KUSI Keeps Pushing the Big Bike Lie
KUSI news has been mighty busy with the grievance reporting that’s at the heart of their programming.
Their stock in trade lately has been facemasks, vaccines, and ‘Covid isn’t really all that bad’ denialists, spiced up with breathless reports on the Recall Newsom campaign.
One long-running cause they’ve misinformed the public about has been the installation of bike lanes on 30th Street. On July 30th, about a dozen people protesting against the changes got more than five minutes of airtime from reporter Dan Plane.
This “controversy” has been simmering for a couple of years. The parking-first people haven’t been able to do much more than complain. Their claims, as you’ll see below, just don’t stand up.
They started out claiming the push for bike lanes was promoted by "special interests" from outside the neighborhood. Asked for specifics, they said "people" from Escondido, Ocean Beach, Linda Vista, and La Mesa were involved.
"Save 30th Street Parking" started a petition on Change.org asking then-Mayor Faulconer to recognize voices from North Park. The more than 2000 signers of the petition were supposed to be proof... until KPBS took a closer look and discovered many (47%) signers listing residences outside the city of San Diego, including Escondido, Oceanside and El Cajon. Others came from places as far away as Miami, Iowa City and Honolulu.
This history hasn’t stopped KUSI from giving them an audience while ignoring a broad based movement pushing for better (and safer) treatment of people who get around by other means.
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Let’s fast forward for a moment to Sunday, August 1st. Several hundred bike riders converged at North Park Way and 30th Street for the ribbon cutting ceremony marking completion of the first part of the bike lane project.
Mayor Todd Gloria was there as was Catherine Blakespear, Mayor of Encinitas and Chair of the San Diego Association of Governments. San Diego’s Mayor told the crowd about recent developments towards meeting the Vision Zero goal of eliminating fatalities and serious injuries on local streets.
The city aims to create bike lanes more quickly and is working with the National Association of City Transportation Officials and SANDAG to learn and adopt best practices, hoping to reduce the time it takes to process a bike infrastructure permit by 75%.
Nonprofits came to North Park on Sunday to celebrate years of advocacy and hand out literature. A moment of silence was observed for the five bike riders who have died while riding during the past month.
What was missing on Sunday was a team from KUSI. Coverage of the event included the Union-Tribune, Fox 5, and NBC 7.
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Getting back to KUSI’s coverage...
Anchor Ginger Jeffries introduced the segment, saying the bike lanes were being “done in the name of climate change” and looking disgusted.
Dan Plante’s coverage was so filled with misinformation it’s hard to know where to start. Yeah, I know, what else is new?
I’ve condensed some statements, mostly by his interviewees, that would have benefitted from a Google search if he was interested in telling the truth. Which he isn’t.
KUSI- “People were not included in the original decision; Politicians at City Hall ignore the people…”
KPBS (8/14/2019) - (Emphasis mine)
The idea for adding some type of bike lane to 30th Street has been discussed for several years. It became a higher priority in the fall of 2018 as cyclists urged the city to add bike lanes after the street is resurfaced following a pipeline replacement project.
In January, city traffic engineers decided bike lanes were feasible on 30th Street, but that they would require the removal of on-street parking. Officials then presented design options at 11 meetings of community groups in March, April and May.
The volunteer North Park Planning Committee voted to support a design that would remove all on-street parking on 30th Street and replace it with a bike lane separated from traffic by a buffer zone and plastic poles. The bike lane would be wide enough to accommodate slower cyclists and allow passing.
Also:
Then-City Council member Chris Ward’s staff member Tyler Renner went door to door to businesses, and posted flyers on doors starting in March 2019.
Here’s a copy of Mayor Faulconer’s memo from May, 2019 mentioning “comments and feedback from residents, businesses, and other members of the community.
KUSI - “Bike lanes are an experiment in social engineering; businesses are already suffering.”
From Redesigning cities: how new cycle lanes are changing commuting habits
What can be surely gathered from the data is that the pandemic revealed a latent demand for investing in cycling infrastructures, while concurrently offering a chance to build back better urban streets. As we have witnessed in the past year, and we will probably continue to, creating new bike lanes can really have an impact on behaviour, increasing the number of cyclists across entire cities, and therefore, improving health and cutting greenhouse emissions.
From the BBC:How bike-friendly ‘slow streets' are changing cities
Biking has enjoyed a renaissance around the world as urbanites shun public transport for the relative safety of a two-wheeled commute. Now, many advocates like Pardo are working with local governments in the hope of turning these pandemic-response measures into lasting changes – ones that are more plausible now than ever after lockdowns provided an unprecedented opportunity to fast-track infrastructure trials. The results of these urban planning experiments could not only radically alter the way we commute across global cities, but also make them more resilient to future shocks.
Tabitha Combs, a lecturer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has been crowdsourcing data on local actions affecting walking and cycling during the pandemic. She’s identified at least 365 global cities that have allocated new street space for these activities since data-gathering began on 24 March.
As to businesses suffering, there are numerous studies showing that bike lanes actually improve sales. Here are five.
CityLab: The Complete Business Case for Converting Street Parking Into Bike Lanes:
Fast Company: Bike Lanes Aren’t Just Safer for Cyclists. They’re Good for Business, Too:
Forbes: Cyclists Spend 40% More in London’s Shops Than Motorists:
What’s really galling about the KUSI stories are the unsubstantiated claims people are making on behalf of others. If I say the earth is flat will you just nod your head and agree? KUSI apparently does.
Are there business owners willing to be interviewed, as opposed to random people saying they’ve heard something? (This is just lazy reporting. Whose business is down by 30%? Compared to when?))
Are there really developers supporting bike lanes so they can build high rises with no parking? Name one. (Are there permits/zoning variances/real estate sales to back this up?)
I’m not saying that people shouldn’t be concerned about the impact of changes in their community. It could turn out that the 30th Street bike lanes fail. We don’t know yet. I can say that I regularly patronize businesses on 30th, include the street several times each week in my exercise walks, and KUSI's "disaster" journalism just doesn't hold up.
The idea was researched (the data suggest it would work), there were public hearings, and there really is a climate crisis requiring everybody doing everything they can.
Anybody who’s read this column knows I have a low opinion on KUSI. It’s not because they are conservative; it’s because they traffic in reporting designed to promote a point of view.
https://twitter.com/ksorbs/status/1422251659347075075?s=20
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