During the whole fiasco with regards to Toronto’s removal of the bike lanes, most news outlets only gave voice to one side…The anti-bike crowd.
Radio media I find to be the worst.

Ottawa had a new segregated bike lane installed a couple of weeks ago. So what does the media show? All the people against it. But at least they showed one cyclist…Yep, and aggressive cyclist who through a pilon out of the way that was blocking the bike lane.

As for businesses complaining?
1. Although the Canadian economy isn’t in terrible shape, many people have cut back on services and purchases. Household debt is through the roof in this country.
2. If a bike lane is preventing people from going to your business, it probably was never worth going to in the first place.

Thanks for the link, Jo – and that was ALMOST a photo of her on a bike, too – at least wearing cycling gear! :)

Thanks Arno, that’s good to know. I love it when politicians are truthful. Now all we need is compulsory courses in logic for all those charged with running our world … but then as you say, it’s often just a simple matter of us vs. them. Which does not allow for any actual intelligent thought.

I have to say I find it disingenuous that Suzanne keeps harping back on that “lack of consultation” thing. In all the time I have paid taxes in my entire life, I don’t remember anyone EVER asking me what I wanted it to be spent on. I’ve lived in several major cities on two continents, and NEVER been consulted about whether I want that new road that’s going in, or that new high-rise building downtown. I don’t understand why a couple of simple bike lanes were somehow more momentous than anything ever built, and had to be the subject of massive consultation.

I’d love to hear your stories of working in news, Clark. I know when I was about 20, I spent ONE DAY in a news room (in my previous country), and gave up on my plan to be a journalist … It was just so depressing to see how it worked. In the morning, all the journalists met with the news chief. The journalists all had ideas for stories. If it fit in with the right-wing bias of the paper, they were allowed to do it. Only one guy had the guts to bring up a story that did not fit – he wanted to do a story about a few thousand union workers on strike. The chief vetoed that, based on “We don’t want to depress people.” So it was really not about informing people at all … it was about creating a view of reality that fit in with what the country’s rulers wanted to portray.

Thanks for the link Chris – I like Price Tags.

The reasons why the study should be taken with a grain of salt are detailed in this comment on Gordon Price’s Blog.

I also suspect that they don’t like a bunch of things about the people who elected the current progressive mayor. He represents the East Van point of view and not Point Grey or West Van. They don’t like that. Remember that the corporate media wants us all to be blind consumers so anything that threatens that is bad to them. They don’t just use cycling infrastructure to make this mayor seem unreasonable or out of touch, they use the chicken thing and something he said once when angry.

The bright side of all this is that there’s a chance for discussion and debate about cycling and that can make people think about it. Transportation is considered an “emotional” issue that people often don’t think logically about. It’s easy to get folks riled up about something more than with other topics. They want to sell papers and having a story about something working out fine just won’t do it. They need to find conflict everywhere and if there is none they’ll frame things to make it look like there is.
I once worked in news and it really opened my eyes to it. I was appalled so much of the time when I worked in it. Don’t get me started…