Anonymous
Post 05/29/2024 18:21     Subject: Connecticut Ave bike lanes are back!

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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.


That was one of their original arguments. That bike lanes would increase diversity.

There is pretty much no issue they haven't claimed bike lanes would solve. Think I'm joking? Earlier in this thread one of them said that bike lanes would bring peace to the middle east.


Bike Bros will throw anything at the wall, including that bike lanes will increase diversity, equity and inclusion. Density Bros do the same thing, arguing that ever more upscale, market rate condos will increase, you got it, DEI. They use whatever can help to sell to a DC audience the product or position that they are peddling (no pun intended).
Anonymous
Post 05/29/2024 18:19     Subject: Connecticut Ave bike lanes are back!



Let’s just say whatever makes driving harder is going to combat climate change as it will discourage at least some people from driving. Personally my preferred solution would simply be a congestion charge a la London or New York. You want to drive into DC (or ideally really on any road): you better pay up. Call it toll for any road or whatever you like. Or increase the gas tax. The point is we have to increase the cost of driving.




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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.


I don't know who you're responding to and you obviously don't either, but there are umpteen studies out there that demonstrate the construction of protected bike lanes result in the increased adoption of biking for trips and hence reduced use of motor vehicles and thus less carbon emissions. If I thought for a minute that you were approaching this issue in good faith, I would be happy to dig out those studies for you. But we all know that they have been posted before in this and other threads and that you've made a conscious decision to ignore them. Now you are asking people to construct complex mathematical models and produce estimates that you will likewise ignore because they conflict with your particular worldview. But because supporters of bike lanes aren't eager to waste a bunch of time doing homework just to be ignored and scoffed at, you accuse them of being "an unserious, self-serving nihilist"? Do you have an inkling of how batshit crazy you really are?

Don’t need “umpteen studies”. You said that these specific bike lanes were important for climate change. You cannot even make a guess how to begin estimating avoided emissions.

Let me cut to the chase for you. DDOTs own studies said that the bike lanes would have zero effect on traffic levels. That means that the same numbers of cars that are driving today would be driving after the bike lanes were installed. So the avoided emissions for these bike lanes are ZERO.

It’s honestly hard to tell sometimes with you people if it’s Poes Law or not.
Anonymous
Post 05/29/2024 17:48     Subject: Re:Connecticut Ave bike lanes are back!

Anonymous wrote:I drive a hybrid vehicle, and will never, like the vast majority of other dc residents, use a bicycle as my primary method of transportation. I am disabled and the bike lobby doesn’t care about anyone but themselves. They have proven themselves to be a self centered entitled bunch of jerks. Sore losers, all.


Ever heard of e-tricycles? They are great. If you can get yourself into a car you likely can also get in an e-tricycle. Would be good for you to get at least a little workout. There are a ton of bike options for people with disabilities so cut that crap.
Anonymous
Post 05/29/2024 17:12     Subject: Connecticut Ave bike lanes are back!

Anonymous wrote:
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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.


That was one of their original arguments. That bike lanes would increase diversity.

There is pretty much no issue they haven't claimed bike lanes would solve. Think I'm joking? Earlier in this thread one of them said that bike lanes would bring peace to the middle east.
Anonymous
Post 05/29/2024 16:54     Subject: Connecticut Ave bike lanes are back!

The bike lanes folks are now arguing that the 2022 Ward 3 elections were not about bike lanes and bike lanes have no effect on climate change. I welcome them to reality after 80 pages.

I’m going to log off now. Enjoy wasting your own time lying to yourselves about an issue that’s over. Seems healthy.
Anonymous
Post 05/29/2024 16:45     Subject: Connecticut Ave bike lanes are back!

Anonymous wrote:
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Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
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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.


I don't know who you're responding to and you obviously don't either, but there are umpteen studies out there that demonstrate the construction of protected bike lanes result in the increased adoption of biking for trips and hence reduced use of motor vehicles and thus less carbon emissions. If I thought for a minute that you were approaching this issue in good faith, I would be happy to dig out those studies for you. But we all know that they have been posted before in this and other threads and that you've made a conscious decision to ignore them. Now you are asking people to construct complex mathematical models and produce estimates that you will likewise ignore because they conflict with your particular worldview. But because supporters of bike lanes aren't eager to waste a bunch of time doing homework just to be ignored and scoffed at, you accuse them of being "an unserious, self-serving nihilist"? Do you have an inkling of how batshit crazy you really are?

Don’t need “umpteen studies”. You said that these specific bike lanes were important for climate change. You cannot even make a guess how to begin estimating avoided emissions.

Let me cut to the chase for you. DDOTs own studies said that the bike lanes would have zero effect on traffic levels. That means that the same numbers of cars that are driving today would be driving after the bike lanes were installed. So the avoided emissions for these bike lanes are ZERO.

It’s honestly hard to tell sometimes with you people if it’s Poes Law or not.


Nobody has said that in the last 10 pages.

Here are two possible responses for you:

1. Yuh huh, they did too, you unserious self-serving nihilist!
2. Even YOU can't justify the Connecticut Ave bike lanes on grounds of climate change, you unserious self-serving nihilist!
Anonymous
Post 05/29/2024 16:44     Subject: Connecticut Ave bike lanes are back!

Anonymous wrote:
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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?



Wait. The 2022 elections were a plebiscite on bike lanes. And pickleball.

Keep up the behavior that’s clearly effective at winning friends and influencing people. You’re doing great hon!
Anonymous
Post 05/29/2024 16:43     Subject: Connecticut Ave bike lanes are back!

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
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: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.


Where did anyone make that claim? Find us the full quote. We will wait.


DP. I think the "very specific and serious claim that the Connecticut Avenue bike lanes are important to address climate change" is this post:

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.

Which seems like a very non-specific post to me, tbh.
Anonymous
Post 05/29/2024 16:43     Subject: Connecticut Ave bike lanes are back!

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.


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.


Where did anyone make that claim? Find us the full quote. We will wait.

Are you serious right now? This is the obnoxious mendaciousness that the PPP was talking about that turns people off.
Anonymous
Post 05/29/2024 16:40     Subject: Connecticut Ave bike lanes are back!

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.


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.


I don't know who you're responding to and you obviously don't either, but there are umpteen studies out there that demonstrate the construction of protected bike lanes result in the increased adoption of biking for trips and hence reduced use of motor vehicles and thus less carbon emissions. If I thought for a minute that you were approaching this issue in good faith, I would be happy to dig out those studies for you. But we all know that they have been posted before in this and other threads and that you've made a conscious decision to ignore them. Now you are asking people to construct complex mathematical models and produce estimates that you will likewise ignore because they conflict with your particular worldview. But because supporters of bike lanes aren't eager to waste a bunch of time doing homework just to be ignored and scoffed at, you accuse them of being "an unserious, self-serving nihilist"? Do you have an inkling of how batshit crazy you really are?

Don’t need “umpteen studies”. You said that these specific bike lanes were important for climate change. You cannot even make a guess how to begin estimating avoided emissions.

Let me cut to the chase for you. DDOTs own studies said that the bike lanes would have zero effect on traffic levels. That means that the same numbers of cars that are driving today would be driving after the bike lanes were installed. So the avoided emissions for these bike lanes are ZERO.

It’s honestly hard to tell sometimes with you people if it’s Poes Law or not.
Anonymous
Post 05/29/2024 16:38     Subject: Connecticut Ave bike lanes are back!

Anonymous wrote:
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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.


Where did anyone make that claim? Find us the full quote. We will wait.
Anonymous
Post 05/29/2024 16:36     Subject: Connecticut Ave bike lanes are back!

Anonymous wrote:
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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?



Wait. The 2022 elections were a plebiscite on bike lanes. And pickleball.
Anonymous
Post 05/29/2024 16:35     Subject: Connecticut Ave bike lanes are back!

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.


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.


I don't know who you're responding to and you obviously don't either, but there are umpteen studies out there that demonstrate the construction of protected bike lanes result in the increased adoption of biking for trips and hence reduced use of motor vehicles and thus less carbon emissions. If I thought for a minute that you were approaching this issue in good faith, I would be happy to dig out those studies for you. But we all know that they have been posted before in this and other threads and that you've made a conscious decision to ignore them. Now you are asking people to construct complex mathematical models and produce estimates that you will likewise ignore because they conflict with your particular worldview. But because supporters of bike lanes aren't eager to waste a bunch of time doing homework just to be ignored and scoffed at, you accuse them of being "an unserious, self-serving nihilist"? Do you have an inkling of how batshit crazy you really are?
Anonymous
Post 05/29/2024 16:33     Subject: Connecticut Ave bike lanes are back!

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:
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?



"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." An ironic statement.

Also, you are responding to multiple posters. I have said nothing about Frumin. Not one word.
Anonymous
Post 05/29/2024 16:33     Subject: Connecticut Ave bike lanes are back!

Who would think it’s a reasonable position to deny funding for safer school crossings unless DC builds bike lanes for a vocal group?