Local Governments Hotlink Critical Mass

An Eastbay cyclist writes:

Are the extremist anti-car Critical Mass organizing bicycle coalitions recieving special government promoting services? Go to most Bay Area gov. websites such as the cities of SF, Oakland, Berkeley, or gov.agencies such as the MTC & CalTrans, and you'll discover that the ambitious & insidious anti-car Critical Mass bicycle activists have cleverly managed to get their numerous bicycle coalition organization websites hotlinked from official city and regional government websites! Search "bicycle coalition" on the city websites to find the hotlinks. They're usually listed as resources, outside links, bicycle organizations, etc. under the DPT or city public works bicycle program pages. An obvious conflict of interest? Berkeley now has 3 appointed city transportation commissioners who are longtime Bicycle Friendly Berkeley Coalition activists, with transportation commissioner Dave Campbell being the president of BFBC. The City of Berkeley's public works bicycle program "bicycle resources" webpage hotlinks the public to Campbell's BFBC homepage! This is unethical and possibly a serious conflict of interest. Defiantly, Berkeley City Attorney Christi Van Herrick refuses to stop allowing city bicycle program staff, who are bicycle coalition members, from promoting via hotlinks the BFBC and other questionable bicycle coalitions, and their lobbies, on the city website. Berkeley's hotlink referral list also includes the CA Bicycle Coalition (CBC), a CA Sec. of State registered Sacramento lobby (the Sec. of State Political Reform Div. CBC Client # is C27624) The CBC lobby is also hotlinked by the official websites of the cities of SF, Oakland, and the MTC & Caltrans, among others.

The City of San Francisco DPT Bicycle Program is hotlinking the public to SF Municipal Transportation Agency board director Leah Shahum's SF Bicycle Coalition website, of which she's the chair! (http://bicycle.sfgov.org/site/dptbike_index.asp) When contacted about what appears to be a obvious conflict of interest and misuse of the city website to benefit & promote Commissioner Shahum's SFBC, Mayor Newsom aid Lisa Shell agreed that it appeared to be a wrong use of public services, but later she defended such a special relationship of preferential hot-linking on the City's website to the bicycle coalition's home pages as a political gray area in city policy that in fact legally permits the practice and that the Mayor's office thinks it's appropriate that the SFBC is being promoted (at taxpayer expense!) on the City website!

This practice of government hotlinking the public to the dubious bicycle coalition websites implies that governments are endorsing and approving the extremist bicycle coalition's politics and agenda. The bicycle extremists are being blessed or recognized by the cities as the official representatives of bicyclists, which is exactly what the dubious bicycle coalitions have been working to achieve! It's official government promotion. In fact it's an official government-provided recruiting service that benefits and legitimizes the bicycle Marxists' anti-car agenda. Keep in mind that the bicycle coalition greenies want to aggressively punish Bay Area motorists for driving by promoting endless car restrictions, expensive tickets, the installation of bicycle-hazardous traffic calming control devices everywhere, such as speed bumps and circles, the permanent closure of GG Park to cars, and astronomical vehicle taxes, fees, and fuel taxes.

These elitist, anti-car, far-left bicycle coalition activists certainly don't represent the interests of most cyclists. Unfortunately, to the detriment of working to attain reasonable and safe bicycle improvments, the bicycle coalition's doctrinaire anti-car extremism is monopolizing and controling bicycle advocacy, with some undeserved help from local government! Call or email your elected officials and your public works managers and demand that they stop permitting city websites to be used by the insidious bicycle coalitions as a self promoting and recruiting service to build their anti-car Critical Mass bicycle coalitions.

(See also http://district5diary.blogspot.com/2005/04/bicycle-coalition-endorses-critical.html)