"I don't know what this is supposed to be."

Deborah Simmons at the Washington Times wrote an article that I don't even really know how to criticize, because, to quote Mr. Leland from Seinfeld, I don't even know what this is supposed to be.

plans for a walkable city and bike lanes that increasingly make the city less and less friendly to drivers are rightly a look to the future for unclogged roads and enhanced mass-transit networks.

So...are bike lanes good because they will unclog roads or are they bad because they're unfriendly to drivers (which we all know isn't true)? I can't tell.

Pushing for voting rights, making a city walkable and more friendly for bicyclists might be quaint urban trends, but such policies are out of sync with the real regional world, which includes commuters from Prince William and Loudoun counties in Virginia, and Frederick, Charles, Howard and Anne Arundel counties in Maryland coming into in the city while D.C. commuters move in the opposite directions.

Driving is the only way most of them can even pretend to have a family life.

OK, so it appears that bike lanes are "out of sync with the real regional world" and that this is bad, even though I don't know what the real regional world is. But, in order for people who don't pay taxes in or live in my city to have a family life I have to give up crosswalks and stop asking for voting rights. Maybe this is like the Higgs Boson and I just can't wrap my head around it. What does voting rights have to do with driving?

Another brilliant article from Simmons whose previous bike article was about balancing the District's budget by cutting Capital Bikeshare.

Her bio calls her an "award-winning opinion writer." Dear God, what award did she win and how can I avoid it?

Comments

[T]

Wow, that was a hilarious column. She's insane, right up there with Courtland Malloy. Let's just eliminate all walking and biking to try squeeze a few more cars in so parents can get home to their families in Howard or Prince William counties. Clearly the solution to traffic woes is simply more cars on the road! hahaha. Wow.

[Pseudoprime]

It brings to mind the great Wolfgang Pauli quote, "This isn't right. This isn't even wrong."

[Mike]

Wait, so she's against bikes *and* voting rights? I hear there's really cheap gas in Iran...

[MM]

The total incoherence of her anti-bike/anti-transit argument notwithstanding, the first and second half of the article are so incongruous, it's almost as if she accidentally pasted the text of one article into another. I mean, she complains about transit then quickly turns to Asian tourists, Real Housewives, and the death of print media. Apparently EVERYTHING really grinds her gears. She must be a real treat at parties.

[ACyclistInTheSuburbs]

few Loudoun people commute to DC, they mostly work in the tech corridor from Reston to Ashburn, or in Tysons. The folks from Prince William, OTOH, use the VRE to preserve their family life.

The whole thing really makes no sense.

[SJE]

She is indeed like the Higgs boson, because although she thinks she is god like, she really only provides mass as demonstrated by being extremely dense. Her writing does have anti-Higgs features, in that in reducing the gravity of all other writing within the field.

She will continue to be incoherent, being simultaneously pro bike and anti bike until observed, at which line in the article she will be one, or the other.

[Crikey7]

Man, here I was fooling myself into thinking I had a real family life. I guess I'll have to go back to spending more time and a lot more money commuting by car to work.

On the plus side, my newly sedentary lifestyle will mean that my family will collect my life insurance that much sooner.

[SJE]

Crikey, as your health declines, and your mental functions fall below a certain level, you will be able to subscribe to the Washington Times.

[JFMAMJJASOND]

It honestly reads like something machine-translated into English.

[Michael H.]

The real solution is to completely pave over Falls Church, Arlington, Alexandria, lower Montgomery County and western Prince George's County. 100-lane roads for everyone. Pave over all of Upper Northwest, Far Northeast, Anacostia and most of Southwest D.C. too.

We have to stop being selfish, and accommodate commuters from Delaware, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Think of the children of those commuters! They would like to see their parents on a daily basis.

[tdcjames]

Wow, my experience of the Real Regional World is that when our city friends have kids, they move out to the burbs and assume the burden of a grueling car commute because they want to be where the good public schools are. Which suggests an obvious policy priority that would be friendly to those families.

[SJE]

tdcjames: sssh, you and your logic. We need to be like Deborah, and insist on the same 1970s solutions.

[Crikey7]

I'm not sure she actually proposed anything. The entire piece was one long, very strange ramble.

[Rootchopper]

If we spent as much improving schools in the urban core as we do on highway projects, maybe these exurban commuters would actually want to live near where they work again.

[The Edge]

Perhaps what would resonate with her is if the focus is on local communities. I suspect she would support those drivers who live in Prince William and Louden Counties to design the communities they live in as they wish. So why is she complaining that people who live in a community in DC or the immediate Metro area would design their communities as they like--with bike lanes and sidewalks?

Everyone wants local control until that control negatively impacts them when they want to drive through a community on a car-only freeway. :-)