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Steve Cuozzo's Flaccid Citi Bike Takedown Has Us Worried
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Jun 23, 2013
Modified Jun 24, 2013
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Jun 23, 2013
Modified Jun 24, 2013
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Steve Cuozzo's review of Citi Bike is advertised on the Post's website as "the column you gearhead loons have been waiting for," and usually Cuozzo doesn't disappoint. His bike-related columns are cold showers of ignorance and orneriness: bracing and invigorating when used sporadically. But his personal account of bike share is all downhill after he drops the phrase "Citibank marketing sluts" in the lede. We yearned for Cancer but got Cute instead.
Cuozzo's main point is that cycling is "scary," and that Citi Bike's interface "is as bug-ridden as you've heard and worse." Yeah yeah, OK, we can read that viewpoint from those PC Libs at Reuters. Where's the blood? Why aren't Citi Bikes being compared to mobile burning orphanages?
The only time Cuozzo seems completely, deliciously incapable of being self-aware is when he derives his authority on cycling from experience gleaned during the Johnson administration.
I’m comfortable enough on bikes; I lived on them for much of my first 20 years growing up on Long Island and I occasionally rent one to use in Central Park or Prospect Park. I love biking for the same reason everyone does: Few wholesome activities provide the exhilaration and sense of physical well-being that cycling does.
I also know the city’s streets as few bicycling and “pedestrian” advocates do: I walk several miles daily all over town, all year round. So trust me when I say biking on streets is anything but a leisure pursuit even in the “protected” lanes. It’s work. Hazardous work.
Has Cuozzo ceded the throne to Denis Hamill? Is the Daily News' editorial board hiring? For the first time in recent memory, The Cuozz even expresses empathy (we've contacted News Corp's press office about whether or not this is a violation of company policy).
A cyclist faces all the perils without the security of a metal cage...Vehicles of all kinds bear down on all sides. Truck and car doors suddenly swing open in your path. Pedaling at a fairly brisk pace, I was too busy watching my flanks to enjoy the crowds, the golden sunlight and the breeze.
The biker crowd might say: Thanks, Cuozzo, for proving our point. If the streets are too perilous for us, give us more room! Create even more lanes than the 600 miles we already have.
If cars and trucks make the cycling experience unpleasant, let’s further reduce the space they take up. Why not eliminate street parking altogether and ban the internal combustion engine from bridges and tunnels?
As far as we're concerned, this is a ringing endorsement. Get well, Steve.
Tagged
bike share
citi bike
get well soon steve
new york post
steve cuozzo
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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