It’s Spring! Feel the Bike Hate Beaming From the New York Post

Given the Post’s unequivocal hatred of people who ride bicycles, you’d think Col Allan’s tabloid would applaud DOT for assigning a small number of employees to encourage cyclists to ride in the direction of traffic and stop for pedestrians. Instead, the Post today attacked the “Street Safety Manager” program as a waste of taxpayer money, even as the same story insisted that cyclists are out-of-control maniacs.

It’s like the reporters (it took two) just packed in as many tropes as they could. You’ve got the rogue cyclists, lollygagging city employees, and a sideways jab at bike-share, punctuated by ready-made quotes from random bystanders — this piece has it all. Never mind that it also has more disconnected story lines than a J.J. Abrams teleplay.

We could point out how ridiculous it is to single out a handful of bike lane monitors when the city employs a small army of Traffic Enforcement Agents whose job is basically to wave traffic into pedestrians who have the legal right of way. Or that there hasn’t been a fatal collision between a cyclist and pedestrian in years, while motorists injure and kill scores every day. Or that it makes no sense to attack the city for loosing thousands of “reckless bikers” and also attack the city for taking steps to improve bike safety.

But to make those arguments would be to presume that the Post is actually interested in safer streets.