Response to Beth Teitell's Globe Article

One of our members, Miranda P. Dotson, wrote this response to a recent Boston Globe article.

For those behind a paywall here is a short excerpt of the article:

Do the cyclists themselves bring on some of the animosity?

Some find them hard to take, entitled, and not just because they can sail through red lights confident no ticket will be written, or scare the bejesus out of drivers who fear they might hit them.

It’s because, the haters say, the cyclists seem to enjoy lording it over us. Think of how they arrive at the office, all slim and sinewy, glowing from their commute, gushing about the glorious sunrise, performatively carrying their bike helmets, dripping with sweat and condescension as they inquire about your traffic-choked trip to the office and parking problems, never acknowledging the role they may have played.

(yes, cyclists are "entitled" by this definition: give (someone) a legal right or a just claim to receive or do something.)

Beth,

Thanks for following up with a link. I was hoping for a fairer representation of the matter. About 64% of your piece was dedicated to negativity around bike lanes (or ~870 words out of ~1370). This piece favored a handful of mostly impugning opinions, and did not center the "stats" that you described looking for.

Speaking as a sociologist, public opinions matter. Yet opinions, taken at face value, don't reveal an indisputable, objective truth, but rather represent the biases, like "motornormativity", that circulate and have staying power. Your article gave people an opportunity to vent their frustrations, but it did not present a careful or thorough review of research, which would show that among transit options, cars have a monopoly on causing stress, pollution, and death. Of course, cars are the road (literally) well traveled, and decades of advertising and lobbying have ensured that Americans identify with cars and lack alternatives to live independently from fossil-fuel guzzling cars.

Your piece also ignores the people who have to live next to highways and congested roads. These people can't escape the noise and air pollution, and zip codes have a greater impact on life expectancy than genes. I understand you're a journalist with a deadline. Your writing moves the needle -- which future is it helping create? I leave you with this graphic from Antonio Huertes, which shows how we all benefit from a redesign of our communities. I'd like to place a longer-form piece in the Boston Globe that explores the issue in-depth, weaving personal narrative with scientific research.

Thank you,
Miranda