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Don't give this drivel the traffic.  Read the DCist's response instead.

The piece is so full of infantile name calling and gaping logical fallacies it's painful to read.  I'm embarrassed for him.  Poor Charles “Butt-” Hurt.  

Ridiculous article.  Sounds like something n-steve would write.  After all, he already told us to “not get used to bikeshare” claiming its not profitable.  

I use it nearly everyday.  New stations are popping up all the time.  People love it.  It's here to stay.

R. Griffon said:

Don’t give this drivel the traffic.  Read the DCist’s response instead.

 

The piece is so full of infantile name calling and gaping logical fallacies it’s painful to read.  I’m embarrassed for him.  Poor Charles “Butt-” Hurt.  

I see – so you don't like name calling, but then you put “butt” in front of his last name.  Clever.

The guy doesn't like bike share, obviously, but that's his opinion.  Like you, he's entitled to one.  You mention “gaping logical fallacies.”  For my edification, what are they?

Capital Bikeshare is “broken down socialism”?!?!?!? [Mr. Hurt, author of the article in The Washington Times, wrote] Huh?!?  Then the article's author wrote: “For the urban environmental warrior (who, curiously, chooses to live in a densely populated concrete city), the benefits of the communal bike program are endless.

Having people pedal around on these bikes, they say, means fewer people riding pollution-emitting city buses and fewer cars clogging the roads. And healthy riders means less of a burden on socialized medicine. These people get very excited talking about all the upsides.

Oh, and the smugness with which these pedaling heroes pump away! I have seen proud drivers of Priuses look away in shame as they ease by in their bio-electric and sometimes spontaneously combustible vehicles.

This communal bike program is a success from their tingling toes through their throbbing hearts all the way to bright, gleaming faces. It makes them feel so good!”

Hmmm.  Perhaps Mr. Hurt is himself guilty of a bit of smugness himself?!?  Look, maybe I'm not hip to all the latest fashions, trends, or whatever, but somehow, I just don't see how Capital Bikeshare is “socialist” [broken down or otherwise], or is in some fashion part of some bolshevization of the USA.  As far as I know, the federal/state/local governments haven't yet started forcing everyone to ride bicycles or face Lubyanka, the NKVD/KGB, Beria's firing squads, or Stalin's gulags.  As far as I know, this is still the USA where people can freely choose to drive a car, ride a bike, take the bus or the subway, take a taxi, or sit at home on their rusty dusty twiddling their thumbs.  Now Mr. Hurt may have his various reasons for not liking bicycles or bicyclists, or liberals/”proud drivers of Priuses”/”urban environmental warriors”.  But it seems to me that he is also perpetuating stereotypes of those different from himself that he would mostly likely protest strongly were similar stereotypes perpetuated against persons like himself by those who differ with him. 

Mr. Hurt, there are smug and self-righteous “liberals” for sure.  There are also smug and self-righteous “conservatives” for sure.  For every Keith Olbermann there is a matching Glenn Beck .  Every group has their saints and their sinners, their sensible folks and the ones that are several cans short of a six pack.

But somehow, when I see a “fat red” bike (or any other bike for that matter), I just don't see “commune enthusiasts” or as you tried to cutely put it (“Say that fast, and it sounds like you are saying “commun-ists”) as the 2012 version of Lenin and his band of low-down bolshevik trash coming to take over.

Bluemontsince1961 said:

Capital Bikeshare is “broken down socialism”?!?!?!? [Mr. Hurt, author of the article in The Washington Times, wrote] Huh?!?  Then the article's author wrote: “For the urban environmental warrior (who, curiously, chooses to live in a densely populated concrete city), the benefits of the communal bike program are endless.

Having people pedal around on these bikes, they say, means fewer people riding pollution-emitting city buses and fewer cars clogging the roads. And healthy riders means less of a burden on socialized medicine. These people get very excited talking about all the upsides.

Oh, and the smugness with which these pedaling heroes pump away! I have seen proud drivers of Priuses look away in shame as they ease by in their bio-electric and sometimes spontaneously combustible vehicles.

This communal bike program is a success from their tingling toes through their throbbing hearts all the way to bright, gleaming faces. It makes them feel so good!”

Hmmm.  Perhaps Mr. Hurt is himself guilty of a bit of smugness himself?!?  Look, maybe I'm not hip to all the latest fashions, trends, or whatever, but somehow, I just don't see how Capital Bikeshare is “socialist” [broken down or otherwise], or is in some fashion part of some bolshevization of the USA.  As far as I know, the federal/state/local governments haven't yet started forcing everyone to ride bicycles or face Lubyanka, the NKVD/KGB, Beria's firing squads, or Stalin's gulags.  As far as I know, this is still the USA where people can freely choose to drive a car, ride a bike, take the bus or the subway, take a taxi, or sit at home on their rusty dusty twiddling their thumbs.  Now Mr. Hurt may have his various reasons for not liking bicycles or bicyclists, or liberals/”proud drivers of Priuses”/”urban environmental warriors”.  But it seems to me that he is also perpetuating stereotypes of those different from himself that he would mostly likely protest strongly were similar stereotypes perpetuated against persons like himself by those who differ with him. 

Mr. Hurt, there are smug and self-righteous “liberals” for sure.  There are also smug and self-righteous “conservatives” for sure.  For every Keith Olbermann there is a matching Glenn Beck .  Every group has their saints and their sinners, their sensible folks and the ones that are several cans short of a six pack.

But somehow, when I see a “fat red” bike (or any other bike for that matter), I just don't see “commune enthusiasts” or as you tried to cutely put it (“Say that fast, and it sounds like you are saying “commun-ists”) as the 2012 version of Lenin and his band of low-down bolshevik trash coming to take over.

The right wing is winning the paranoid lunatic race by a longshot these days. The left is capable of saying no to their crazies these days. The right just embraces theirs.

Is CaBi servicing less well off areas like Anacostia, or is it just for privileged white people?

novasteve said:

Is CaBi servicing less well off areas like Anacostia, or is it just for privileged white people?

Yes, no.