Media Coverage of NYC's Anti-Bike Bill

=v= The papers have found out about this bill.

_Newsday_: Bronx pol pushes for mandatory bike licenses:
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/ne...,2976740.story

"When I was a kid, I had a license plate on my bike.
I'm trying to remember which cereal box I got it from."

_Daily_News_: Pol rolling out Council bill to license bikes:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/loca...p-217382c.html

"Pedal pushers think her chain has slipped."

=v= Some folks on these lists have mentioned Critical Mass in
relation to this bill, but this has not come up in the news
coverage. The person filing the bill doesn't mention it at all
in these articles. Even _am_New_York_, a free tabloid which,
at the behest of the NYPD's PR department, wrote a front page
editorial screed against Critical Mass, didn't mention it.
_Jym_

=v= Today the _New_York_Daily_News_ ran an editorial against the
proposed bike-licensing bill (scroll down to the middle):

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/idea...p-217586c.html

Yesterday, though, they ran an Op-Ed piece that I missed. It
wasn't about the bike-licensing bill, but about The Bicycle
Menace:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/idea...p-217248c.html

=v= It's a bizarre piece that tells us not to worry about toxins
in the environment but about "real" risks: bicycles. This in
a newspaper with almost daily headlines about cars running over
children and nuns (all ending with the words, "the driver wasn't
charged"). I googled the author's name and organization, and lo
and behold, it's one of those anti-environmental junk science
outfits!
_Jym_

Jym Dyer wrote:
=v= The papers have found out about this bill.

_Newsday_: Bronx pol pushes for mandatory bike licenses:
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/ne...,2976740.story

"When I was a kid, I had a license plate on my bike.
I'm trying to remember which cereal box I got it from."

_Daily_News_: Pol rolling out Council bill to license bikes:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/loca...p-217382c.html

"Pedal pushers think her chain has slipped."

=v= Some folks on these lists have mentioned Critical Mass in
relation to this bill, but this has not come up in the news
coverage. The person filing the bill doesn't mention it at all
in these articles. Even _am_New_York_, a free tabloid which,
at the behest of the NYPD's PR department, wrote a front page
editorial screed against Critical Mass, didn't mention it.
_Jym_

Jym, what are you quoting and what are you posting?!? (And it's not even an
AOHell issue!)
--
BS (no, really)

Jym Dyer wrote:

Yesterday, though, they ran an Op-Ed piece that I missed.
It
wasn't about the bike-licensing bill, but about The
Bicycle
Menace:


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/idea...p-217248c.html

=v= It's a bizarre piece that tells us not to worry about
toxins
in the environment but about "real" risks: bicycles.

My guess is that she got sideswiped by an errant bike
messenger.

--
Mike Kruger
If you fall and break your leg, don't come running to me.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/idea...p-217248c.html

My guess is that she got sideswiped by an errant bike
messenger.

=v= She does mention bikers "on delivery missions," but these
are not necessarily messengers. Bike messengers in NYC are
quite skilled, stay out in the streets, and are not known for
sideswiping pedestrians. Please don't spread untrue stereotypes
about them.

=v= There is another variety of delivery biker in NYC, though,
that generates most of the complaints: the ones who deliver
food. Some of them ride clunky (sometimes stolen) bikes on
sidewalks and do indeed pose a problem for pedestrians. I've
cursed a number of them myself.

=v= The distinction is an important one to make, because the
City of New York keeps blurring them. Every now and then
there's a case where a food delivery biker hits a pedestrian on
the sidewalk, and the City cracks down on messengers, instead.

=v= Also, as discussed in other threads, the author of that
op-ed heads one of those industry-funded anti-environmentalist
junk science groups. So she's got delusions quite outside the
realm of bike-bashing.
_Jym_