Originally Posted by
Daniel4
This is NYC. You can't go to a knife fight armed with a kitchen ladel.
Otoh, I know of many stories where bike lanes have been removed by vocal angry motorists. And those are the same ones who won't hesistate to scare cyclists and pedestrians just to teach them a lesson.
It's too bad human behaviour sinks to its lowest levels when it comes to fighting for what is needed. But I know of no major achievement in human history won by simply asking nicely. And that goes from protecting old growth forests, voting and civil rights, and pay equity.
I wish there was a better way. In Canada, the velvet glove approach is painfully slow as it gets its population vaccinated. And that's amongst all the death threats from the anti-vax industry who has organized a nation-wide truckers protest. Mind you, the protest isn't earning any new support either.
You've put up a false choice of actions that either the we need to be in an all-out-war or take a "velvet glove" approach when dealing with motorists. Furthermore, his actions were not just with motorists, actually most of his yelling were at pedestrians and other cyclists.
Those kind of actions are NOT what was used to win voting and civil rights and they won't work here. They only serve to push people away and when that happens you create enemies you didn't need to create. After you push all these people away, go ahead and try to advocate for better cycling infrastructure.
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