If you’re itching to write an anti-bike-lane argument (and, if so, line up, because it’s a burgeoning literary genre), you could do no better than to follow the template laid out yesterday by The New Yorker’s John Cassidy in his blog post, “Battle of the Bike Lanes.”
Cassidy’s post — which has already been called “a seminal document of New York City’s bike lane backlash era” — helpfully includes all the requisite rhetorical tactics, thus providing an excellent blueprint. (You might even say “boilerplate.”) These include:
Pre-emptive self-exoneration: “I don’t have anything against bikes.”
Invocation of humorlessness of cycling advocates, preferably with ironic comparison to homicidal political faction: “the bicycle lobby … pursues its agenda with about as much modesty and humor as the Jacobins pursued theirs.”
Reference to ominous encroachment of cycling-based anti-Americanism: “City Hall … sometimes seems intent on turning New York into Amsterdam, or perhaps Beijing.” (You know, Beijing: where the communists live!)
Invocation of personal cycling bona fides: “As a student, I lived in the middle of Oxford, where cycling is the predominant mode of transport, and I cycled everywhere.”
Fond nostalgia for pre-lane New York City cycling perils, coupled with implied dismissal of today’s namby-pamby cyclists: “In those days … part of the thrill was avoiding cabs and other vehicles. … When I got back to my apartment on East 12th Street, I was sometimes shaking.”
Oddly self-contradictory declaration of support: “Generally speaking, I don’t have a problem with this movement; indeed, I support it.”
Invocation of meddling government apparatchiks: “A classic case of regulatory capture by a small faddish minority.”
Invocation of America’s long, sun-dappled love affair with cars: “Since 1989, when I nervously edged out of the Ford showroom on 11th Avenue and 57th Street, the proud leaser of a sporty Thunderbird coupe, I have owned and driven six cars in the city.”
Invocation of obviously repellent stereotype: “I would put my knowledge of New York’s geography and topography up against most native residents’ — cycling members of the Park Slope food co-op included.” (To be fair, if you’ve ever been to the Park Slope food co-op, you know how its members are always prattling on about their topographical expertise.)
Brief feint toward fact-based argument, unencumbered by actual facts: “From an economic perspective I also question whether the blanketing of the city with bike lanes … meets an objective cost-benefit criterion. … Beyond a certain point … the benefits of extra bike lanes must run into diminishing returns.” (Yes. They must. But when? At what point? Sorry — no time! Moving on!)
Followed by quick return to actual motivation: “Like many New Yorkers who don’t live in Manhattan, one of my favorite pastimes is to drive from Brooklyn … into the city for dinner to find a parking space once the 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. parking restrictions have lapsed. … These days, [this] is virtually impossible.” (A lack of parking spaces naturally serving as evidence of too many bike lanes, not too many parked cars.)
Invocation of damnable scofflaw cyclists: “On those rare occasions when I do happen across a cyclist, or two, he or she invariably runs the red lights.” (On a related note, I personally witnessed three hit-and-run accidents outside my old apartment at Atlantic Ave. and 3rd Avenue in Brooklyn. I logically determined that drivers invariably get into accidents, and thus launched my campaign for the eradication of city streets.)
One last invocation of overreaching City Hall bureaucrats, for good measure: “[I]t is time to call a halt to Sadik-Kahn and her faceless road swipers.”
See? It’s easy. Or, if this all seems too strenuous or, you know, long-winded, you can simply reduce your argument to its four essential words: “I have been inconvenienced.”
As an occasional cycling commuter, I’m always struck (no pun intended) by the extent to which arguments like Cassidy’s mirror the rhetorical tactics of the Tea Party. (No small accusation, I understand.) For example: The appeal to an imagined golden age of yesteryear (gamely dodging cabs; Thunderbird coupes); the specter of bureaucracy run amok (the scourge of the faceless road swipers); reliance on dismissive shorthand (Park Slope co-op members); and, most strikingly, warnings of a creeping, foreign-based anti-Americanism that’s plainly contrary to our core values (They Came on Bikes From Beijing).
These parallel lines of reasoning were finally entangled last year in the gubernatorial campaign of the Colorado Republican Dan Maes, who warned that the pro-bike policies of his opponent, Mayor John Hickenlooper of Denver, were turning that city “into a United Nations community,” adding ominously, “This is bigger than it looks on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms.” (Maes eventually lost the race for governor to Hickenlooper by a margin of 51 percent to 11 percent.)
All of which is to note: The discussion over cycling policy in New York has now taken on the tone (on both sides, sadly) of our culture wars: passion first, reason later (or, in most cases, never).
So in a spirit of understanding, I encourage you to read Cassidy’s article in full. You can also read these two (relatively) measured and enjoyable rebuttals, as well this well-balanced look at the bike-lane controversies in Brooklyn.
And, if you’re interested in facts — yes! facts! — I would also point you toward this excellent long-form piece on cycling commuting by Tom Vanderbilt, author of the book “Traffic.” Here are two interesting statistics he mentions: 1) Portland, Ore., the American city with arguably the most progressive cycling policy, had exactly zero cycling traffic fatalities in 2010. (New York had 18.) And 2) closer to home, Vanderbilt points out that, since the implementation of New York’s Ninth Avenue dedicated bike lane, pedestrian injuries have gone down by 29 percent. That’s not accidents between bikes and people; that’s between cars and people.
These facts are interesting to contemplate. Or, failing that, there’s always: Road-swipers! Thunderbirds!! COMMUNISTS!!!
An earlier version of this posting misstated the given name of John Hickenlooper, the governor of Colorado.