The Trump administration is canceling millions of dollars’ worth of grants to help cities install bike lanes and other infrastructure meant to curb pedestrian deaths because it is allegedly “hostile” to cars.
They systematically crack down on anything that makes ordinary people’s lives better. And yet MAGA is still popular.
Let me suggest an alternate explanation: Americans secretly love getting stuck in traffic jams. Even in a hyperindividualistic culture, people need a way to feel connected to other humans, and everybody getting stuck in a traffic jam together is one of the few group experiences that Americans have left. Everybody suffers, but they suffer together, and that’s oddly comforting. It doesn’t work, though, if those commie bicyclists can zoom right by, and get home faster. Everybody has to be part of the ritual self-flagellation, or the suffering is meaningless. Therefore, making traffic congestion worse paradoxically improves their lives.
I mean, this sounds ridiculous at first, but at least it’s logically consistent…
Sometimes traffic is a crabs-in-a-bucket kind of situation. Sometimes politics is too. This story has both.
My package of Kraft singles is also hostile to cars, bet they didn’t see that coming!
Trump: Bikes are hostile to cars
Bike Advocates and Environmentalists: Yes, they are :-)
