Connecticut Ave bike lanes are back!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hardly ever drive on Connecticut and would almost certainly never bike there, bike lanes or not.

What annoys about this whole episode is that I’m noticing a pattern of behavior with Bowser where she will float controversial proposals, launch drawn-out batteries of community consultations which bitterly divide neighbors, allow these processes to run their course, create the illusion that the decision and concepts have been finalized on the basis of the input received through the official consultation processes and the input of ANCs and relevant councilmembers, and then at the 11th hour switcheroo at the behest of shadowy interests that can’t legitimately claim to represent anyone beyond themselves.

This of course describes the Connecticut bike lane saga to a T, but also is exactly how things went down with several other non-transportation projects in my part of the city.

Some like the end result and so are inclined to defend Bowser or take issue with certain specifics, but no one should be able to argue with a straight face that this is what good municipal governance looks like. She is sowing division and completely undermining faith in the integrity in established structures for participatory governance. Of course, if you do not live in the District and don’t give a damn about anything in the city beyond the ease of your commute, I can understand why this wouldn’t bother you in the slightest.

Hopefully the city can find itself a radically better mayor in a couple of years and take a turn to becoming a better place for people to live, even at the cost of not being the most pleasurable of door mats for suburban commuters.

Bowser wanted ANC support for her voucher plan and the Chevy Chase Library and Small Area Plan. She used bike lanes to get that support and then dropped them because they weren't popular leaving the ANCs holding the bag for everything. The bike lane fiasco sucked up all the backlash and she succeeded.

Nothing about this proposal was an example of good governance. Always remember that it started as a seemingly innocuous discussion on whether or not to keep reversible lanes at rush hour.

I see the anti-Bowser conspiracy theorist is back.

DP. I love would be able to see some logic behind Bowser’s approach - such as that by undermining participatory planning processes and ANCs so that she can get things done faster - but it’s hard to see what she is getting out of all this other than making people hate each other and eventually her too. I tended to give her the benefit of the doubt until she flip-flopped all over the map on school openings over COVID, pitting teachers against parents and endowing the city with a truancy and youth crime crisis. She’s not the worst mayor in DC’s history by a long stretch, but she’s not a leader, has no discernible vision for the city, is a terrible administrator, and is very hard to relate to. In retrospect, it’s not hard to understand how she was almost lost to a Republican in her first mayoral election.

It’s quaint that you think there was real “participatory planning” in the first place. There’s only just power. DDOT only conducts citizen engagement to either inform people of the decisions they have made or to pretend that they are taking community input seriously to justify decisions they have already made. DDOT made a decision that was met with significant resistance from the business community, who are more important than the cycling activists DDOT has been catering to, and as result their decision was overturned. It’s only the mayor’s fault to the extent that she appoints DDOT leadership and DDOT leadership did a bad job of protecting the mayors interests. It’s probably why Everett Lott isn’t there anymore. It’s not more complicated than that.

What is quaint is that you think it’s perfectly fine that elected representatives privilege “business interests” - in reality, a handful of corporate landlords desperately hankering for a return to 2019 amidst their complete denial that the world has moved on - over the ability of DC residents to travel throughout their city in an inexpensive, healthy, safe, and environmentally-friendly manner.

Even the Fleet Feet Fenty's oppose new bike lanes on major roads. The world has indeed moved on.

Has the climate crisis gone away? What about the shortage of lithium and other critical minerals? Have flying cars solved road congestion yet? Have gas prices and the burden they impose on working houses fallen off? Sounds like your head has moved on further into the sand.

Bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will not stop climate change, nor will they end racism.

Small changes are too small, they won't do anything. Big changes are too big, they're not feasible. I'm still waiting to hear if there are any changes that are juuuuuust right.

Similarly, we shouldn't do anything now, it's too soon. And after that, we shouldn't do anything, it's too late.

Yes, everyone that opposes a bike lane is a climate denier or working to prevent anything from happening to address climate change. Meanwhile, all of the bikers are saving the world, especially with their virtue-signaling! You guys are the bestest ever. Thank you for being so amazing, unlike us inferior plebes.

Not everyone who opposes a bike lane is a climate denier. Everyone who opposes a bike lane is opposing an action that will help to mitigate the effects of climate change. If more people biked and fewer people drove, that actually would help with climate change. Perhaps a few people who bike do so solely for the purpose of morally lording it over others, but it's not a common motivation. People who bike are not the best ever or the worst ever, but simply people like people generally are. Some people who bike are amazing, others aren't, just like people generally are. If you feel like someone is trying to make you feel like an inferior plebe, that's a you issue.

Please tell us all how much carbon dioxide emissions bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will save and show your math and assumptions.

So everyone wants to talk climate but no one is willing to put in the hard work to actually prove how these bike lanes would reduce ghgs. Figures.

This study gives you the necessary parameters: https://drawdown.org/solutions/bicycle-infrastructure. Just plug in the specifics for Connecticut Avenue and you will have your answer.

Never stop being unserious. If you actually cared about climate change you wouldn’t be behaving this way.

Doesn’t seem like the bike lane proponents understand that their mendacious cynicism is big part of why public opinion turned against them.

Never stop making things up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If climate change is the goal then bike lanes are a horribly inefficient and wasteful use of limited dollars.

There are many goals that bike lanes serve and bike lanes are actually a very efficient use of limited dollars because they cost very little to install, reduce road maintenance expenditure, increase DC's sales and property tax revenue by increasing retail revenue and local property values.

Glad to see that you've been supporting our local I-71 businesses this afternoon.

The effects of bike lanes on road maintenance, business revenue, property values, and so forth have been borne out by reams of academic studies. Stupid, snarky references to pot smoking doesn't make that evidence go away, aggressively ignorant of it though you may be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hardly ever drive on Connecticut and would almost certainly never bike there, bike lanes or not.

What annoys about this whole episode is that I’m noticing a pattern of behavior with Bowser where she will float controversial proposals, launch drawn-out batteries of community consultations which bitterly divide neighbors, allow these processes to run their course, create the illusion that the decision and concepts have been finalized on the basis of the input received through the official consultation processes and the input of ANCs and relevant councilmembers, and then at the 11th hour switcheroo at the behest of shadowy interests that can’t legitimately claim to represent anyone beyond themselves.

This of course describes the Connecticut bike lane saga to a T, but also is exactly how things went down with several other non-transportation projects in my part of the city.

Some like the end result and so are inclined to defend Bowser or take issue with certain specifics, but no one should be able to argue with a straight face that this is what good municipal governance looks like. She is sowing division and completely undermining faith in the integrity in established structures for participatory governance. Of course, if you do not live in the District and don’t give a damn about anything in the city beyond the ease of your commute, I can understand why this wouldn’t bother you in the slightest.

Hopefully the city can find itself a radically better mayor in a couple of years and take a turn to becoming a better place for people to live, even at the cost of not being the most pleasurable of door mats for suburban commuters.

Bowser wanted ANC support for her voucher plan and the Chevy Chase Library and Small Area Plan. She used bike lanes to get that support and then dropped them because they weren't popular leaving the ANCs holding the bag for everything. The bike lane fiasco sucked up all the backlash and she succeeded.

Nothing about this proposal was an example of good governance. Always remember that it started as a seemingly innocuous discussion on whether or not to keep reversible lanes at rush hour.

I see the anti-Bowser conspiracy theorist is back.

DP. I love would be able to see some logic behind Bowser’s approach - such as that by undermining participatory planning processes and ANCs so that she can get things done faster - but it’s hard to see what she is getting out of all this other than making people hate each other and eventually her too. I tended to give her the benefit of the doubt until she flip-flopped all over the map on school openings over COVID, pitting teachers against parents and endowing the city with a truancy and youth crime crisis. She’s not the worst mayor in DC’s history by a long stretch, but she’s not a leader, has no discernible vision for the city, is a terrible administrator, and is very hard to relate to. In retrospect, it’s not hard to understand how she was almost lost to a Republican in her first mayoral election.

It’s quaint that you think there was real “participatory planning” in the first place. There’s only just power. DDOT only conducts citizen engagement to either inform people of the decisions they have made or to pretend that they are taking community input seriously to justify decisions they have already made. DDOT made a decision that was met with significant resistance from the business community, who are more important than the cycling activists DDOT has been catering to, and as result their decision was overturned. It’s only the mayor’s fault to the extent that she appoints DDOT leadership and DDOT leadership did a bad job of protecting the mayors interests. It’s probably why Everett Lott isn’t there anymore. It’s not more complicated than that.

What is quaint is that you think it’s perfectly fine that elected representatives privilege “business interests” - in reality, a handful of corporate landlords desperately hankering for a return to 2019 amidst their complete denial that the world has moved on - over the ability of DC residents to travel throughout their city in an inexpensive, healthy, safe, and environmentally-friendly manner.

Even the Fleet Feet Fenty's oppose new bike lanes on major roads. The world has indeed moved on.

Has the climate crisis gone away? What about the shortage of lithium and other critical minerals? Have flying cars solved road congestion yet? Have gas prices and the burden they impose on working houses fallen off? Sounds like your head has moved on further into the sand.

Bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will not stop climate change, nor will they end racism.

Small changes are too small, they won't do anything. Big changes are too big, they're not feasible. I'm still waiting to hear if there are any changes that are juuuuuust right.

Similarly, we shouldn't do anything now, it's too soon. And after that, we shouldn't do anything, it's too late.

Yes, everyone that opposes a bike lane is a climate denier or working to prevent anything from happening to address climate change. Meanwhile, all of the bikers are saving the world, especially with their virtue-signaling! You guys are the bestest ever. Thank you for being so amazing, unlike us inferior plebes.

Not everyone who opposes a bike lane is a climate denier. Everyone who opposes a bike lane is opposing an action that will help to mitigate the effects of climate change. If more people biked and fewer people drove, that actually would help with climate change. Perhaps a few people who bike do so solely for the purpose of morally lording it over others, but it's not a common motivation. People who bike are not the best ever or the worst ever, but simply people like people generally are. Some people who bike are amazing, others aren't, just like people generally are. If you feel like someone is trying to make you feel like an inferior plebe, that's a you issue.

Please tell us all how much carbon dioxide emissions bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will save and show your math and assumptions.

So everyone wants to talk climate but no one is willing to put in the hard work to actually prove how these bike lanes would reduce ghgs. Figures.

This study gives you the necessary parameters: https://drawdown.org/solutions/bicycle-infrastructure. Just plug in the specifics for Connecticut Avenue and you will have your answer.

Never stop being unserious. If you actually cared about climate change you wouldn’t be behaving this way.

I assume you were referring to what you thought was a dead link. Remove the period from the URL and it works fine. Like this: https://drawdown.org/solutions/bicycle-infrastructure

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hardly ever drive on Connecticut and would almost certainly never bike there, bike lanes or not.

What annoys about this whole episode is that I’m noticing a pattern of behavior with Bowser where she will float controversial proposals, launch drawn-out batteries of community consultations which bitterly divide neighbors, allow these processes to run their course, create the illusion that the decision and concepts have been finalized on the basis of the input received through the official consultation processes and the input of ANCs and relevant councilmembers, and then at the 11th hour switcheroo at the behest of shadowy interests that can’t legitimately claim to represent anyone beyond themselves.

This of course describes the Connecticut bike lane saga to a T, but also is exactly how things went down with several other non-transportation projects in my part of the city.

Some like the end result and so are inclined to defend Bowser or take issue with certain specifics, but no one should be able to argue with a straight face that this is what good municipal governance looks like. She is sowing division and completely undermining faith in the integrity in established structures for participatory governance. Of course, if you do not live in the District and don’t give a damn about anything in the city beyond the ease of your commute, I can understand why this wouldn’t bother you in the slightest.

Hopefully the city can find itself a radically better mayor in a couple of years and take a turn to becoming a better place for people to live, even at the cost of not being the most pleasurable of door mats for suburban commuters.

Bowser wanted ANC support for her voucher plan and the Chevy Chase Library and Small Area Plan. She used bike lanes to get that support and then dropped them because they weren't popular leaving the ANCs holding the bag for everything. The bike lane fiasco sucked up all the backlash and she succeeded.

Nothing about this proposal was an example of good governance. Always remember that it started as a seemingly innocuous discussion on whether or not to keep reversible lanes at rush hour.

I see the anti-Bowser conspiracy theorist is back.

DP. I love would be able to see some logic behind Bowser’s approach - such as that by undermining participatory planning processes and ANCs so that she can get things done faster - but it’s hard to see what she is getting out of all this other than making people hate each other and eventually her too. I tended to give her the benefit of the doubt until she flip-flopped all over the map on school openings over COVID, pitting teachers against parents and endowing the city with a truancy and youth crime crisis. She’s not the worst mayor in DC’s history by a long stretch, but she’s not a leader, has no discernible vision for the city, is a terrible administrator, and is very hard to relate to. In retrospect, it’s not hard to understand how she was almost lost to a Republican in her first mayoral election.

It’s quaint that you think there was real “participatory planning” in the first place. There’s only just power. DDOT only conducts citizen engagement to either inform people of the decisions they have made or to pretend that they are taking community input seriously to justify decisions they have already made. DDOT made a decision that was met with significant resistance from the business community, who are more important than the cycling activists DDOT has been catering to, and as result their decision was overturned. It’s only the mayor’s fault to the extent that she appoints DDOT leadership and DDOT leadership did a bad job of protecting the mayors interests. It’s probably why Everett Lott isn’t there anymore. It’s not more complicated than that.

What is quaint is that you think it’s perfectly fine that elected representatives privilege “business interests” - in reality, a handful of corporate landlords desperately hankering for a return to 2019 amidst their complete denial that the world has moved on - over the ability of DC residents to travel throughout their city in an inexpensive, healthy, safe, and environmentally-friendly manner.

Even the Fleet Feet Fenty's oppose new bike lanes on major roads. The world has indeed moved on.

Has the climate crisis gone away? What about the shortage of lithium and other critical minerals? Have flying cars solved road congestion yet? Have gas prices and the burden they impose on working houses fallen off? Sounds like your head has moved on further into the sand.

Bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will not stop climate change, nor will they end racism.

Small changes are too small, they won't do anything. Big changes are too big, they're not feasible. I'm still waiting to hear if there are any changes that are juuuuuust right.

Similarly, we shouldn't do anything now, it's too soon. And after that, we shouldn't do anything, it's too late.

Yes, everyone that opposes a bike lane is a climate denier or working to prevent anything from happening to address climate change. Meanwhile, all of the bikers are saving the world, especially with their virtue-signaling! You guys are the bestest ever. Thank you for being so amazing, unlike us inferior plebes.

Not everyone who opposes a bike lane is a climate denier. Everyone who opposes a bike lane is opposing an action that will help to mitigate the effects of climate change. If more people biked and fewer people drove, that actually would help with climate change. Perhaps a few people who bike do so solely for the purpose of morally lording it over others, but it's not a common motivation. People who bike are not the best ever or the worst ever, but simply people like people generally are. Some people who bike are amazing, others aren't, just like people generally are. If you feel like someone is trying to make you feel like an inferior plebe, that's a you issue.

Please tell us all how much carbon dioxide emissions bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will save and show your math and assumptions.

So everyone wants to talk climate but no one is willing to put in the hard work to actually prove how these bike lanes would reduce ghgs. Figures.

This study gives you the necessary parameters: https://drawdown.org/solutions/bicycle-infrastructure. Just plug in the specifics for Connecticut Avenue and you will have your answer.

Never stop being unserious. If you actually cared about climate change you wouldn’t be behaving this way.

Doesn’t seem like the bike lane proponents understand that their mendacious cynicism is big part of why public opinion turned against them.

Ah, you mean public opinion used to be in favor of bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue? How interesting.

In the past 5 years there has been generally positive support for bike infrastructure in DC. In the last year in particular it is hard find anyone who is not already a committed cyclist make generally and positive supportive comments about bike infrastructure anywhere in the city. Public sentiment has shifted from generally positive to negative.

The proof is that politicians are highly responsive to public sentiment. Frumin not that long ago was posting photos with his e-bike and now he’s gone MIA on the issue. if public sentiment hadn’t changed, you would have gotten your bike lanes.

And my theory is that it is you folks are a big reason for the shift in sentiment. Turns out that acting like jerkoffs to everyone that has yet to agree with you is not a great way to build a political coalition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hardly ever drive on Connecticut and would almost certainly never bike there, bike lanes or not.

What annoys about this whole episode is that I’m noticing a pattern of behavior with Bowser where she will float controversial proposals, launch drawn-out batteries of community consultations which bitterly divide neighbors, allow these processes to run their course, create the illusion that the decision and concepts have been finalized on the basis of the input received through the official consultation processes and the input of ANCs and relevant councilmembers, and then at the 11th hour switcheroo at the behest of shadowy interests that can’t legitimately claim to represent anyone beyond themselves.

This of course describes the Connecticut bike lane saga to a T, but also is exactly how things went down with several other non-transportation projects in my part of the city.

Some like the end result and so are inclined to defend Bowser or take issue with certain specifics, but no one should be able to argue with a straight face that this is what good municipal governance looks like. She is sowing division and completely undermining faith in the integrity in established structures for participatory governance. Of course, if you do not live in the District and don’t give a damn about anything in the city beyond the ease of your commute, I can understand why this wouldn’t bother you in the slightest.

Hopefully the city can find itself a radically better mayor in a couple of years and take a turn to becoming a better place for people to live, even at the cost of not being the most pleasurable of door mats for suburban commuters.

Bowser wanted ANC support for her voucher plan and the Chevy Chase Library and Small Area Plan. She used bike lanes to get that support and then dropped them because they weren't popular leaving the ANCs holding the bag for everything. The bike lane fiasco sucked up all the backlash and she succeeded.

Nothing about this proposal was an example of good governance. Always remember that it started as a seemingly innocuous discussion on whether or not to keep reversible lanes at rush hour.

I see the anti-Bowser conspiracy theorist is back.

DP. I love would be able to see some logic behind Bowser’s approach - such as that by undermining participatory planning processes and ANCs so that she can get things done faster - but it’s hard to see what she is getting out of all this other than making people hate each other and eventually her too. I tended to give her the benefit of the doubt until she flip-flopped all over the map on school openings over COVID, pitting teachers against parents and endowing the city with a truancy and youth crime crisis. She’s not the worst mayor in DC’s history by a long stretch, but she’s not a leader, has no discernible vision for the city, is a terrible administrator, and is very hard to relate to. In retrospect, it’s not hard to understand how she was almost lost to a Republican in her first mayoral election.

It’s quaint that you think there was real “participatory planning” in the first place. There’s only just power. DDOT only conducts citizen engagement to either inform people of the decisions they have made or to pretend that they are taking community input seriously to justify decisions they have already made. DDOT made a decision that was met with significant resistance from the business community, who are more important than the cycling activists DDOT has been catering to, and as result their decision was overturned. It’s only the mayor’s fault to the extent that she appoints DDOT leadership and DDOT leadership did a bad job of protecting the mayors interests. It’s probably why Everett Lott isn’t there anymore. It’s not more complicated than that.

What is quaint is that you think it’s perfectly fine that elected representatives privilege “business interests” - in reality, a handful of corporate landlords desperately hankering for a return to 2019 amidst their complete denial that the world has moved on - over the ability of DC residents to travel throughout their city in an inexpensive, healthy, safe, and environmentally-friendly manner.

Even the Fleet Feet Fenty's oppose new bike lanes on major roads. The world has indeed moved on.

Has the climate crisis gone away? What about the shortage of lithium and other critical minerals? Have flying cars solved road congestion yet? Have gas prices and the burden they impose on working houses fallen off? Sounds like your head has moved on further into the sand.

Bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will not stop climate change, nor will they end racism.

Small changes are too small, they won't do anything. Big changes are too big, they're not feasible. I'm still waiting to hear if there are any changes that are juuuuuust right.

Similarly, we shouldn't do anything now, it's too soon. And after that, we shouldn't do anything, it's too late.

Yes, everyone that opposes a bike lane is a climate denier or working to prevent anything from happening to address climate change. Meanwhile, all of the bikers are saving the world, especially with their virtue-signaling! You guys are the bestest ever. Thank you for being so amazing, unlike us inferior plebes.

Not everyone who opposes a bike lane is a climate denier. Everyone who opposes a bike lane is opposing an action that will help to mitigate the effects of climate change. If more people biked and fewer people drove, that actually would help with climate change. Perhaps a few people who bike do so solely for the purpose of morally lording it over others, but it's not a common motivation. People who bike are not the best ever or the worst ever, but simply people like people generally are. Some people who bike are amazing, others aren't, just like people generally are. If you feel like someone is trying to make you feel like an inferior plebe, that's a you issue.

Please tell us all how much carbon dioxide emissions bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will save and show your math and assumptions.

So everyone wants to talk climate but no one is willing to put in the hard work to actually prove how these bike lanes would reduce ghgs. Figures.

This study gives you the necessary parameters: https://drawdown.org/solutions/bicycle-infrastructure. Just plug in the specifics for Connecticut Avenue and you will have your answer.

Never stop being unserious. If you actually cared about climate change you wouldn’t be behaving this way.

I assume you were referring to what you thought was a dead link. Remove the period from the URL and it works fine. Like this: https://drawdown.org/solutions/bicycle-infrastructure

You’re fundamentally unserious and a joke. But keep going.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hardly ever drive on Connecticut and would almost certainly never bike there, bike lanes or not.

What annoys about this whole episode is that I’m noticing a pattern of behavior with Bowser where she will float controversial proposals, launch drawn-out batteries of community consultations which bitterly divide neighbors, allow these processes to run their course, create the illusion that the decision and concepts have been finalized on the basis of the input received through the official consultation processes and the input of ANCs and relevant councilmembers, and then at the 11th hour switcheroo at the behest of shadowy interests that can’t legitimately claim to represent anyone beyond themselves.

This of course describes the Connecticut bike lane saga to a T, but also is exactly how things went down with several other non-transportation projects in my part of the city.

Some like the end result and so are inclined to defend Bowser or take issue with certain specifics, but no one should be able to argue with a straight face that this is what good municipal governance looks like. She is sowing division and completely undermining faith in the integrity in established structures for participatory governance. Of course, if you do not live in the District and don’t give a damn about anything in the city beyond the ease of your commute, I can understand why this wouldn’t bother you in the slightest.

Hopefully the city can find itself a radically better mayor in a couple of years and take a turn to becoming a better place for people to live, even at the cost of not being the most pleasurable of door mats for suburban commuters.

Bowser wanted ANC support for her voucher plan and the Chevy Chase Library and Small Area Plan. She used bike lanes to get that support and then dropped them because they weren't popular leaving the ANCs holding the bag for everything. The bike lane fiasco sucked up all the backlash and she succeeded.

Nothing about this proposal was an example of good governance. Always remember that it started as a seemingly innocuous discussion on whether or not to keep reversible lanes at rush hour.

I see the anti-Bowser conspiracy theorist is back.

DP. I love would be able to see some logic behind Bowser’s approach - such as that by undermining participatory planning processes and ANCs so that she can get things done faster - but it’s hard to see what she is getting out of all this other than making people hate each other and eventually her too. I tended to give her the benefit of the doubt until she flip-flopped all over the map on school openings over COVID, pitting teachers against parents and endowing the city with a truancy and youth crime crisis. She’s not the worst mayor in DC’s history by a long stretch, but she’s not a leader, has no discernible vision for the city, is a terrible administrator, and is very hard to relate to. In retrospect, it’s not hard to understand how she was almost lost to a Republican in her first mayoral election.

It’s quaint that you think there was real “participatory planning” in the first place. There’s only just power. DDOT only conducts citizen engagement to either inform people of the decisions they have made or to pretend that they are taking community input seriously to justify decisions they have already made. DDOT made a decision that was met with significant resistance from the business community, who are more important than the cycling activists DDOT has been catering to, and as result their decision was overturned. It’s only the mayor’s fault to the extent that she appoints DDOT leadership and DDOT leadership did a bad job of protecting the mayors interests. It’s probably why Everett Lott isn’t there anymore. It’s not more complicated than that.

What is quaint is that you think it’s perfectly fine that elected representatives privilege “business interests” - in reality, a handful of corporate landlords desperately hankering for a return to 2019 amidst their complete denial that the world has moved on - over the ability of DC residents to travel throughout their city in an inexpensive, healthy, safe, and environmentally-friendly manner.

Even the Fleet Feet Fenty's oppose new bike lanes on major roads. The world has indeed moved on.

Has the climate crisis gone away? What about the shortage of lithium and other critical minerals? Have flying cars solved road congestion yet? Have gas prices and the burden they impose on working houses fallen off? Sounds like your head has moved on further into the sand.

Bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will not stop climate change, nor will they end racism.

Small changes are too small, they won't do anything. Big changes are too big, they're not feasible. I'm still waiting to hear if there are any changes that are juuuuuust right.

Similarly, we shouldn't do anything now, it's too soon. And after that, we shouldn't do anything, it's too late.

Yes, everyone that opposes a bike lane is a climate denier or working to prevent anything from happening to address climate change. Meanwhile, all of the bikers are saving the world, especially with their virtue-signaling! You guys are the bestest ever. Thank you for being so amazing, unlike us inferior plebes.

Not everyone who opposes a bike lane is a climate denier. Everyone who opposes a bike lane is opposing an action that will help to mitigate the effects of climate change. If more people biked and fewer people drove, that actually would help with climate change. Perhaps a few people who bike do so solely for the purpose of morally lording it over others, but it's not a common motivation. People who bike are not the best ever or the worst ever, but simply people like people generally are. Some people who bike are amazing, others aren't, just like people generally are. If you feel like someone is trying to make you feel like an inferior plebe, that's a you issue.

Please tell us all how much carbon dioxide emissions bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will save and show your math and assumptions.

So everyone wants to talk climate but no one is willing to put in the hard work to actually prove how these bike lanes would reduce ghgs. Figures.

This study gives you the necessary parameters: https://drawdown.org/solutions/bicycle-infrastructure. Just plug in the specifics for Connecticut Avenue and you will have your answer.

Never stop being unserious. If you actually cared about climate change you wouldn’t be behaving this way.

Doesn’t seem like the bike lane proponents understand that their mendacious cynicism is big part of why public opinion turned against them.

Ah, you mean public opinion used to be in favor of bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue? How interesting.

In the past 5 years there has been generally positive support for bike infrastructure in DC. In the last year in particular it is hard find anyone who is not already a committed cyclist make generally and positive supportive comments about bike infrastructure anywhere in the city. Public sentiment has shifted from generally positive to negative.

The proof is that politicians are highly responsive to public sentiment. Frumin not that long ago was posting photos with his e-bike and now he’s gone MIA on the issue. if public sentiment hadn’t changed, you would have gotten your bike lanes.

And my theory is that it is you folks are a big reason for the shift in sentiment. Turns out that acting like jerkoffs to everyone that has yet to agree with you is not a great way to build a political coalition.

Oh, what great news! There is generally positive support for bike infrastructure in DC! I am looking forward to lots more of it, then. And, of course, anybody peddling the "everybody hates cyclists" line is peddling nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hardly ever drive on Connecticut and would almost certainly never bike there, bike lanes or not.

What annoys about this whole episode is that I’m noticing a pattern of behavior with Bowser where she will float controversial proposals, launch drawn-out batteries of community consultations which bitterly divide neighbors, allow these processes to run their course, create the illusion that the decision and concepts have been finalized on the basis of the input received through the official consultation processes and the input of ANCs and relevant councilmembers, and then at the 11th hour switcheroo at the behest of shadowy interests that can’t legitimately claim to represent anyone beyond themselves.

This of course describes the Connecticut bike lane saga to a T, but also is exactly how things went down with several other non-transportation projects in my part of the city.

Some like the end result and so are inclined to defend Bowser or take issue with certain specifics, but no one should be able to argue with a straight face that this is what good municipal governance looks like. She is sowing division and completely undermining faith in the integrity in established structures for participatory governance. Of course, if you do not live in the District and don’t give a damn about anything in the city beyond the ease of your commute, I can understand why this wouldn’t bother you in the slightest.

Hopefully the city can find itself a radically better mayor in a couple of years and take a turn to becoming a better place for people to live, even at the cost of not being the most pleasurable of door mats for suburban commuters.

Bowser wanted ANC support for her voucher plan and the Chevy Chase Library and Small Area Plan. She used bike lanes to get that support and then dropped them because they weren't popular leaving the ANCs holding the bag for everything. The bike lane fiasco sucked up all the backlash and she succeeded.

Nothing about this proposal was an example of good governance. Always remember that it started as a seemingly innocuous discussion on whether or not to keep reversible lanes at rush hour.

I see the anti-Bowser conspiracy theorist is back.

DP. I love would be able to see some logic behind Bowser’s approach - such as that by undermining participatory planning processes and ANCs so that she can get things done faster - but it’s hard to see what she is getting out of all this other than making people hate each other and eventually her too. I tended to give her the benefit of the doubt until she flip-flopped all over the map on school openings over COVID, pitting teachers against parents and endowing the city with a truancy and youth crime crisis. She’s not the worst mayor in DC’s history by a long stretch, but she’s not a leader, has no discernible vision for the city, is a terrible administrator, and is very hard to relate to. In retrospect, it’s not hard to understand how she was almost lost to a Republican in her first mayoral election.

It’s quaint that you think there was real “participatory planning” in the first place. There’s only just power. DDOT only conducts citizen engagement to either inform people of the decisions they have made or to pretend that they are taking community input seriously to justify decisions they have already made. DDOT made a decision that was met with significant resistance from the business community, who are more important than the cycling activists DDOT has been catering to, and as result their decision was overturned. It’s only the mayor’s fault to the extent that she appoints DDOT leadership and DDOT leadership did a bad job of protecting the mayors interests. It’s probably why Everett Lott isn’t there anymore. It’s not more complicated than that.

What is quaint is that you think it’s perfectly fine that elected representatives privilege “business interests” - in reality, a handful of corporate landlords desperately hankering for a return to 2019 amidst their complete denial that the world has moved on - over the ability of DC residents to travel throughout their city in an inexpensive, healthy, safe, and environmentally-friendly manner.

Even the Fleet Feet Fenty's oppose new bike lanes on major roads. The world has indeed moved on.

Has the climate crisis gone away? What about the shortage of lithium and other critical minerals? Have flying cars solved road congestion yet? Have gas prices and the burden they impose on working houses fallen off? Sounds like your head has moved on further into the sand.

Bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will not stop climate change, nor will they end racism.

Small changes are too small, they won't do anything. Big changes are too big, they're not feasible. I'm still waiting to hear if there are any changes that are juuuuuust right.

Similarly, we shouldn't do anything now, it's too soon. And after that, we shouldn't do anything, it's too late.

Yes, everyone that opposes a bike lane is a climate denier or working to prevent anything from happening to address climate change. Meanwhile, all of the bikers are saving the world, especially with their virtue-signaling! You guys are the bestest ever. Thank you for being so amazing, unlike us inferior plebes.

Not everyone who opposes a bike lane is a climate denier. Everyone who opposes a bike lane is opposing an action that will help to mitigate the effects of climate change. If more people biked and fewer people drove, that actually would help with climate change. Perhaps a few people who bike do so solely for the purpose of morally lording it over others, but it's not a common motivation. People who bike are not the best ever or the worst ever, but simply people like people generally are. Some people who bike are amazing, others aren't, just like people generally are. If you feel like someone is trying to make you feel like an inferior plebe, that's a you issue.

Please tell us all how much carbon dioxide emissions bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will save and show your math and assumptions.

So everyone wants to talk climate but no one is willing to put in the hard work to actually prove how these bike lanes would reduce ghgs. Figures.

This study gives you the necessary parameters: https://drawdown.org/solutions/bicycle-infrastructure. Just plug in the specifics for Connecticut Avenue and you will have your answer.

Never stop being unserious. If you actually cared about climate change you wouldn’t be behaving this way.

Doesn’t seem like the bike lane proponents understand that their mendacious cynicism is big part of why public opinion turned against them.

Ah, you mean public opinion used to be in favor of bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue? How interesting.

In the past 5 years there has been generally positive support for bike infrastructure in DC. In the last year in particular it is hard find anyone who is not already a committed cyclist make generally and positive supportive comments about bike infrastructure anywhere in the city. Public sentiment has shifted from generally positive to negative.

The proof is that politicians are highly responsive to public sentiment. Frumin not that long ago was posting photos with his e-bike and now he’s gone MIA on the issue. if public sentiment hadn’t changed, you would have gotten your bike lanes.

And my theory is that it is you folks are a big reason for the shift in sentiment. Turns out that acting like jerkoffs to everyone that has yet to agree with you is not a great way to build a political coalition.

What fanciful ideas you have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the giant anticlimax of pedestrianizing the slip lane ought to really guide the discussion here. We had a giant neighborhood freak out over ONE block of a protected bike lane. It finally went in last summer and guess what, the sky has not fallen and nobody cares. Houses are still being sold on that block at big profits and the ads actually mention the bike lane as an amenity.

Interesting that Councilmember Frumin said last year that that if the slip (service) lane parking were lost, Option C bike lanes would have to be rethought because the cumulative loss of parking in that part of Connecticut Ave would be significant.

And yet, we have seen no negative impact from the new plaza, and it seems like the businesses there are thriving.

Says the likely academic/nonprofit/government employee that has never started or run a small business.

*grad student

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hardly ever drive on Connecticut and would almost certainly never bike there, bike lanes or not.

What annoys about this whole episode is that I’m noticing a pattern of behavior with Bowser where she will float controversial proposals, launch drawn-out batteries of community consultations which bitterly divide neighbors, allow these processes to run their course, create the illusion that the decision and concepts have been finalized on the basis of the input received through the official consultation processes and the input of ANCs and relevant councilmembers, and then at the 11th hour switcheroo at the behest of shadowy interests that can’t legitimately claim to represent anyone beyond themselves.

This of course describes the Connecticut bike lane saga to a T, but also is exactly how things went down with several other non-transportation projects in my part of the city.

Some like the end result and so are inclined to defend Bowser or take issue with certain specifics, but no one should be able to argue with a straight face that this is what good municipal governance looks like. She is sowing division and completely undermining faith in the integrity in established structures for participatory governance. Of course, if you do not live in the District and don’t give a damn about anything in the city beyond the ease of your commute, I can understand why this wouldn’t bother you in the slightest.

Hopefully the city can find itself a radically better mayor in a couple of years and take a turn to becoming a better place for people to live, even at the cost of not being the most pleasurable of door mats for suburban commuters.

Bowser wanted ANC support for her voucher plan and the Chevy Chase Library and Small Area Plan. She used bike lanes to get that support and then dropped them because they weren't popular leaving the ANCs holding the bag for everything. The bike lane fiasco sucked up all the backlash and she succeeded.

Nothing about this proposal was an example of good governance. Always remember that it started as a seemingly innocuous discussion on whether or not to keep reversible lanes at rush hour.

I see the anti-Bowser conspiracy theorist is back.

DP. I love would be able to see some logic behind Bowser’s approach - such as that by undermining participatory planning processes and ANCs so that she can get things done faster - but it’s hard to see what she is getting out of all this other than making people hate each other and eventually her too. I tended to give her the benefit of the doubt until she flip-flopped all over the map on school openings over COVID, pitting teachers against parents and endowing the city with a truancy and youth crime crisis. She’s not the worst mayor in DC’s history by a long stretch, but she’s not a leader, has no discernible vision for the city, is a terrible administrator, and is very hard to relate to. In retrospect, it’s not hard to understand how she was almost lost to a Republican in her first mayoral election.

It’s quaint that you think there was real “participatory planning” in the first place. There’s only just power. DDOT only conducts citizen engagement to either inform people of the decisions they have made or to pretend that they are taking community input seriously to justify decisions they have already made. DDOT made a decision that was met with significant resistance from the business community, who are more important than the cycling activists DDOT has been catering to, and as result their decision was overturned. It’s only the mayor’s fault to the extent that she appoints DDOT leadership and DDOT leadership did a bad job of protecting the mayors interests. It’s probably why Everett Lott isn’t there anymore. It’s not more complicated than that.

What is quaint is that you think it’s perfectly fine that elected representatives privilege “business interests” - in reality, a handful of corporate landlords desperately hankering for a return to 2019 amidst their complete denial that the world has moved on - over the ability of DC residents to travel throughout their city in an inexpensive, healthy, safe, and environmentally-friendly manner.

Even the Fleet Feet Fenty's oppose new bike lanes on major roads. The world has indeed moved on.

Has the climate crisis gone away? What about the shortage of lithium and other critical minerals? Have flying cars solved road congestion yet? Have gas prices and the burden they impose on working houses fallen off? Sounds like your head has moved on further into the sand.

Bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will not stop climate change, nor will they end racism.

Small changes are too small, they won't do anything. Big changes are too big, they're not feasible. I'm still waiting to hear if there are any changes that are juuuuuust right.

Similarly, we shouldn't do anything now, it's too soon. And after that, we shouldn't do anything, it's too late.

Yes, everyone that opposes a bike lane is a climate denier or working to prevent anything from happening to address climate change. Meanwhile, all of the bikers are saving the world, especially with their virtue-signaling! You guys are the bestest ever. Thank you for being so amazing, unlike us inferior plebes.

Not everyone who opposes a bike lane is a climate denier. Everyone who opposes a bike lane is opposing an action that will help to mitigate the effects of climate change. If more people biked and fewer people drove, that actually would help with climate change. Perhaps a few people who bike do so solely for the purpose of morally lording it over others, but it's not a common motivation. People who bike are not the best ever or the worst ever, but simply people like people generally are. Some people who bike are amazing, others aren't, just like people generally are. If you feel like someone is trying to make you feel like an inferior plebe, that's a you issue.

Please tell us all how much carbon dioxide emissions bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will save and show your math and assumptions.

So everyone wants to talk climate but no one is willing to put in the hard work to actually prove how these bike lanes would reduce ghgs. Figures.

This study gives you the necessary parameters: https://drawdown.org/solutions/bicycle-infrastructure. Just plug in the specifics for Connecticut Avenue and you will have your answer.

Never stop being unserious. If you actually cared about climate change you wouldn’t be behaving this way.

I assume you were referring to what you thought was a dead link. Remove the period from the URL and it works fine. Like this: https://drawdown.org/solutions/bicycle-infrastructure

You’re fundamentally unserious and a joke. But keep going.

I don't know what exactly you want. You asked for an estimate of the effect of bike lanes on carbon emissions and the link provides such an estimate, as well as the math and assumptions. That you respond to people who give you what you ask for with petty insults speaks volumes about your mental state.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hardly ever drive on Connecticut and would almost certainly never bike there, bike lanes or not.

What annoys about this whole episode is that I’m noticing a pattern of behavior with Bowser where she will float controversial proposals, launch drawn-out batteries of community consultations which bitterly divide neighbors, allow these processes to run their course, create the illusion that the decision and concepts have been finalized on the basis of the input received through the official consultation processes and the input of ANCs and relevant councilmembers, and then at the 11th hour switcheroo at the behest of shadowy interests that can’t legitimately claim to represent anyone beyond themselves.

This of course describes the Connecticut bike lane saga to a T, but also is exactly how things went down with several other non-transportation projects in my part of the city.

Some like the end result and so are inclined to defend Bowser or take issue with certain specifics, but no one should be able to argue with a straight face that this is what good municipal governance looks like. She is sowing division and completely undermining faith in the integrity in established structures for participatory governance. Of course, if you do not live in the District and don’t give a damn about anything in the city beyond the ease of your commute, I can understand why this wouldn’t bother you in the slightest.

Hopefully the city can find itself a radically better mayor in a couple of years and take a turn to becoming a better place for people to live, even at the cost of not being the most pleasurable of door mats for suburban commuters.

Bowser wanted ANC support for her voucher plan and the Chevy Chase Library and Small Area Plan. She used bike lanes to get that support and then dropped them because they weren't popular leaving the ANCs holding the bag for everything. The bike lane fiasco sucked up all the backlash and she succeeded.

Nothing about this proposal was an example of good governance. Always remember that it started as a seemingly innocuous discussion on whether or not to keep reversible lanes at rush hour.

I see the anti-Bowser conspiracy theorist is back.

DP. I love would be able to see some logic behind Bowser’s approach - such as that by undermining participatory planning processes and ANCs so that she can get things done faster - but it’s hard to see what she is getting out of all this other than making people hate each other and eventually her too. I tended to give her the benefit of the doubt until she flip-flopped all over the map on school openings over COVID, pitting teachers against parents and endowing the city with a truancy and youth crime crisis. She’s not the worst mayor in DC’s history by a long stretch, but she’s not a leader, has no discernible vision for the city, is a terrible administrator, and is very hard to relate to. In retrospect, it’s not hard to understand how she was almost lost to a Republican in her first mayoral election.

It’s quaint that you think there was real “participatory planning” in the first place. There’s only just power. DDOT only conducts citizen engagement to either inform people of the decisions they have made or to pretend that they are taking community input seriously to justify decisions they have already made. DDOT made a decision that was met with significant resistance from the business community, who are more important than the cycling activists DDOT has been catering to, and as result their decision was overturned. It’s only the mayor’s fault to the extent that she appoints DDOT leadership and DDOT leadership did a bad job of protecting the mayors interests. It’s probably why Everett Lott isn’t there anymore. It’s not more complicated than that.

What is quaint is that you think it’s perfectly fine that elected representatives privilege “business interests” - in reality, a handful of corporate landlords desperately hankering for a return to 2019 amidst their complete denial that the world has moved on - over the ability of DC residents to travel throughout their city in an inexpensive, healthy, safe, and environmentally-friendly manner.

Even the Fleet Feet Fenty's oppose new bike lanes on major roads. The world has indeed moved on.

Has the climate crisis gone away? What about the shortage of lithium and other critical minerals? Have flying cars solved road congestion yet? Have gas prices and the burden they impose on working houses fallen off? Sounds like your head has moved on further into the sand.

Bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will not stop climate change, nor will they end racism.

Small changes are too small, they won't do anything. Big changes are too big, they're not feasible. I'm still waiting to hear if there are any changes that are juuuuuust right.

Similarly, we shouldn't do anything now, it's too soon. And after that, we shouldn't do anything, it's too late.

Yes, everyone that opposes a bike lane is a climate denier or working to prevent anything from happening to address climate change. Meanwhile, all of the bikers are saving the world, especially with their virtue-signaling! You guys are the bestest ever. Thank you for being so amazing, unlike us inferior plebes.

Not everyone who opposes a bike lane is a climate denier. Everyone who opposes a bike lane is opposing an action that will help to mitigate the effects of climate change. If more people biked and fewer people drove, that actually would help with climate change. Perhaps a few people who bike do so solely for the purpose of morally lording it over others, but it's not a common motivation. People who bike are not the best ever or the worst ever, but simply people like people generally are. Some people who bike are amazing, others aren't, just like people generally are. If you feel like someone is trying to make you feel like an inferior plebe, that's a you issue.

Please tell us all how much carbon dioxide emissions bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will save and show your math and assumptions.

So everyone wants to talk climate but no one is willing to put in the hard work to actually prove how these bike lanes would reduce ghgs. Figures.

This study gives you the necessary parameters: https://drawdown.org/solutions/bicycle-infrastructure. Just plug in the specifics for Connecticut Avenue and you will have your answer.

Never stop being unserious. If you actually cared about climate change you wouldn’t be behaving this way.

Doesn’t seem like the bike lane proponents understand that their mendacious cynicism is big part of why public opinion turned against them.

Ah, you mean public opinion used to be in favor of bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue? How interesting.

In the past 5 years there has been generally positive support for bike infrastructure in DC. In the last year in particular it is hard find anyone who is not already a committed cyclist make generally and positive supportive comments about bike infrastructure anywhere in the city. Public sentiment has shifted from generally positive to negative.

The proof is that politicians are highly responsive to public sentiment. Frumin not that long ago was posting photos with his e-bike and now he’s gone MIA on the issue. if public sentiment hadn’t changed, you would have gotten your bike lanes.

And my theory is that it is you folks are a big reason for the shift in sentiment. Turns out that acting like jerkoffs to everyone that has yet to agree with you is not a great way to build a political coalition.

Oh, what great news! There is generally positive support for bike infrastructure in DC! I am looking forward to lots more of it, then. And, of course, anybody peddling the "everybody hates cyclists" line is peddling nonsense.

DP. The PP said there was support but y’all ruined it with your behavior. I think it’s a very reasonable position and consistent with my experience. I think people just get tired when someone takes a posture that’s about complaining about their victimhood all the time when they clearly are not victims.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hardly ever drive on Connecticut and would almost certainly never bike there, bike lanes or not.

What annoys about this whole episode is that I’m noticing a pattern of behavior with Bowser where she will float controversial proposals, launch drawn-out batteries of community consultations which bitterly divide neighbors, allow these processes to run their course, create the illusion that the decision and concepts have been finalized on the basis of the input received through the official consultation processes and the input of ANCs and relevant councilmembers, and then at the 11th hour switcheroo at the behest of shadowy interests that can’t legitimately claim to represent anyone beyond themselves.

This of course describes the Connecticut bike lane saga to a T, but also is exactly how things went down with several other non-transportation projects in my part of the city.

Some like the end result and so are inclined to defend Bowser or take issue with certain specifics, but no one should be able to argue with a straight face that this is what good municipal governance looks like. She is sowing division and completely undermining faith in the integrity in established structures for participatory governance. Of course, if you do not live in the District and don’t give a damn about anything in the city beyond the ease of your commute, I can understand why this wouldn’t bother you in the slightest.

Hopefully the city can find itself a radically better mayor in a couple of years and take a turn to becoming a better place for people to live, even at the cost of not being the most pleasurable of door mats for suburban commuters.

Bowser wanted ANC support for her voucher plan and the Chevy Chase Library and Small Area Plan. She used bike lanes to get that support and then dropped them because they weren't popular leaving the ANCs holding the bag for everything. The bike lane fiasco sucked up all the backlash and she succeeded.

Nothing about this proposal was an example of good governance. Always remember that it started as a seemingly innocuous discussion on whether or not to keep reversible lanes at rush hour.

I see the anti-Bowser conspiracy theorist is back.

DP. I love would be able to see some logic behind Bowser’s approach - such as that by undermining participatory planning processes and ANCs so that she can get things done faster - but it’s hard to see what she is getting out of all this other than making people hate each other and eventually her too. I tended to give her the benefit of the doubt until she flip-flopped all over the map on school openings over COVID, pitting teachers against parents and endowing the city with a truancy and youth crime crisis. She’s not the worst mayor in DC’s history by a long stretch, but she’s not a leader, has no discernible vision for the city, is a terrible administrator, and is very hard to relate to. In retrospect, it’s not hard to understand how she was almost lost to a Republican in her first mayoral election.

It’s quaint that you think there was real “participatory planning” in the first place. There’s only just power. DDOT only conducts citizen engagement to either inform people of the decisions they have made or to pretend that they are taking community input seriously to justify decisions they have already made. DDOT made a decision that was met with significant resistance from the business community, who are more important than the cycling activists DDOT has been catering to, and as result their decision was overturned. It’s only the mayor’s fault to the extent that she appoints DDOT leadership and DDOT leadership did a bad job of protecting the mayors interests. It’s probably why Everett Lott isn’t there anymore. It’s not more complicated than that.

What is quaint is that you think it’s perfectly fine that elected representatives privilege “business interests” - in reality, a handful of corporate landlords desperately hankering for a return to 2019 amidst their complete denial that the world has moved on - over the ability of DC residents to travel throughout their city in an inexpensive, healthy, safe, and environmentally-friendly manner.

Even the Fleet Feet Fenty's oppose new bike lanes on major roads. The world has indeed moved on.

Has the climate crisis gone away? What about the shortage of lithium and other critical minerals? Have flying cars solved road congestion yet? Have gas prices and the burden they impose on working houses fallen off? Sounds like your head has moved on further into the sand.

Bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will not stop climate change, nor will they end racism.

Small changes are too small, they won't do anything. Big changes are too big, they're not feasible. I'm still waiting to hear if there are any changes that are juuuuuust right.

Similarly, we shouldn't do anything now, it's too soon. And after that, we shouldn't do anything, it's too late.

Yes, everyone that opposes a bike lane is a climate denier or working to prevent anything from happening to address climate change. Meanwhile, all of the bikers are saving the world, especially with their virtue-signaling! You guys are the bestest ever. Thank you for being so amazing, unlike us inferior plebes.

Not everyone who opposes a bike lane is a climate denier. Everyone who opposes a bike lane is opposing an action that will help to mitigate the effects of climate change. If more people biked and fewer people drove, that actually would help with climate change. Perhaps a few people who bike do so solely for the purpose of morally lording it over others, but it's not a common motivation. People who bike are not the best ever or the worst ever, but simply people like people generally are. Some people who bike are amazing, others aren't, just like people generally are. If you feel like someone is trying to make you feel like an inferior plebe, that's a you issue.

Please tell us all how much carbon dioxide emissions bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will save and show your math and assumptions.

So everyone wants to talk climate but no one is willing to put in the hard work to actually prove how these bike lanes would reduce ghgs. Figures.

This study gives you the necessary parameters: https://drawdown.org/solutions/bicycle-infrastructure. Just plug in the specifics for Connecticut Avenue and you will have your answer.

Never stop being unserious. If you actually cared about climate change you wouldn’t be behaving this way.

I assume you were referring to what you thought was a dead link. Remove the period from the URL and it works fine. Like this: https://drawdown.org/solutions/bicycle-infrastructure

You’re fundamentally unserious and a joke. But keep going.

I don't know what exactly you want. You asked for an estimate of the effect of bike lanes on carbon emissions and the link provides such an estimate, as well as the math and assumptions. That you respond to people who give you what you ask for with petty insults speaks volumes about your mental state.

You made a very specific and serious claim that the Connecticut Avenue bike lanes are important to address climate change. You were asked to provide an estimate of the avoided emissions and your assumptions at arriving that estimate. You have responded with unserious post after unserious post. You don’t even seem capable of understanding how to construct such an estimate (here’s a hint, it is based on DDOT traffic estimates and not some random external website of dubious provenance). So forgive me for thinking that you are an unserious, self-serving nihilist that think invoking climate change will get you what you want. Probably would invoke racism too if you thought that would get you bike lanes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hardly ever drive on Connecticut and would almost certainly never bike there, bike lanes or not.

What annoys about this whole episode is that I’m noticing a pattern of behavior with Bowser where she will float controversial proposals, launch drawn-out batteries of community consultations which bitterly divide neighbors, allow these processes to run their course, create the illusion that the decision and concepts have been finalized on the basis of the input received through the official consultation processes and the input of ANCs and relevant councilmembers, and then at the 11th hour switcheroo at the behest of shadowy interests that can’t legitimately claim to represent anyone beyond themselves.

This of course describes the Connecticut bike lane saga to a T, but also is exactly how things went down with several other non-transportation projects in my part of the city.

Some like the end result and so are inclined to defend Bowser or take issue with certain specifics, but no one should be able to argue with a straight face that this is what good municipal governance looks like. She is sowing division and completely undermining faith in the integrity in established structures for participatory governance. Of course, if you do not live in the District and don’t give a damn about anything in the city beyond the ease of your commute, I can understand why this wouldn’t bother you in the slightest.

Hopefully the city can find itself a radically better mayor in a couple of years and take a turn to becoming a better place for people to live, even at the cost of not being the most pleasurable of door mats for suburban commuters.

Bowser wanted ANC support for her voucher plan and the Chevy Chase Library and Small Area Plan. She used bike lanes to get that support and then dropped them because they weren't popular leaving the ANCs holding the bag for everything. The bike lane fiasco sucked up all the backlash and she succeeded.

Nothing about this proposal was an example of good governance. Always remember that it started as a seemingly innocuous discussion on whether or not to keep reversible lanes at rush hour.

I see the anti-Bowser conspiracy theorist is back.

DP. I love would be able to see some logic behind Bowser’s approach - such as that by undermining participatory planning processes and ANCs so that she can get things done faster - but it’s hard to see what she is getting out of all this other than making people hate each other and eventually her too. I tended to give her the benefit of the doubt until she flip-flopped all over the map on school openings over COVID, pitting teachers against parents and endowing the city with a truancy and youth crime crisis. She’s not the worst mayor in DC’s history by a long stretch, but she’s not a leader, has no discernible vision for the city, is a terrible administrator, and is very hard to relate to. In retrospect, it’s not hard to understand how she was almost lost to a Republican in her first mayoral election.

It’s quaint that you think there was real “participatory planning” in the first place. There’s only just power. DDOT only conducts citizen engagement to either inform people of the decisions they have made or to pretend that they are taking community input seriously to justify decisions they have already made. DDOT made a decision that was met with significant resistance from the business community, who are more important than the cycling activists DDOT has been catering to, and as result their decision was overturned. It’s only the mayor’s fault to the extent that she appoints DDOT leadership and DDOT leadership did a bad job of protecting the mayors interests. It’s probably why Everett Lott isn’t there anymore. It’s not more complicated than that.

What is quaint is that you think it’s perfectly fine that elected representatives privilege “business interests” - in reality, a handful of corporate landlords desperately hankering for a return to 2019 amidst their complete denial that the world has moved on - over the ability of DC residents to travel throughout their city in an inexpensive, healthy, safe, and environmentally-friendly manner.

Even the Fleet Feet Fenty's oppose new bike lanes on major roads. The world has indeed moved on.

Has the climate crisis gone away? What about the shortage of lithium and other critical minerals? Have flying cars solved road congestion yet? Have gas prices and the burden they impose on working houses fallen off? Sounds like your head has moved on further into the sand.

Bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will not stop climate change, nor will they end racism.

Small changes are too small, they won't do anything. Big changes are too big, they're not feasible. I'm still waiting to hear if there are any changes that are juuuuuust right.

Similarly, we shouldn't do anything now, it's too soon. And after that, we shouldn't do anything, it's too late.

Yes, everyone that opposes a bike lane is a climate denier or working to prevent anything from happening to address climate change. Meanwhile, all of the bikers are saving the world, especially with their virtue-signaling! You guys are the bestest ever. Thank you for being so amazing, unlike us inferior plebes.

Not everyone who opposes a bike lane is a climate denier. Everyone who opposes a bike lane is opposing an action that will help to mitigate the effects of climate change. If more people biked and fewer people drove, that actually would help with climate change. Perhaps a few people who bike do so solely for the purpose of morally lording it over others, but it's not a common motivation. People who bike are not the best ever or the worst ever, but simply people like people generally are. Some people who bike are amazing, others aren't, just like people generally are. If you feel like someone is trying to make you feel like an inferior plebe, that's a you issue.

Please tell us all how much carbon dioxide emissions bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will save and show your math and assumptions.

So everyone wants to talk climate but no one is willing to put in the hard work to actually prove how these bike lanes would reduce ghgs. Figures.

This study gives you the necessary parameters: https://drawdown.org/solutions/bicycle-infrastructure. Just plug in the specifics for Connecticut Avenue and you will have your answer.

Never stop being unserious. If you actually cared about climate change you wouldn’t be behaving this way.

Doesn’t seem like the bike lane proponents understand that their mendacious cynicism is big part of why public opinion turned against them.

Ah, you mean public opinion used to be in favor of bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue? How interesting.

In the past 5 years there has been generally positive support for bike infrastructure in DC. In the last year in particular it is hard find anyone who is not already a committed cyclist make generally and positive supportive comments about bike infrastructure anywhere in the city. Public sentiment has shifted from generally positive to negative.

The proof is that politicians are highly responsive to public sentiment. Frumin not that long ago was posting photos with his e-bike and now he’s gone MIA on the issue. if public sentiment hadn’t changed, you would have gotten your bike lanes.

And my theory is that it is you folks are a big reason for the shift in sentiment. Turns out that acting like jerkoffs to everyone that has yet to agree with you is not a great way to build a political coalition.

Oh, what great news! There is generally positive support for bike infrastructure in DC! I am looking forward to lots more of it, then. And, of course, anybody peddling the "everybody hates cyclists" line is peddling nonsense.

DP. The PP said there was support but y’all ruined it with your behavior. I think it’s a very reasonable position and consistent with my experience. I think people just get tired when someone takes a posture that’s about complaining about their victimhood all the time when they clearly are not victims.

It's a very reasonable position that everybody used to support bike lanes but then the All-Powerful Bicycle Lobby ruined it by advocating for bike lanes? Naw.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hardly ever drive on Connecticut and would almost certainly never bike there, bike lanes or not.

What annoys about this whole episode is that I’m noticing a pattern of behavior with Bowser where she will float controversial proposals, launch drawn-out batteries of community consultations which bitterly divide neighbors, allow these processes to run their course, create the illusion that the decision and concepts have been finalized on the basis of the input received through the official consultation processes and the input of ANCs and relevant councilmembers, and then at the 11th hour switcheroo at the behest of shadowy interests that can’t legitimately claim to represent anyone beyond themselves.

This of course describes the Connecticut bike lane saga to a T, but also is exactly how things went down with several other non-transportation projects in my part of the city.

Some like the end result and so are inclined to defend Bowser or take issue with certain specifics, but no one should be able to argue with a straight face that this is what good municipal governance looks like. She is sowing division and completely undermining faith in the integrity in established structures for participatory governance. Of course, if you do not live in the District and don’t give a damn about anything in the city beyond the ease of your commute, I can understand why this wouldn’t bother you in the slightest.

Hopefully the city can find itself a radically better mayor in a couple of years and take a turn to becoming a better place for people to live, even at the cost of not being the most pleasurable of door mats for suburban commuters.

Bowser wanted ANC support for her voucher plan and the Chevy Chase Library and Small Area Plan. She used bike lanes to get that support and then dropped them because they weren't popular leaving the ANCs holding the bag for everything. The bike lane fiasco sucked up all the backlash and she succeeded.

Nothing about this proposal was an example of good governance. Always remember that it started as a seemingly innocuous discussion on whether or not to keep reversible lanes at rush hour.

I see the anti-Bowser conspiracy theorist is back.

DP. I love would be able to see some logic behind Bowser’s approach - such as that by undermining participatory planning processes and ANCs so that she can get things done faster - but it’s hard to see what she is getting out of all this other than making people hate each other and eventually her too. I tended to give her the benefit of the doubt until she flip-flopped all over the map on school openings over COVID, pitting teachers against parents and endowing the city with a truancy and youth crime crisis. She’s not the worst mayor in DC’s history by a long stretch, but she’s not a leader, has no discernible vision for the city, is a terrible administrator, and is very hard to relate to. In retrospect, it’s not hard to understand how she was almost lost to a Republican in her first mayoral election.

It’s quaint that you think there was real “participatory planning” in the first place. There’s only just power. DDOT only conducts citizen engagement to either inform people of the decisions they have made or to pretend that they are taking community input seriously to justify decisions they have already made. DDOT made a decision that was met with significant resistance from the business community, who are more important than the cycling activists DDOT has been catering to, and as result their decision was overturned. It’s only the mayor’s fault to the extent that she appoints DDOT leadership and DDOT leadership did a bad job of protecting the mayors interests. It’s probably why Everett Lott isn’t there anymore. It’s not more complicated than that.

What is quaint is that you think it’s perfectly fine that elected representatives privilege “business interests” - in reality, a handful of corporate landlords desperately hankering for a return to 2019 amidst their complete denial that the world has moved on - over the ability of DC residents to travel throughout their city in an inexpensive, healthy, safe, and environmentally-friendly manner.

Even the Fleet Feet Fenty's oppose new bike lanes on major roads. The world has indeed moved on.

Has the climate crisis gone away? What about the shortage of lithium and other critical minerals? Have flying cars solved road congestion yet? Have gas prices and the burden they impose on working houses fallen off? Sounds like your head has moved on further into the sand.

Bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will not stop climate change, nor will they end racism.

Small changes are too small, they won't do anything. Big changes are too big, they're not feasible. I'm still waiting to hear if there are any changes that are juuuuuust right.

Similarly, we shouldn't do anything now, it's too soon. And after that, we shouldn't do anything, it's too late.

Yes, everyone that opposes a bike lane is a climate denier or working to prevent anything from happening to address climate change. Meanwhile, all of the bikers are saving the world, especially with their virtue-signaling! You guys are the bestest ever. Thank you for being so amazing, unlike us inferior plebes.

Not everyone who opposes a bike lane is a climate denier. Everyone who opposes a bike lane is opposing an action that will help to mitigate the effects of climate change. If more people biked and fewer people drove, that actually would help with climate change. Perhaps a few people who bike do so solely for the purpose of morally lording it over others, but it's not a common motivation. People who bike are not the best ever or the worst ever, but simply people like people generally are. Some people who bike are amazing, others aren't, just like people generally are. If you feel like someone is trying to make you feel like an inferior plebe, that's a you issue.

Please tell us all how much carbon dioxide emissions bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will save and show your math and assumptions.

So everyone wants to talk climate but no one is willing to put in the hard work to actually prove how these bike lanes would reduce ghgs. Figures.

This study gives you the necessary parameters: https://drawdown.org/solutions/bicycle-infrastructure. Just plug in the specifics for Connecticut Avenue and you will have your answer.

Never stop being unserious. If you actually cared about climate change you wouldn’t be behaving this way.

Doesn’t seem like the bike lane proponents understand that their mendacious cynicism is big part of why public opinion turned against them.

Ah, you mean public opinion used to be in favor of bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue? How interesting.

In the past 5 years there has been generally positive support for bike infrastructure in DC. In the last year in particular it is hard find anyone who is not already a committed cyclist make generally and positive supportive comments about bike infrastructure anywhere in the city. Public sentiment has shifted from generally positive to negative.

The proof is that politicians are highly responsive to public sentiment. Frumin not that long ago was posting photos with his e-bike and now he’s gone MIA on the issue. if public sentiment hadn’t changed, you would have gotten your bike lanes.

And my theory is that it is you folks are a big reason for the shift in sentiment. Turns out that acting like jerkoffs to everyone that has yet to agree with you is not a great way to build a political coalition.

Oh, what great news! There is generally positive support for bike infrastructure in DC! I am looking forward to lots more of it, then. And, of course, anybody peddling the "everybody hates cyclists" line is peddling nonsense.

DP. The PP said there was support but y’all ruined it with your behavior. I think it’s a very reasonable position and consistent with my experience. I think people just get tired when someone takes a posture that’s about complaining about their victimhood all the time when they clearly are not victims.

It's a very reasonable position that everybody used to support bike lanes but then the All-Powerful Bicycle Lobby ruined it by advocating for bike lanes? Naw.

No, just you and your friends being obsessively annoying and obnoxious to everyone in every possible medium you can find. Like right here and right now. But also in ANC meetings, on community listservs, social media, etc. You don’t understand at all how ridiculously obnoxious you are, which is a big turnoff to average “normies” who generally don’t want to be associated with cranks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hardly ever drive on Connecticut and would almost certainly never bike there, bike lanes or not.

What annoys about this whole episode is that I’m noticing a pattern of behavior with Bowser where she will float controversial proposals, launch drawn-out batteries of community consultations which bitterly divide neighbors, allow these processes to run their course, create the illusion that the decision and concepts have been finalized on the basis of the input received through the official consultation processes and the input of ANCs and relevant councilmembers, and then at the 11th hour switcheroo at the behest of shadowy interests that can’t legitimately claim to represent anyone beyond themselves.

This of course describes the Connecticut bike lane saga to a T, but also is exactly how things went down with several other non-transportation projects in my part of the city.

Some like the end result and so are inclined to defend Bowser or take issue with certain specifics, but no one should be able to argue with a straight face that this is what good municipal governance looks like. She is sowing division and completely undermining faith in the integrity in established structures for participatory governance. Of course, if you do not live in the District and don’t give a damn about anything in the city beyond the ease of your commute, I can understand why this wouldn’t bother you in the slightest.

Hopefully the city can find itself a radically better mayor in a couple of years and take a turn to becoming a better place for people to live, even at the cost of not being the most pleasurable of door mats for suburban commuters.

Bowser wanted ANC support for her voucher plan and the Chevy Chase Library and Small Area Plan. She used bike lanes to get that support and then dropped them because they weren't popular leaving the ANCs holding the bag for everything. The bike lane fiasco sucked up all the backlash and she succeeded.

Nothing about this proposal was an example of good governance. Always remember that it started as a seemingly innocuous discussion on whether or not to keep reversible lanes at rush hour.

I see the anti-Bowser conspiracy theorist is back.

DP. I love would be able to see some logic behind Bowser’s approach - such as that by undermining participatory planning processes and ANCs so that she can get things done faster - but it’s hard to see what she is getting out of all this other than making people hate each other and eventually her too. I tended to give her the benefit of the doubt until she flip-flopped all over the map on school openings over COVID, pitting teachers against parents and endowing the city with a truancy and youth crime crisis. She’s not the worst mayor in DC’s history by a long stretch, but she’s not a leader, has no discernible vision for the city, is a terrible administrator, and is very hard to relate to. In retrospect, it’s not hard to understand how she was almost lost to a Republican in her first mayoral election.

It’s quaint that you think there was real “participatory planning” in the first place. There’s only just power. DDOT only conducts citizen engagement to either inform people of the decisions they have made or to pretend that they are taking community input seriously to justify decisions they have already made. DDOT made a decision that was met with significant resistance from the business community, who are more important than the cycling activists DDOT has been catering to, and as result their decision was overturned. It’s only the mayor’s fault to the extent that she appoints DDOT leadership and DDOT leadership did a bad job of protecting the mayors interests. It’s probably why Everett Lott isn’t there anymore. It’s not more complicated than that.

What is quaint is that you think it’s perfectly fine that elected representatives privilege “business interests” - in reality, a handful of corporate landlords desperately hankering for a return to 2019 amidst their complete denial that the world has moved on - over the ability of DC residents to travel throughout their city in an inexpensive, healthy, safe, and environmentally-friendly manner.

Even the Fleet Feet Fenty's oppose new bike lanes on major roads. The world has indeed moved on.

Has the climate crisis gone away? What about the shortage of lithium and other critical minerals? Have flying cars solved road congestion yet? Have gas prices and the burden they impose on working houses fallen off? Sounds like your head has moved on further into the sand.

Bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will not stop climate change, nor will they end racism.

Small changes are too small, they won't do anything. Big changes are too big, they're not feasible. I'm still waiting to hear if there are any changes that are juuuuuust right.

Similarly, we shouldn't do anything now, it's too soon. And after that, we shouldn't do anything, it's too late.

Yes, everyone that opposes a bike lane is a climate denier or working to prevent anything from happening to address climate change. Meanwhile, all of the bikers are saving the world, especially with their virtue-signaling! You guys are the bestest ever. Thank you for being so amazing, unlike us inferior plebes.

Not everyone who opposes a bike lane is a climate denier. Everyone who opposes a bike lane is opposing an action that will help to mitigate the effects of climate change. If more people biked and fewer people drove, that actually would help with climate change. Perhaps a few people who bike do so solely for the purpose of morally lording it over others, but it's not a common motivation. People who bike are not the best ever or the worst ever, but simply people like people generally are. Some people who bike are amazing, others aren't, just like people generally are. If you feel like someone is trying to make you feel like an inferior plebe, that's a you issue.

Please tell us all how much carbon dioxide emissions bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will save and show your math and assumptions.

So everyone wants to talk climate but no one is willing to put in the hard work to actually prove how these bike lanes would reduce ghgs. Figures.

This study gives you the necessary parameters: https://drawdown.org/solutions/bicycle-infrastructure. Just plug in the specifics for Connecticut Avenue and you will have your answer.

Never stop being unserious. If you actually cared about climate change you wouldn’t be behaving this way.

Doesn’t seem like the bike lane proponents understand that their mendacious cynicism is big part of why public opinion turned against them.

Ah, you mean public opinion used to be in favor of bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue? How interesting.

In the past 5 years there has been generally positive support for bike infrastructure in DC. In the last year in particular it is hard find anyone who is not already a committed cyclist make generally and positive supportive comments about bike infrastructure anywhere in the city. Public sentiment has shifted from generally positive to negative.

The proof is that politicians are highly responsive to public sentiment. Frumin not that long ago was posting photos with his e-bike and now he’s gone MIA on the issue. if public sentiment hadn’t changed, you would have gotten your bike lanes.

And my theory is that it is you folks are a big reason for the shift in sentiment. Turns out that acting like jerkoffs to everyone that has yet to agree with you is not a great way to build a political coalition.

Oh, what great news! There is generally positive support for bike infrastructure in DC! I am looking forward to lots more of it, then. And, of course, anybody peddling the "everybody hates cyclists" line is peddling nonsense.

DP. The PP said there was support but y’all ruined it with your behavior. I think it’s a very reasonable position and consistent with my experience. I think people just get tired when someone takes a posture that’s about complaining about their victimhood all the time when they clearly are not victims.

It's a very reasonable position that everybody used to support bike lanes but then the All-Powerful Bicycle Lobby ruined it by advocating for bike lanes? Naw.

No, just you and your friends being obsessively annoying and obnoxious to everyone in every possible medium you can find. Like right here and right now. But also in ANC meetings, on community listservs, social media, etc. You don’t understand at all how ridiculously obnoxious you are, which is a big turnoff to average “normies” who generally don’t want to be associated with cranks.

Oh, the irony.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hardly ever drive on Connecticut and would almost certainly never bike there, bike lanes or not.

What annoys about this whole episode is that I’m noticing a pattern of behavior with Bowser where she will float controversial proposals, launch drawn-out batteries of community consultations which bitterly divide neighbors, allow these processes to run their course, create the illusion that the decision and concepts have been finalized on the basis of the input received through the official consultation processes and the input of ANCs and relevant councilmembers, and then at the 11th hour switcheroo at the behest of shadowy interests that can’t legitimately claim to represent anyone beyond themselves.

This of course describes the Connecticut bike lane saga to a T, but also is exactly how things went down with several other non-transportation projects in my part of the city.

Some like the end result and so are inclined to defend Bowser or take issue with certain specifics, but no one should be able to argue with a straight face that this is what good municipal governance looks like. She is sowing division and completely undermining faith in the integrity in established structures for participatory governance. Of course, if you do not live in the District and don’t give a damn about anything in the city beyond the ease of your commute, I can understand why this wouldn’t bother you in the slightest.

Hopefully the city can find itself a radically better mayor in a couple of years and take a turn to becoming a better place for people to live, even at the cost of not being the most pleasurable of door mats for suburban commuters.

Bowser wanted ANC support for her voucher plan and the Chevy Chase Library and Small Area Plan. She used bike lanes to get that support and then dropped them because they weren't popular leaving the ANCs holding the bag for everything. The bike lane fiasco sucked up all the backlash and she succeeded.

Nothing about this proposal was an example of good governance. Always remember that it started as a seemingly innocuous discussion on whether or not to keep reversible lanes at rush hour.

I see the anti-Bowser conspiracy theorist is back.

DP. I love would be able to see some logic behind Bowser’s approach - such as that by undermining participatory planning processes and ANCs so that she can get things done faster - but it’s hard to see what she is getting out of all this other than making people hate each other and eventually her too. I tended to give her the benefit of the doubt until she flip-flopped all over the map on school openings over COVID, pitting teachers against parents and endowing the city with a truancy and youth crime crisis. She’s not the worst mayor in DC’s history by a long stretch, but she’s not a leader, has no discernible vision for the city, is a terrible administrator, and is very hard to relate to. In retrospect, it’s not hard to understand how she was almost lost to a Republican in her first mayoral election.

It’s quaint that you think there was real “participatory planning” in the first place. There’s only just power. DDOT only conducts citizen engagement to either inform people of the decisions they have made or to pretend that they are taking community input seriously to justify decisions they have already made. DDOT made a decision that was met with significant resistance from the business community, who are more important than the cycling activists DDOT has been catering to, and as result their decision was overturned. It’s only the mayor’s fault to the extent that she appoints DDOT leadership and DDOT leadership did a bad job of protecting the mayors interests. It’s probably why Everett Lott isn’t there anymore. It’s not more complicated than that.

What is quaint is that you think it’s perfectly fine that elected representatives privilege “business interests” - in reality, a handful of corporate landlords desperately hankering for a return to 2019 amidst their complete denial that the world has moved on - over the ability of DC residents to travel throughout their city in an inexpensive, healthy, safe, and environmentally-friendly manner.

Even the Fleet Feet Fenty's oppose new bike lanes on major roads. The world has indeed moved on.

Has the climate crisis gone away? What about the shortage of lithium and other critical minerals? Have flying cars solved road congestion yet? Have gas prices and the burden they impose on working houses fallen off? Sounds like your head has moved on further into the sand.

Bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will not stop climate change, nor will they end racism.

Small changes are too small, they won't do anything. Big changes are too big, they're not feasible. I'm still waiting to hear if there are any changes that are juuuuuust right.

Similarly, we shouldn't do anything now, it's too soon. And after that, we shouldn't do anything, it's too late.

Yes, everyone that opposes a bike lane is a climate denier or working to prevent anything from happening to address climate change. Meanwhile, all of the bikers are saving the world, especially with their virtue-signaling! You guys are the bestest ever. Thank you for being so amazing, unlike us inferior plebes.

Not everyone who opposes a bike lane is a climate denier. Everyone who opposes a bike lane is opposing an action that will help to mitigate the effects of climate change. If more people biked and fewer people drove, that actually would help with climate change. Perhaps a few people who bike do so solely for the purpose of morally lording it over others, but it's not a common motivation. People who bike are not the best ever or the worst ever, but simply people like people generally are. Some people who bike are amazing, others aren't, just like people generally are. If you feel like someone is trying to make you feel like an inferior plebe, that's a you issue.

Please tell us all how much carbon dioxide emissions bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue will save and show your math and assumptions.

So everyone wants to talk climate but no one is willing to put in the hard work to actually prove how these bike lanes would reduce ghgs. Figures.

This study gives you the necessary parameters: https://drawdown.org/solutions/bicycle-infrastructure. Just plug in the specifics for Connecticut Avenue and you will have your answer.

Never stop being unserious. If you actually cared about climate change you wouldn’t be behaving this way.

Doesn’t seem like the bike lane proponents understand that their mendacious cynicism is big part of why public opinion turned against them.

Ah, you mean public opinion used to be in favor of bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue? How interesting.

In the past 5 years there has been generally positive support for bike infrastructure in DC. In the last year in particular it is hard find anyone who is not already a committed cyclist make generally and positive supportive comments about bike infrastructure anywhere in the city. Public sentiment has shifted from generally positive to negative.

The proof is that politicians are highly responsive to public sentiment. Frumin not that long ago was posting photos with his e-bike and now he’s gone MIA on the issue. if public sentiment hadn’t changed, you would have gotten your bike lanes.

And my theory is that it is you folks are a big reason for the shift in sentiment. Turns out that acting like jerkoffs to everyone that has yet to agree with you is not a great way to build a political coalition.

Oh, what great news! There is generally positive support for bike infrastructure in DC! I am looking forward to lots more of it, then. And, of course, anybody peddling the "everybody hates cyclists" line is peddling nonsense.

DP. The PP said there was support but y’all ruined it with your behavior. I think it’s a very reasonable position and consistent with my experience. I think people just get tired when someone takes a posture that’s about complaining about their victimhood all the time when they clearly are not victims.

It's a very reasonable position that everybody used to support bike lanes but then the All-Powerful Bicycle Lobby ruined it by advocating for bike lanes? Naw.

No, just you and your friends being obsessively annoying and obnoxious to everyone in every possible medium you can find. Like right here and right now. But also in ANC meetings, on community listservs, social media, etc. You don’t understand at all how ridiculously obnoxious you are, which is a big turnoff to average “normies” who generally don’t want to be associated with cranks.

Oh, the irony.

I would like to hear you explain what you think happened without invoking shadowy conspiracies.

Based on your own belief, just 18 months ago you got Frumin elected with bike lanes being a decisive issue in the campaign. His last newsletter was on May 16 amidst the budget discussion. He had a lot to say about Bike to Work Day and Safe Routes to School. He had nothing to say about what you believe to be a core issue in his campaign and a key campaign promise. He has subsequently made zero public comments about Mendelson’s budget. Why is that? What happened?