Andy Thornley: Still just a bike guy

Andy Thornley worked for the Bicycle Coalition for years. The bike guy who now runs the MTA put Thornley on the payroll a few years ago, where he now works on parking issues for those wicked motor vehicles. (You can't make this shit up!) 

City Hall apparently thinks working at the Bicycle Coalition qualifies you to board the city's gravy train: here and here.

Riding his bike in this video---mostly in Golden Gate Park, where it's a lot safer to ride than the rest of San Francisco---Thornley makes a pitch for his favorite transportation "mode," including the prediction that riding a bike in the city will be an "enormous part of the future." But bikes aren't a very significant part of the present, since, even after ten years of hype from the Bicycle Coalition and City Hall, only 3.4% of all trips in the city are by bicycle.

Thornley talks about how the city is "evolving and adapting," a favorite trope of the bike people, who seem to think people won't be fully human until they take up cycling.

As a matter of principle, Thornley doesn't wear a helmet when he rides his bike, not a good Darwinian survival strategy.

When he was with the Bicycle Coalition, one of Thornley's jobs was to bullshit the media (see this, this, this and this). When he talked to his political allies at the Bay Guardian, he was candid about the Coalition's agenda: "We've done all the easy things so far. Now we need to take space from cars." 

When city voters go to the polls in November to vote on the Restoring Transportation Balance initiative and Mayor Lee's $500 million transportation bond, they need to remember who's making transportation policy in San Francisco.

Thanks to Streetsblog for the link to the Thornley video.