The Councils Are Going Broke. Blame Cyclists.

"Americans can be trusted to do the right thing once all other possibilities have been exhausted."

That remark has been attributed to Winston Churchill, though experts on him can't find any tape, transcript or other record of him saying it.

Whoever said it, I wish that it were true of today's right-wing politicians.  Coaches, trainers, athletic directors and boosters sexually abuse athletes, yet the Fake Tan Fuhrer and his allies blame transgender athletes on girls' and womens' teams--which number something like ten in the whole United States--for endangering innocent young female gymnasts, skaters, basketball players, cyclists and other performers.  I have yet to hear of any anti-LGBTQ politician who went after the real perpetrators. Perhaps some day....

Or maybe they never will.  It seems that these days, a strategy of the far- and even center-right around the world is to scapegoat people, organizations and movements that are very small in number or limited in scope, much as Hitler targeted Jews (who, even where they were the largest presence, still represented a small fraction of the population), Romani and other minorities including, yes, LGBT people.  I still recall how the Reagan Administration targeted the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, ostensibly as defecit-reducing measures, even though they represented something like .005 percent of the Federal Budget and, as even the Wall Street Journal noted, contributed far more to the economy, not to mention the culture.

Now it seems that one of right wing's targets, in the UK as in the US, is bicycle infrastructure.  It's one thing to blame a bike lane for a loss of parking spaces or emergency vehicle access.  But it's simply ludicrous to attribute the sorry state of a local government's finances to the money it spent on a bike lane, mainly because it's almost invariably a tiny part of the budget but also because (at least in the US), those funds may have come from a state or the Federal government, usually as part of an allocation for transportation.

But that hasn't stopped politicians on either side of the Atlantic.  Among the most recent is Nigel Farage, the Reform Party leader and former member of the UK Independence Party--you know, the folks who campaigned for Brexit.  This morning he claimed that local councils are "on the verge of bankruptcy" because of "huge departments of people dealing with climate change" and the "tens of millions of pounds" those councils "wasted" on "cycle lanes nobody uses."

Image credit:  Simon MacMichael/Gage Skidmore via the BBC

Now, I can't argue against, or vouch for the last part of his assertion.  But a look at the charge that the councils are throwing money at bike infrastructure is, to say the least, exaggerated.  Some councils spend little or nothing on bicycle infrastructure or other "active travel."  But even for those that spent the most, like Kingston, spending for active transport (which includes walking and other non-motorized modes as well as cycling) is only around 4 to 5 percent of the total budget, with around a third of that coming from core funds and the rest from grants.  As a whole, the UK spends about two percent of its transportation budget on cycling infrastructure. 

All of this leads me to believe that if Nigel Farage were in Winston Churchill's place during the Blitz, he would have turned his ire toward Dame Myra Hess.

“Funeral” For A Bike Lane

 Jewish traditions include the levaya, a public burial ceremony for a Torah scroll or script that has been burned or otherwise damaged beyond repair. The Torah is often buried beside a Torah scholar as a sign of respect.

I thought of the levaya when I saw a news story out of Houston. That city’s cyclists didn’t bury a bike lane. They did, however, hold a “funeral” for the Austin Street lane the city abruptly removed from its Midtown district.

The penultimate word of the previous sentence describes what rankled Ursula Andreeff, who organized the event. “We wanted to mourn the loss of bike lanes, loss of critical infrastructure in this city and also to bring attention,” she explained. 

The city removed concrete barriers, often called “armadillos,” citing concerns from residents and first responders about reduced access for emergency vehicles, blocked trash collection and limited parking. Houston Public Works claims the move—and painting “sharrows” to indicate shared use of the road with motor vehicles.

Critics argue that the “sharrows” won’t offer the same level of protection and might deter some from cycling. They also lambasted the city for not giving advance warning about removing the Austin Street lane, or others. People went for their daily commute or fitness ride only to find that their familiar route, in which they felt safe, gone.

Some Houston cyclists held a “funeral” for a bike lane. I imagine that some were hoping the next funeral they attend won’t be for one of them.

Always Together

 When some couples ride, one member has trouble keeping up with the other.

Here’s one way to solve that dilemma: