Media Coverage of NYC's Anti-Bike Bill

[Jym Dyer]

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

_Newsday_: Bronx pol pushes for mandatory bike licenses:
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/nyc-bike1118,0,2976740.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/local/story/253898p-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 Dyer]

=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/ideas_opinions/story/254085p-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/ideas_opinions/story/253732p-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_>