The Wall Street Journal has a somewhat hilarious video editorial bashing the new NYC Citibike bike share program. Bloomberg is apparently “totalitarian” (funny, he keeps winning elections by huge margins and unlike Iran voting against him is not likely to involve imprisonment).
Click here for the video (I’m having issues embedding WSJ video). Honestly, it’s worth a click.
The reaction around NYC has been what you would expect. People who get driven around in car service pissed off that there are more bikes on the road.
The New Yorker has a great article about this. The author apparently rode in NYC 25 years ago. His experience:
In those days, there were few cyclists on the roads, and part of the thrill was avoiding cabs and other vehicles that would suddenly swing into your lane, apparently oblivious to your presence. When I got back to my apartment on East 12th Street, I was sometimes shaking.
This is actually his argument against bike lane. Apparently shaking is a feature, not a bug. I frankly did this in the early 90’s. The description is accurate. You put your life in your hands. So I’m a tad fond of the bike lanes.
The whole thing has hit normally dull economics blogs.
A media blog gets amusingly snarky…
When Krugman is blogging about it, you know it’s big.
Honestly, I rode home today on one of them today. I’m pretty sure I caused no massive repercussions. It strangely didn’t turn me into a Stalinist.
Isn’t riding a bike supposed to be fun?…
Steve Fischer's Random Blog 