Department of “Ya Just Can’t Win” – Colour Me Blue

From Ken Ohrn:

Author Delia Ephron writes in the New York Times’ Opinion pages about their bike-share system …  The article appears to be a classic Vancouver-style wallow in Gripeland set in motion by a single close encounter with a Citibike while jaywalking, and then a whole lot of imaginary ones.

The focus of her gripe? The bikes are, goddammit, BLUE!  And this is destroying New York City – somehow making it ugly. And she somehow extends all this into a months-long convalescence from an imaginary broken leg.

I’ve read it twice, and I don’t think it’s a parody.

Here’s an excerpt, which kind of suggests it is:

For $41 million — what Citibank paid to sponsor the program for five years — our city bikes became Citi Bikes. … The 6,000 bikes so far rolled out, of a possible 10,000, and their signs are a Day-Glo cobalt blue that you see on banks. Nobody wears this color. Nobody paints his or her apartment this color. This blue is bank blue.

Odds are, in your favorite romantic Manhattan movie, you’ll see barely any blue.

Almost all directors and cinematographers know that, in a movie, the color blue pulls focus. If you place a love scene in front of, say, a blue bench, the audience will look at the bench and not the actors. Our city, if you look around, isn’t a blue city, or wasn’t until the bikes arrived. With the exception of Times Square, where loud clashing colors are the point, our city is browns, grays, greens and brick red.

We’re told that this bike program is modeled after the one in Paris. But in Paris, the bikes are a silvery gray and the sponsors have discreet small tattoos on the bike frame. Paris bikes blend. They respect the romance that is Paris.