happy to take his the new responsibilities out of the state’s hands:

“I am fully committed to Biketopia. To show New Yorkers how excited I am about this, I have a very special fireworks spectacular planned. We will have a public reading of Honku while everyone stands in the middle of their livable streets. The fireworks will be timed to go off at the exact moment that our beautiful, beloved, bikeable-walkable city crumbles on its very foundations.”

“Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia! Biketopia!”

Plenty of angry cyclists are quick to point out perceived persecution, but you don’t often hear a cyclist take the opposite point of view – that of a rational person who understands the shared responsibilities of the roads.

On our site, we get labeled everything from bike-haters to car apologists to buffoons for pointing to basic common sense arguments explaining why everything that the bike community advocates should not be taken at face value. Oftentimes, these arguments incorporate pro-bicycle ideas that are undermined by the social irresponsibility of cyclists and their demands. These cyclists may be a minority in their community, but they are by far the most vocal and visible. In their hurry to decry us for speaking truth to the establishment, it tends to go overlooked that two of us are actually cyclists.

In response to the question – why so much hate? - one commenter, who happens to be a cyclist, offered one of the best summaries of the flip side from a cyclist’s perspective that I have ever seen.

This deserves to be quoted at length:

Richard Conroy — Jul 31 2008 10:18 AM
Disclaimer: I’m an avid, lifelong cyclist, daily bike commuter year round (about 100 miles a week), & bike tourist. I work for a bike organization & am a cycling instructor. The reasons why cyclists are so poorly regarded are not hard to understand. This is what I’ve observed about the cycling community, and why I think we invite trouble on ourselves.

In a nutshell, many cyclists want to have it both ways in terms of road safety. They want drivers & pedestrians to act courteously & legally, but many, many cyclists don’t want to act that way themselves. The double standard is glaring, and yes, the non-cycling world notices it. The various blogs, message boards, bike fora, etc. are filled with cyclist stories about rude & dangerous drivers. There are a number of committed cyclists who believe & openly say that cycling on the roads is dangerous. So there’s a lot of finger pointing at others. But on these same message boards, when the topic turns to rude cyclists, obeying the law, stopping at red lights, there is a split in the cycling community. Many cyclists will espouse a “share the road, same roads, same rights, same rules” ethic. Many, many others, however, think it’s ok to blow off the rules, and resent “being told what to do” by other cyclists (note: it’s the state legislature telling you what to do, not other cyclists!).

Even prominent local bike organizations have gotten into the act. One local bike organization can be heard in the press frequently lamenting how dangerous the streets are, that the streets need a better design, yadda yadda (if cycling is so dangerous–why do it? is one obvious question that comes to mind). Yet I know many of the staff of this organization think it’s OK to ride against traffic, ignore traffic signals, & ride on the sidewalk. Sure, their publications urge cycling safely & courteously, but there’s been too many statements from them in the press that preaches a diametrically opposite message. Then we get a prominent local blog, which has twice in the past year, published articles suggesting that traffic law should be amended to allow cyclists to run stop signs & red lights, allowing cyclist behavior that is less predictable, and less in sync with the rest of traffic.

Critical Mass is another case in point, and a glaring example of a supposed bike promotion movement with no leadership, no goals, and no coherent strategy, where the lowest common denominator sets the tone. Some of these people need to study some Gandhi, to understand when law-breaking can be an important part of a social movement, and when it’s just plain mindlessly stupid. “Be the change you want to see in this world” is one statement that seems to be completely lost on the Critical Massers.

In the end, instead of wallowing in self pity, lamenting why cyclists are singled out, maybe the cycling community needs to take a look at itself. Instead of complaining about how dangerous the streets are, let’s talk about what cyclists can do to make themselves safer (thereby making the streets safer as well). Instead of asking for special exemptions from traffic law, lets ask how traffic law can be molded so that riding on the streets seems less scary, and that both cyclists and drivers are accountable for road safety.

The beauty of cycling is its freedom & independence. But freedom also needs to be tempered by self-discipline, and much of the cycling community, especially critical mass, has completely failed to exercise that. Here’s a basic rule of politics: if you don’t control yourself, somebody else–mainly the government–will do it for you, often in a manner that you don’t like.

Amen. Notice how many of those same arguments have been made on this site? (Hint - Every single one of them.)

As of today, no other commenter has agreed with this comment, or even acknowledged it yet.

Mayor Bloomberg - Genius

Mayor Bloomberg has come out against privatizing subways in response to Mayor Paterson’s call to sell state infrastructure to cover a budget shortfall.

“You could get somebody to do it, but they wouldn’t save you very much money because the potential for making a lot of money isn’t there,” he said.

Bingo, Bloomberg.

The unspoken, but very true, implication of this statement is that if you privatize the subways, the costs for average people will go through the roof.

What a surprise since these things are the most heavily subsidized form of transportation in existence on a percent subsidy per-user basis.

Hey Bloomberg, you clown, here’s another idea about how not to kill mass transit – don’t institute congestion pricing and take the cars that pay for your subways off the roads. Giving cars this disincentive would be especially catastrophic during the current gas crunch given the fact that your system can’t handle the volume of riders it has now.

Mass transit is both necessary and beneficial to New York’s transportation.  It’s only going to remain that way if you don’t kill it with your anti-car policies.

Doofus.

I am going to quote this in its entirety, and systematically ridicule it before your very eyes.

At the moment, I’m lying here between the paved traffic lane and the gravel shoulder, staying cool until the sun warms me up. During the hot day, most vehicles pass me by without giving me so much as a wink. I prefer to think that’s because they really don’t appreciate my importance.

I am a rather nondescript entity, just a strip of pavement on either side of the roadway, typically bordered with solid white stripes eight inches wide, with an occasional stenciled outline of a bicycle.

Ignoring the fact that this is written to appeal to people who can’t yet appreciate the complexity of Dr. Seuss, I think vehicles readily appreciate the “importance” of bike lanes. We take road capacity away from cars that constitute 86.7% of all commuting trips and give it to a form of transit that .5% of people use. Then we claim induced demand as a rationale not to expand roads despite the fact that we just forced the entire capacity of the “bike lane” into the remaining traffic lane which caused the problem in the first place. Next we compound the problem by turning this lane into a BRT lane and soon we’ll have a bicycle paradise.

And you know what, let’s not ignore the fact that this is written in a tone reminiscent of kindergarten nap time after all– who exactly is this supposed to appeal to? Do bicyclists find this cute? Am I supposed to find this cute? The tone of this whole thing speaks more to the lack of intelligence behind most bike advocacy rather than the need for more of the same.

Each day my peace and quiet is interrupted by a noisy onslaught of vehicle traffic, usually far too close for comfort. Adding insult to injury, those car and truck tires generate a “sweeping” effect that pushes all kinds of debris onto my surface. It’s terribly humiliating to be covered with grit, broken glass, syringes, cans, dead animals (peeuw — they stink!), plastic sacks of garbage, nails, screws, bolts, staples, and much more. It’s a wonder cyclists are willing to ride on me when I look like this.

Other things that ruin my day are parked cars and garbage cans lined up along me blocking my route, loose gravel from intersections and driveways thrown onto my surface, and clumps of dried mud dropped by tractors.

Never mind that those horrible cars pay for my bike lanes since my beloved bicyclists don’t pay for any of it. Oops, sorry, they pay general taxes. Of course cars pay them too, but …cars are evil, bike lanes are good!!

I don’t want to sound like a grouchy old fuddy duddy, but life is tough when I can’t achieve my reason for being: safety for bicyclists.

Except that this hasn’t actually been proven to enhance safety. In fact, New York doubled it’s bike infrastructure and there was no decrease in bike fatalities. Bike injuries declined slightly, but pedestrian injuries are through the roof. The nice bikes actually kill pedestrians at the same rate as cars, and injure them at much higher rates.

A helpless bike lane being terrorized by a 'motorized beast'

There are some bright spots in my life, of course.

The best part of my day is when a bicyclist quietly cruises down my mid-section, treating me with proper respect and appreciating my function within the transportation system. I like to think I provide them a safe refuge amongst the motorized beasts that cruise my shoulder.

Occasionally, a street sweeper cheers me up by clearing all the debris from my surface. Man, does that make me feel like a million bucks.

While trying to ignore the bizarre quasi-industrial-erotic description of a bike “cruising the mid- section,” I’ll just point you to the fact that a bike lane doesn’t offer you any “safe refuge” from anything. It’s a painted line on pavement. The double yellow doesn’t prevent people from crossing into head on collisions, and this thing doesn’t generate some magical, protective forcefield. The best way to ensure your own safety on a bike is to obey the traffic rules, ride defensively, and behave in a predictable way.

My official title is “bicycle lane.” According to Oregon Statute 801.155, that means I’m part of the highway. I’m adjacent to the roadway, designated by official signs or markings, for use by persons riding bicycles, except as otherwise specifically provided by law.

You see, my cousin and I are quite different. Although you often see cyclists riding on my cousin’s surface area, it wasn’t really designed for safe cycling.

Some motorists confuse me with my cousin, the road shoulder. Oregon Statute 801.480 describes “Shoulder” as the portion of a highway, whether paved or unpaved, contiguous to the roadway that is primarily for use by pedestrians, for the accommodation of stopped vehicles, for emergency use and for lateral support of base and surface courses. [1983 c.338 §88].

The shoulder wasn’t designed that way, but the road was designed to accommodate cyclists. Unfortunately, bicyclists couldn’t follow the rules like everyone else so we have to treat them differently to make them feel like they are more protected when they aren’t.

Bike lan oppressed by terrible mechanical monster

I’m so special there are laws that pertain specifically to me (It gives me a fat head sometimes). Look at this one: “A person commits the offense of failure of a motor vehicle operator to yield to a rider on a bicycle lane if the person is operating a motor vehicle and the person does not yield the right of way to a person operating a bicycle, electric assisted bicycle, electric personal assistive mobility device, moped, motor assisted scooter or motorized wheelchair upon a bicycle lane” (Oregon Statute 811.050: Failure to yield to rider on bicycle lane).

I’d like to give the writer of this “article” a “fat head”…with a tire iron.

My size varies, depending on where I’ve been built. The Oregon Department of Transportation requires me to be six feet wide if I’m a standard bike lane. However, I can be narrower (4 feet) when there are open shoulders or (5 feet) when I’m against A curb, guardrail or parked cars. In the city of Medford I vary from four feet to six feet wide depending on the classification of the street.

Ten years ago I was restricted to only a few streets and highways in the Rogue Valley. Now, I’m getting more respect, and am showing up in a lot of really cool places. I think I need to thank the city, county and state transportation planners for recognizing that I make the world safer for both bicyclists and motorists.

Not really – you make the road more inconvenient for motorists, and in all actuality you convince cyclists that they don’t have to obey the normal rules of the roads.

Messy wessy wittul baby needs cweaning

I also know that I greet a lot more cyclists cruising on my backbone than I used to. Must be a sign of the times, or maybe gas prices. Hey, the other day, I even got a car to wink at me. Life’s not so bad you know. We all have a purpose. Mine is to help bicyclists and motorists share the road and respect each other.

The last sentence is the only thing in this whole post that is worth reading, and I disagree with it. Bicyclists and motorists do need to share the roads, but you don’t need a bike lane to do that, you need everyone to follow the law.

Hope to see some of you two-wheelers on my surface soon!

As a cyclist myself, I find this entire post insulting. Eat a bag of crap.

Sonia Pitt

I’ve been thinking, we need to establish a new category labeled “Awesome” and file this one under it.

It seems Sonia Pitt, one of the clowns associated with the I-10 bridge collapse debacle, has been hired by the Department of Homeland Stupidity.

Ms. Pitt

was fired from her Minnesota post for unprofessional conduct, travel improprieties and misuse of state resources.

Pitt’s letter of discharge states she engaged in activities that violated MnDOT’s ethics code and was involved in “activities that cannot withstand public scrutiny without embarrassment. … do not safeguard the public trust in the integrity of MnDOT, and undermine public trust in the Department.”

After the bridge collapse Aug. 1, Pitt didn’t return to Minnesota for nearly two weeks, even as emergency officials struggled to recover the bodies of 13 people killed in the disaster.

Legislative Auditor Jim Nobles opened an investigation into Pitt’s activities after Star Tribune stories on her actions and found that she was a “belligerent, aggressive” employee who abused her position and billed the state for thousands of dollars in excessive compensation for airfare, hotels, mileage and personal cell phone calls.

Awesome. Were all of those bullet points on her resume?

Here’s the best part – guess where she’s going?

[S]he is working for Homeland Security’s Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) at its headquarters in Arlington, Va. Her job title is “Transportation Security Specialist.”

Great. I’m sure a “specialist” like this will really help to clean up our problems with all the abusive screeners, sex offenders, thieves, people asleep at the wheel, and the general morons staffing this agency.

When will the Terribly Stupid Administration, and the entire Department of Homeland Stupidity, die the slow, brutal deaths they deserve?