Helmeted Arrogance

The recently released news that an epidemic of bike related injuries is inundating NYC hospitals points to the arrogance of the mayor and his crank traffic commissioner-consider that all of this biking up the wrong tree was done without any independent review of its potential impact on either traffic congestion or car safety:

"More than 500 New York City residents are injured badly enough to be treated in hospitals after being struck by bicyclists each year, according to an analysis by Hunter College professors. The number, while small compared with the number of pedestrians injured by cars, is a much higher figure than an earlier study by the same researchers found."

And this may be only the tip of the iceberg since many of the injured are utilizing local doctors and clinics: “We don’t know how many people are injured and just go home, or see their family doctor,” said the study’s co-author Bill Milczarski, an urban planner at Hunter College. “We have lots and lots of people competing for scarce space.”

What the mayor and this nut Sadik-Khan have done is to attempt a transformation of the city's streets into one big bike lane without subjecting this massive experiment to any proper land use review-and now comes the ridiculous 10,000 bike sharing idea that threatens to make a bad situation that much worse:"And now, of course, Mayor Bloomberg and his bike-happy transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, are gearing up to put 10,000 more threats on the streets through their bicycle-sharing program."

What this demonstrates to us is the massive contempt that the elitist Bloomberg has for New Yorkers-imposing by dictat what should properly be considered through legislative review. Not that a stugy would have been any much better since the Bloomberg administration can spew out more phony data since the old Soviet Union started to concoct its fantasy Five Year Plans.

We should know. We are still sitting in amazement at the disgraceful proffer of phony traffic data for the Willets Point development-all of which points to the appropriate epitaph for the Bloomberg regime: Figures don't lie, but liars figure.