Head of DPW is a bike nut
The Bicycle Coalition informs us that Ed Reiskin, the head of the city's Department of Public Works, is a bike nut. Anyone who hauls his/her child around the city on the back of his/her bike should be disqualified from holding a management position with city government:
I enjoy biking because it’s the best way to get around. Last week on my day to do kid drop-off I took my five-year-old on the back of my bike. And she was really excited: ‘can we do this every morning?’ But as we rode in, my wife and her sister (who works at the school) were also driving in. We all left at the same time—and the bike got there first on top of how pleasant it was.
Just pave the streets, Ed.
Why is this legal? The American Association of Neurological Surgeons tells us that cycling is the activity that results in the most head injuries to children.
Labels: Children and Bikes, City Government, Cycling and Safety, Ed Reiskin, Old Farts on Bikes
posted by Rob Anderson @ 12:35 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
"Anyone who hauls his/her child around the city on the back of his/her bike should be disqualified from holding a management position with city government back of his/her bike should be disqualified from holding a management position with city government"
Seriously Rob, burn in hell. This guy should be given a medal, and you should be soaked in urine...wait, you already are!
Nice - good to see some smart people in office.
Taking a 5 year old on the back of your bike on busy SF streets is simply stupid and irresponsible.
More of the same bullshit mantra these bike nuts spew out: "Live just like I do, cause it's a better way of living."
Pure crap.
Leaving aside the issue of him biking with his kid he makes a good point in that article: "there is no better way to get a flavor of the condition of the streets than to be on a bicycle." I'm glad this guy is riding around on a bike, it really does put you in better touch with paving conditions than driving does.
It's not that he's a bike guy that bothers me; it's the child endangerment that shows such bad judgment for someone in charge of a major city department. But you make a good point: since badly paved streets are a bigger safety threat to cyclists than to drivers, a cyclist's perspective is most useful.
What's potentially damaging to the city is having city government so dominated by the BikeThink, anti-car mindset, which forces even sensible development projects like CityPlace to crawl before the Planning Commission to get a green light to develop even the worst part of Market Street.
@Rob, Do you think he's a bike "nut" because he likes to ride his bike or because he takes his kid with him?
As an adult---or at least a chronological adult---he has the right to ride a bike in the city. I just think it's irresponsible to expose children to the dangers of cycling in the city. The city's last "Bicycle Collision Report," published by MTA in February of this year, tells us that there were 468 "injury collisions" involving cyclists in 2008.
If it's now illegal to put your child in the passenger seat of your car, it will someday be illegal to put your kid on our bike or haul him/her around in one of those little canvas trailers. But it will probably become illegal only after some children are killed because of this practice.
And I think it's irresponsible to try and prevent the city from making cycling safer, especially when people are riding with kids.
oh geez now Mayor Newsom appointed a bike nut to the MTA.
Gonna be a rough month for Rob Anderson...
The city managed to survive Leah Shahum's stint on the MTA board, and there's no reason to think that Cheryl Brinkman will have any effect at all on an agency that already puts the bicycle fantasy on an equal footing with our bus system.
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