As significant as the launch of CitiBike (Mike’s Bikes) in NYC has been the conservative reaction. (See Updates in this previous post.)
Here’s one explanation: “As the Venn diagram indicates, Citi Bike finds itself at the very nexus of five different things that conservatives hate.”
Detailed explanation here. For instance:
Sharing: So central to the concept of bike shares, they put it right in the name. But conservatives hate sharing — tax dollars, calamari, doesn’t matter. …
It is a very slippery slope from sharing bikes to sharing everything. You blink and all of a sudden we’re a socialist dystopia, and everyone’s eating Bloomberg Vitamin Mush for every meal.
Another reason: The four words that explain most negative reaction – “I might be inconvenienced” – combined with the sense that “I’m not benefitting” from this expenditure that I might be helping to pay for. (Not true in the CitiBike case – but never mind.)
When you look at who is most likely to find bike-share convenient and where they might live in NYC, the lines of the culture war become a little clearer.
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The areas of NYC benefit from the CitiBike program the most – a heatmap of the average change in travel time across the city when a commuter has access to a bikeshare station.
The diagram misses one of the important forces against bike sharing: (less important in NYC, but very top-of-fear-scale here in Vancouver).
“I’m afraid that someone will take away my car”