Bike-sharing in New York: (Over-the-Top) Reaction

As anticipated, lots of reaction to the introduction of bike-sharing in New York City: New Test for Bike Sharing: Tourists on City Streets. I particularly like this quote from a visiting Brazilian:

Renting a bike at 24th Street and Broadway, Mauren Motta, 42, from Brazil, said she planned her trip around the arrival of bike sharing. “New York must be in the first world, like in Europe,” she said. “On subways, you cannot see anything of the city.”
But as she and her travel mate, Samanta Pinto, 40, prepared to ride south on Broadway, Ms. Motta wobbled severely, lurching toward a curb. She stepped off, steadying herself.
“Now,” she announced, “we are going to Brooklyn.”

Get it?  A city isn’t in the ‘first world’ unless it has bike share.  As people like Mauren travel, they have come to expect it.
This will come as news to those who think bike share is some authoritarian plot.  Dorothy Rabinowitz, Wall Street Journal editorial board member, is apoplectic at a change in the city that she can only imagine came from totalitarian instincts because, basically, she doesn’t like it.   (I particularly like the reference to the “all-powerful bike lobby.”)

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The video is here.  And it seems to have touched some kind of nerve – not about the complaint but about the complainer.
Here’s Atlantic blogger James Fallows:

I’ve always wondered how exactly to describe the temperament, the broadmindedness, the analytical subtlety, the Id that through the decades have shaped the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. Conveniently, the Journal has filled that need, via this video interview with one of its editorial board members. Henceforth when you read the Journal‘s editorials, I invite you to hear this voice, expression, and tone.

Paul Krugman:

I guess I’m not surprised that the WSJ doesn’t like the idea of providing New York with a European-style system of rental bikes. But accusing Bloomberg and company of being “totalitarians” for the vicious crime of … making bright blue bikes available to tourists … seems like it has to be parody.
On the other hand, let’s not forget George Will’s explanation of why liberals like mass transit: ‘the real reason for progressives’ passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans’ individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism.’
Something about transportation seems to bring out the crazy in these people.

Atrios:

I guess I ultimately interpret this as a “kids get off my lawn” kind of thing.  Lifestyles are changing, slightly, and the (some) oldsters are angry.

Why is cycling such a hot-button issue for the rich, old and conservative?  Why are they so contemptuous about something so minor? – this small gesture for a slightly better world.  And if bike lanes and bike-sharing are going to far, what if circumstances called for drastic change?  Perhaps it’s that circumstances do, but they have no intention of doing anything about it and are resentful of those who are.
More here from Governing on how Bike Battles Heat Up in the U.S.

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UPDATE: It’s clear that Dorothy has performed a major public service by unleashing a reaction to her amusing diatribe.  Dozens weigh in here on Brad DeLong’s blog: Can Anybody Explain the Wall Street Journal’s War on Bicycles to Me?

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UPDATE: Krugman follows up with another pointed observation:

… the Journal isn’t reflecting the attitudes of people who drive around Manhattan; it’s reflecting the attitudes of people who are driven around Manhattan. …
So the point is that we shouldn’t think of the Journal as reflecting people who try to live in Manhattan as if they were upper-middle-class suburbanites; it’s reflecting people who are members of the modern carriage trade, and who get annoyed at the proletarian peddlers getting in the way of their chauffeurs.

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UPDATE: Business Insider takes apart the arguments one by one: New York’s Bike Share Is Brilliant, And Every Complaint About It Is Bogus

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UPDATE: The debate crosses the continent: The Paranoid Style in Bicycle Politics: A Bicoastal Freak-Out.

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UPDATE: Another Wall Street Journal writer, Jason Gay, responds to the “End of the World” bike hysteria with a more considered view:

I don’t know if it’s actually controversial or it’s just fun to make it sound controversial because that is what New York does. Polls have shown the majority of residents support bike share. They also support bike lanes, which before bike share arrived were the thing that going to ruin life as we know it in New York. If anything, the “outcry” about bikes sounds more like a last gasp, the same kind of gasp that always happens when a city is confronted with change.

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UPDATE: And of course Jon Stewart weighs in on the Daily Show: