The bike cult never quits

These people are just brutal.

Which people?

The bike cult.

In the midst of World War III, as we as a nation hunker down to fight the great threat to the welfare of our nation, as we worry about our wrecked economy, the thousands of dead neighbors, the interruption of education, and social isolation, the bike cult is worried about “opening” city streets for “exercise.” Even though this contradicts the city’s advice to button up and stay inside.

The pedalphiles don’t care. They are guided by Rahm Emanuel’s political advice to “never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”

Such as expand bike lanes without City Council approval, even though the vague “open streets” idea seems to have the approval of five of those mutts. Before Councilman Bill Greenlee retired, he managed to get a bill through Council that district Councilpersons had to approve the addition of bike lanes in their districts. Bike heads hate that because they know the majority doesn’t want them, so the cyclists shop for ways to force their wishes down the community’s throat.

While you are worried about staying inside as we have been urged to do, several local civic associations, joined by some deranged nonprofits, including the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, have been petitioning Mayor Jim Kenney to open some city streets for “exercise.”

A lead group is the Center City Residents Association and I emailed the president to provide more detail than I found in the Inquirer’s account, which typically had no comment from anyone opposing the idea.

I did not hear back from CCHR, but found the letter elsewhere.

There are two main thrusts — one specific and the other, to coin a word, stupid.

Specific is to close the outer lanes of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway for other use, but even that reasonable request is wrapped in questionable logic. 

In identical letters, CCHR and the Logan Square Neighborhood Association asked to have the outer lanes of the Parkway, even while admitting Parkway traffic is “very light” currently. 

The letters whined about “the need for a great deal more outdoor space for pedestrian and bicycle activity than we currently have.”

Really?

Bicycles have legal access to almost all city streets, while pedestrians have access to every damn sidewalk in the city, not to mention numerous playgrounds and parks in most neighborhoods, including the granddaddy of all municipal parks, Fairmount, that runs through a wide swath of the city.

The letters reference a petition being circulated by the Clean Air Council, requesting streets be closed — even though traffic is about half of normal, I estimate. 

What does the Clean Air Council want closed? This is the stupid one: roads through FDR Park, Hunting Park, and West Fairmount Park; Kelly Drive; Ben Franklin Parkway’s outer lanes; and 9th Street in the Italian Market.

 Why?

With the exception of 9th Street, all those roads are underutilized on weekdays. And how would you get there — on Septa’s emergency schedule? 

Look — these whizbangs make the case that the Schuylkill Trail gets crowded, and it probably does. But Kelly Drive? All of freaking Fairmount Park?

People who walk for exercise, as I do, can go anywhere and we don’t need to walk in the street. We are not going to walk on the outer lanes of the Parkway. What’s driving this is the bike cult and the holdup seems to be coming from — surprise — the nimrod Kenney administration, which the Inquirer reports is worried about costs and logistics.

Actually, what it should be worried about is the health issue — creating an incentive to ignore the city’s pleading to stay indoors. But the cult that claims biking makes for good health, doesn’t care. It wants what it wants and the hell with you.