Bike lanes and Bikeshare program "totalitarian" says WSJ

[Jerky]

You guys HAVE to watch the video of WSJ doyenne Dorothy Rabinowitz that is embedded on this Think Progress page. Her rhetoric and the persona she seems to be adopting in this interview are both so hyperbolic and over the top as to be beyond the ability of satirists to mock. She is literally bordering on technical, medical, frothing-at-the-lips INSANITY here.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/0 ... d-ny-city/

YOPJ

[justdrew]

yeah it was on Daily a few weeks back. They just let her talk.

but hey, if you do ANYTHING at all, absolutely anything "different" or "new" a certain segment of the population will be wildly opposed to it. Here's the question, WHY does anyone pay even a tiny bit of attention to the outrageous ravings?

No amount of argument will EVER change her mind, a specially trained team of rhetoricians, clergy, philosophers, lawyers and popes in the hundreds arguing and explaining 10 hours a day for a decade wouldn't make a dent. Some people are just broke beyond repair.

[barracuda]

It's true, bicycles actually are dangerous: bicycles use no petrofuels to run, are difficult to regulate, they're inexpensive and easy to maintain, insanely adaptable, and they promote fitness and presence of mind in the citizenry. Bicycles are dangerous to the people who would prefer you to be overweight, out of shape, in a car, broke, tired and buying gasoline.

Totalitarian? Maybe, but in a nice way.

Those blue CitiBikes are ugly as the bottom of my foot, though. My bad foot.

[Project Willow]

Deleted duplicate OP.

On another note, I wish we had bike shares here, I think we had something like that at some point. Also wish I'd rehabbed the bike I got almost by accident some 6 years ago. It had fancy wheels, or so I'm told, but the most important thing was that it was was my favorite color.

[justdrew]

Portland tried a free bikeshare program in the mid 90s I don't think there was much money behind it, but the bikes all disappeared in short order. These distinctive bikes have a much better chance.

[compared2what?]

They're not so bad. Very clean and new.

But yeah, they've been having absolute teeth-gnashing, frothing-at-the-mouth fits over this. It's the weirdest thing.

...

They're bicycles.

[compared2what?]

The people who are complaining all get driven around by their private drivers in Lincoln Town Cars that are always jamming up the street outside the chic boites where they lunch and dine (and wherever else they go) anyway.

So I don't know what they're moaning about.

[elfismiles]

The interviewer made the same "mistake" I did ... calling them CitiBanks* instead of CitiBikes ... but as soon as one sees the "Citi" ya gotta ask right, are these at all connected to CitiBank?

While I agree the ole lady seems like the chauffeured type, perhaps she's responding to all the other "totalitarian" laws being put in place in NYC that relate to "health" ... soda laws, fast food laws, etc.

Here in Austin they just made plastic grocery bags illegal ... but those plastic bags in the produce section ... still legal! WTF?!?!

So many laws just seem like arbitrary totalitarianism.

But free bikes to ride - it's a good thing - though I'm always annoyed at being slowed down in traffic by the lone cyclist - while simultaneously loving them for "being different" and trying to something good.


* = ^ Flegenheimer, Matt (7 May 2012). "Citibank Pays to Put Name on Shared Bikes". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 June 2013.

[compared2what?]

The interviewer made the same "mistake" I did ... calling them CitiBanks* instead of CitiBikes ... but as soon as one sees the "Citi" ya gotta ask right, are these at all connected to CitiBank?

That would make CitiBank upset, you'll be pleased to hear! You're not supposed to have to ask. It's one of those private-public partnerships so that taxes don't go up, and CitiBank is the sponsor. (Very Ron Paul, actually, except that it's a bank.)

While I agree the ole lady seems like the chauffeured type, perhaps she's responding to all the other "totalitarian" laws being put in place in NYC that relate to "health" ... soda laws, fast food laws, etc.

If she's responding to the "fast food" laws...

A new study on New York City's effort to encourage healthy eating by posting calorie counts on menus shows that it worked for about one in six customers — or those who paid heed to them. Those who ignored the numbers or didn't see them ordered whatever they wanted, regardless of how fattening it was.

...that wouldn't be any less of a politically motivated freak-out over nothing that's actually the least bit totalitarian. Or even "totalitarian." People can eat what they want, where they want. They just have more information on which to base their decisions.

I mean....Well, you know. It's a law, McDonald's and other massive corporate empires in the fast-food franchise biz have to abide by it when doing business here, non-negotiably. So there's that. But to me, "totalitarian" would be more like a law saying what they could and couldn't serve, which there isn't.

EXCEPT, OF COURSE...sorry, I just had a giggling fit, because that's how the Big Soda Ban always takes me.

The city's never gonna win that one. When you see the tone of questions asked by appeal's court justices described as "borderline derisive," that's pretty much a guarantee. I can't say I care very much, due to it being a debate about civil liberties that's focused on the constitutional right to consume bucket-sized sugary drinks in movie theaters. But inasmuch as I care, I'm glad to be unthreatened by the prospect of losing it, I guess.

Hey! You forgot the cigarette thing:

Bloomberg’s Plan Would Make Stores Conceal Cigarettes

He also wants everybody to sit up straight, wipe that smirk off their faces, and go to bed early. The man's a prude. And I guess it does have a little bit of a "How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?" feel to it.

But it's not like he's saying people can't smoke in bars, restaurants, office buildings, stores, theaters, taxis or -- in a nutshell -- any public or private space indoors or out where people other than the owners come and go. Because that would be a lot more totalitarian. But it's been the law nationwide for eons already. So there's no danger.

You got kind of a purely rhetorical argument there, elfi. Is what I'm saying.

Here in Austin they just made plastic grocery bags illegal ... but those plastic bags in the produce section ... still legal! WTF?!?!

So many laws just seem like arbitrary totalitarianism.

But free bikes to ride - it's a good thing - though I'm always annoyed at being slowed down in traffic by the lone cyclist - while simultaneously loving them for "being different" and trying to something good.


* = ^ Flegenheimer, Matt (7 May 2012). "Citibank Pays to Put Name on Shared Bikes". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 June 2013.

Yes. Right. Sorry, didn't see that. About the plastic bags....I don't know. Do you feel meaningfully deprived of choice by it? Serious question.

[JackRiddler]

Yeah sure, fuck Citi, but CitiBikes are good. There's is a LOT of frothing at the mouth over the precious lost parking spaces!

[brainpanhandler]

The interviewer made the same "mistake" I did ... calling them CitiBanks* instead of CitiBikes ... but as soon as one sees the "Citi" ya gotta ask right, are these at all connected to CitiBank?

I'm pretty sure that in order to rent the ones we have here you need to use a credit card. That also acts as collateral. Bike isn't returned you get dinged for it.

Here in Austin they just made plastic grocery bags illegal ... but those plastic bags in the produce section ... still legal! WTF?!?!

So many laws just seem like arbitrary totalitarianism.

Kinda goes to the meta-argument that runs under a lot a conversations here wrt what comes first - changing people's hearts and minds so that they freely choose what is obviously best for themselves and the world or regulating the populace to make good choices in spite of themselves. I don't think it has to be either/or. But in certain areas policy may have to be primary.

The only thing I dislike so much about Bloomberg's soda laws is how politically stupid it is. If you're gonna give the opposition all sorts of ammunition then at least pick a fight worth winning.

[compared2what?]

Yeah sure, fuck Citi, but CitiBikes are good. There's is a LOT of frothing at the mouth over the precious lost parking spaces!

It's one of those things where true libertarianism -- meaning "a strong commitment to everyone's freedom of choice" -- as very beautifully expressed by elfismiles here...

But free bikes to ride - it's a good thing - though I'm always annoyed at being slowed down in traffic by the lone cyclist - while simultaneously loving them for "being different" and trying to something good.

...gets hijacked by political libertarianism -- meaning "an arrogant and ill-considered conviction that every damn thing that inconveniences you or that you don't like personally is an outrageous imposition on your liberty."

The problem is....That's actually what the CitiBank part of it is, too. Like so:

That's fundamentally what contemporary implacable opposition to taxes is about. ("Gubmint -- Hands off my $$! I'll spend it on what I want! PS -- Also, where are the bike lanes and tourism dollars and associated economic/social benefits secondary thereto? I need them!") So stuff gets outsourced by the government to private business, which wins in the end even when that seems like a good deal because (a) corporations have more longevity and are better organized than the populace-at-large; and (b) the people aren't really involved or invested in the decision-making process and therefore effectively lose power over it.

So at best, you get something like Stuyvesant Town. While it lasts. And eventually you're just pwned all around. As I see it.

I can't help liking the bicycles, though. I mean, you'd have to be pretty grinch-y to feel real antagonism towards them. It's the private-public thing I'm not crazy about. (Not that I like higher taxes either. Personally, I can't afford them, in fact. But you can't have everything this instant.)

[brainpanhandler]

I can't help liking the bicycles, though. I mean, you'd have to be pretty grinch-y to feel real antagonism towards them. It's the private-public thing I'm not crazy about.

In Austin there used to be a thing called the Yellow Bike Project. People would donate old bikes. A group of volunteers would fix them up, paint them yellow and distribute them around the city. If you needed a bike you used it and then left it for the next person to use when you were done with it. In madtown it was called the Red Bike Project. Infinitely preferrable system. But the bikes would slowly disappear. I haven't seen one around in years. I think it was just unsustainable.

[compared2what?]

...gets hijacked by political libertarianism -- meaning "an arrogant and ill-considered conviction that every damn thing that inconveniences you or that you don't like personally is an outrageous imposition on your liberty."

I just mean the brand on display here, via the WSJ. Not all political libertarianism.

It's an end-run around liberty is basically what I'm saying. Very characteristic of the libertarian right, but not unique to it.

....

The thing they really specialize in that I don't think anyone else does is more like Camille Paglia's libertarian approach to rape, ie --

The woman chose to wear a miniskirt and get drunk at a frat party, therefore she is responsible for the consequences of her choices.

(Kind of leaves out the fact that the frat guy chose to fuck her when she was unconscious but isn't being held to the same standard.)

[compared2what?]

I can't help liking the bicycles, though. I mean, you'd have to be pretty grinch-y to feel real antagonism towards them. It's the private-public thing I'm not crazy about.

In Austin there used to be a thing called the Yellow Bike Project. People would donate old bikes. A group of volunteers would fix them up, paint them yellow and distribute them around the city. If you needed a bike you used it and then left it for the next person to use when you were done with it. In madtown it was called the Red Bike Project. Infinitely preferrable system. But the bikes would slowly disappear. I haven't seen one around in years. I think it was just unsustainable.

^^Why things don't work out as described in The Communist Manifesto.

Still an excellent idea, though.