Once more we have a major newspaper taking a valiant stand against a true enemy.
Read the brilliant Brian McGrory griping about Boston bicyclists here.
I can't tell if this is satire or not. If the tongue is planted in cheek, then I commend a nearly Colbertian delivery. You've really got the dumbed-down down.
"Make Boston bicycle-free" is an appeal to fascism that draws upon the same kind of xenophobia that forms the root of civil and racial injustice to make an inarticulate statement against an almost entirely positive force. McGrory takes some minor frustrating actions of Boston area bicyclists and forms them into an argument for the elimination of bicycling from Boston.
This editorial makes a poorly formed series of preposterous points:
"Those people are the scourge of the city."
Not drugs or violence? Not dozens of drunken sports fans collapsing into the street?
"They are a self-celebratory lot, these cyclists, parading around in Lycra even though most of them inexplicably have shapes that beg for L.L. Bean."
So people who ride bikes should chafe themselves in improper clothing because you're tired of seeing fatties on the street?
'Ban them as in, here’s the city line, Lance, there’s a bike rack. Lock it up, and flag yourself a nice air-conditioned cab. Maybe you won’t be sweating so much when you walk into work."
Because every other resident of the city is obviously also handsomely compensated for doing things like writing an inarticulate mess each day (stemming from something as brilliant that every reader of course wants to hear about as your bout of morning road rage) and can afford to take cabs all over the city.
I want to see McGrory explain his elitism and cars-only stance to the entire staff of the McDonald's where he gets his Filet-O-Fish, and to the towel guy at his gym. Moreover, I want to see this kind of writing in the Herald, where it would be at home in the stream of mildly inappropriate mindless antagonism.
On behalf of bicyclists everywhere, I want to tell you, Brian, keep talking. You get the luxury of your '09 Altima, with its air conditioning, its blinding LED headlights, its ample blind spots, your reserved parking spot at work, your regular valet at Eastern Standard, and the comfort that we're much more afraid of you, munching on your sandwich while texting your editor and checking your GPS and making a rolling stop onto Commonwealth Avenue without looking for one of us. There are enough drivers like yourself that your dream can someday come true, and as the thousands of people whose lives you'd like to upend by eliminating their legal right to commute are saving you a dime or two a gallon by relieving the gasoline demand in the city, as bicyclists do all over the world, you can rest well, both in your home and at your desk, knowing that there are still hundreds of thousands of drivers out there that also aren't watching what they're doing, let alone for bicyclists, and we'll all be dead soon. And when all those bikes are gone, everyone can thank you personally for doubling the time they spend in park on 93 and the Pike while another 30,000 cars try to break in from the shoulder all at once. Maybe you can take them all out for a city-wide "no more bikes" party that will compensate the city for all those dollars you've cost it by alienating those students and the money they spend in town on rent and tuition and microbrews and meals out with Mom.
On the other hand, if the day comes that you choose to don some spandex and get a little exercise on a bicycle that's far above your skill level, as so many of your caste eventually do when the gym gets a little too stifling, I hope that when I catch you that day in my aging van full of band gear, that in my automotive ineptitude, which persists despite the road courtesy that I have developed as a bike commuter, that I can remember which pedal is the brake.
By the way, what brave and bold targets you've chosen in students and the poor. Truly you are courageous in taking this stand.
