Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site dciem.UUCP Path: utzoo!dciem!mmt From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) Newsgroups: net.bicycle,net.politics Subject: Re: Bicycle Route Passes in Portland, Oregon Message-ID: <1575@dciem.UUCP> Date: Wed, 12-Jun-85 18:46:21 EDT Article-I.D.: dciem.1575 Posted: Wed Jun 12 18:46:21 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 12-Jun-85 20:32:18 EDT References: Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada Lines: 33 Summary: >bitter fight. The opposition consisted of most of the >residents of the 19 houses on the bicycle route, and several >owners of businesses one block off the bicycle route. The >business owners testified that bicyclists will hurt their >businesses, and the home owners testified (and paid a realtor >to testify) that bicyclists will lower their property values. >They also said many things even more ridiculous (see >my previous postings). Many of these people are retired and >probably senile, but several are middle-aged or young. >Most of these people are lower middle- >class, but not all. At least one of the business owners is >very well-off. The only thing they have in common is that they >hate bicyclists. I tried to discover why. I couldn't, until It may not be hating bicyclists (or bus-drivers or everybody, as the unquoted part of the message said), it may be just a fear of change. Some years ago, there was a large water-tank about 150ft high near my house, and reflections from it played havoc with TV reception (ghosts all over the screen). There was a proposal to replace it with a police radio antenna that would have been as tall, but slim and much less of a blot on the skyline. A neighbour came around with a petition against the antenna on the grounds that "it would hurt TV reception." I told him I would happily sign a petition FOR the antenna, so as to get decent reception. It's the same kind of unreasoning opposition to a change. (The tower came down, the antenna went up, TV reception became fine, and the skyline appearance improved substantially, in spite of the strong opposition). -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt