The Bicycle Coalition and the gravy train

Andy Thornley

After the city hired another bike guy to run its transportation agency, I looked back at how City Hall has essentially been occupied by the anti-car Bicycle Coalition and its enablers.

Watching this process over the years has been sobering even for an old cynic like me. 

The only analogy I can think of is watching the Republican Party degenerate into a proto-fascist political cult that led to the Trump disaster.

As a Democrat who never votes for Republicans, on some local and state issues I've dissented from my liberal comrades. The anti-car bike fantasy and the high-speed rail boondoggle are two significant examples.

I guess I assumed that Judge Busch's decision against the city's attempt to ignore the most important environmental law in California by rushing the Bicycle Plan through the process with no environmental review would have caused City Hall to do some rethinking about city traffic policy.

Wrong! Instead, the city doubles down on its anti-car policies by, among other things, using the Bicycle Coalition as an employment agency, beginning with the hiring of Andy Thornley, who demonstrated his anti-car qualifications by working at the Bicycle Coalition for years.

I can't remember them all, but a check of my archives quickly finds Neal Patel, Kate McCarthy, Kristin Smith who all boarded City Hall's gravy train directly from the SF Bicycle Coalition.

City taxpayers pay for Bike to Work Day, which is produced by City Hall's favorite special interest group, the Bicycle Coalition.

Walk San Francisco, another anti-car group, also gets money from the city for Walk to Work Day, but it's not clear how much.

Last year the city gave the Bicycle Coalition $564,460 to get children on bikes in the city, a terrible idea since, according to the Coalition, city streets aren't even safe for adults on bikes. Riding bikes is particularly dangerous for children. 

But even the city's children are accessories to the anti-car movement.

City taxpayers pay---$188,000 in 2012---for a police escort for the traffic-snarling Critical Mass demo on the last Friday of the month. The Bicycle Coalition doesn't officially support Critical Mass because it doesn't want to be liable for any violence it causes.

Next: Anti-carism and the pandemic 2.