Neal Patel boards the gravy train
Another Bicycle Coalition employee follows Andy Thornley onto the city's gravy train. And the "Amazing" Neal Patel will be working in the Livable Streets Program---you can't make this stuff up---where he will be in a better position to push the city's "improvements" on Polk Street that he's been writing about on the Bicycle Coalition's blog: Separated bike lanes are "the right option, the only real option," etc.
By packing the MTA with bike people, Ed Reiskin---a bike guy himself---can better implement the Bicycle Coalition's agenda and pursue City Hall's war on cars.
The Bicycle Coalition's announcement:
Saying Farewell to our Amazing Planning Director, Neal Patel
It is with a combination of sadness and excitement that we bid farewell to our outstanding Planning Director, Neal Patel. After six years, Neal is leaving the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition to work at the SFMTA, where he will be working on a number of bike, pedestrian and traffic calming projects with the Livable Streets Program.
Neal will be greatly missed by our staff and countless members who got to know him through his leadership on crucial and challenging projects like Fell and Oak street, Polk Street and Masonic, as well as countless bike riders[sic] that he led for our members. While sad for us, this is great news for San Francisco. Neal will bring his knowledge, diplomacy and passion for bicycle and pedestrian improvement projects to the City, where he can help make great change to our streets. Come say farewell to Neal at Golden Wheel on June 20, his last day.
Want to follow in Neal’s dapper footsteps and become a part of the SF Bike Coalition’s passionate Program team? We’re hiring for two positions...
Labels: Andy Thornley, Anti-Car, Bicycle Coalition, City Government, Ed Reiskin, Muni, Polk Street
posted by Rob Anderson @ 3:06 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
Neal Patel is fully qualified to work for the SFMTA. He went through a standard hiring process which is, as all city positions, based on a points system.
Just because Neal Patel has worked with the bike coalition does not mean he's not qualified for the SFMTA position. You offer no evidence to the contrary in your post. The SFMTA has many ex-Caltrans highway civil engineers as well, but I've never seen you complain about their hiring. Why? Because your agenda is more anti-bike than the SFMTA's is pro-bike.
Forget whether or not he or anyone is "fully qualified" or whatever.
This is just a big ol gravey train!!!!
How many points did he get for working for the SFBC? I bet he also got points for his support of the Polk Street project.
How many points did he get for working for the SFBC?
Zero.
I bet he also got points for his support of the Polk Street project.
Wrong.
Okay, if you say so, Ed.
Must be a bummer to watch your life's work go down in flames. How does it feel to be on the wrong side of history Rob?
Wow, you've got nothing to go on here.
"Must be a bummer to watch your life's work go down in flames.How does it feel to be on the wrong side of history Rob?"
You mean "History" with a capital "H," right? Interesting that you choose that trope, which was also used by other movements drunk on ideology, the Fascists, Nazis, and Communists---we have to include the Islamic fascists in that list now---of previous generations who also thought that History was on their side.
Of course you don't kill anyone with your goofy belief system; you just encourage a lot of people to take up a risky transportation "mode," which results in a lot of people getting hurt when they take up this "green" fad.
Writing about you bike fanatics is hardly my "life's work" like bicycles are so important to you and guns are so important to the gun nuts. Like all fanatics, you folks are bores, Johnny-one-notes who sing only one song. I've donned the mantle of anti-Christ---I mean "anti-bike"!---by default here in Progressive Land because no one else was doing it.
The anti-car bike cult has captured public policy out of City Hall to a remarkable degree, impacting not only traffic and street design but planning and development policy, allowing housing developers, much to their satisfaction and profit, to build large housing projects while limiting the amount of parking for all those new housing units. Let all those new residents ride bikes! Or a chronically underfunded Muni system!
Your version of History is creating a city that will have traffic a lot worse than it has to be based on City Hall's juvenile bike fetish.
Have you ever read studies about road construction and infeastructure for cars? Here's how it works: the more you build, the more traffic you have. The easier it is to drive, the more people who opt for that option because you've just designed a system that sidelines cars and humans and paved through them to give car access. Te fact is, if transit could get everyone from the west to the east or north to south in San Francisco in 10-15 minutes, and driving took 30-45, our car ownership would be incredibly low and our traffic would be similarly low. The problem with your viewpoint is that it assumes nothing changes, that design has no influence on change, and that by continuing to give priority to cars above all else, that somehow will be best for our city. Meanwhile, bikers are getting killed, people are getting bit by the hundreds, congestion, noise, pollution, and oil reliance remain high, and for what? So cars can go an average of 20mph, done in spurts of 30-40mph between stop signs and traffic lights? This system could be drastically better, cleaner, faster, more humane, for efficient, more ecological, but it takes some change to get us there. Driving is not simply a force that exists regardless of design. It's a decision that we have to collectively make, and that decision for 60 years has been to call humans "pedestrians" and to run through neighborhoods with high-speed vehicles. And we've found ourselves with divided neighborhoods, pass-through zones with no street life, deaths by the dozen from car accidents, an economic model that's tied us to resource destruction or third world countries, health issues from pollution, and for what? So for you, you may think that somehow traffic will just always get worse and cars must be prioritized at all costs, but thats what LA or Phoenix did. Thats why boston budozed the north end and back bay. Thats why Hayes Valley was a dump. Every single major infrastructure project thats reduced cars (even in cases where initially traffic went up!) has improved neighborhoods. I think it's high time we put humans above all else, and start focusing on how we build a city that embraces that.
This is the sort of free-association you should only inflict on your therapist or your significant other. Driving is a decision that an overwhelming majority of Americans have already made, including the residents of San Francisco.
Interesting that you mention Hayes Valley in passing. But taking down the Central Freeway overpass there put the traffic that used to go over that neighborhood on Octavia Blvd. and other surface streets in the neighborhood. That did the opposite of "reducing" cars in that part of town.
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