Oh my gosh, I am SO TIRED of the negative media reports on the proposed Hornby Street separated lane. I just watched a video on CTV ($3.2 -million price tag for Hornby Street bike lane). It’s all about how much the bike lane will cost Vancouver. The reporter, Shannon Paterson, looks pained – even horrified – as she tells us how much this will cost. Then she breaks down what the money will pay for – while the video footage shows SUV’s pulling into the current un-separated bike lane, and a car door opening in front of cyclists.
Paterson’s horror is reserved for the amount of money that will be spent, while she is utterly oblivious to the dangers to cyclists – or simply doesn’t care. Yet cars kill cyclists, and even car doors kill cyclists, as partially documented on this alarming post.
Commenting on a 22-year-old cyclist killed in a bike lane by a car door during Bike to Work Week in Chicago, one person asks:
“What the heck is Chicago doing putting bike lanes in door zones? Do they also offer a bounty for anyone shooting cyclists?”
Presumably not – but here in Vancouver, business is bound and determined to keep cyclists in danger in door zones, and the media seems equally determined to help business in this quest.
CTV goes on to interview Charles Gauthier of the Downtown Business Improvement Association, so he can complain about lost parking spaces. He concedes that there is alternative parking, but laments that shoppers may be deterred by having to walk a little further! Needless to say, CTV does not interview any cyclists …
When I first got to this country I rejoiced in what I perceived as the freedom of the press, compared to the repressive country I come from. Now I am starting to think that the press is indeed free – but it is free to make money by fostering corporate interests, rather than free to report objectively and without bias!
Bottom line: CTV is saying just two things:
- $3.2 million dollars is too much to spend on cyclists’ lives
- 158 parking spaces are more important than cyclists’ lives
Could someone explain to me why it is that cyclists’ lives are less important than parking spaces?
Could it be that people think cyclists have no money, and so their lives cannot possibly be important? Where does this idea come from? Cyclists are like everyone else in Canada – they have money, and they spend it! Just look at this line-up of expensive bikes parked outside a bistro next to False Creek:
I hope I am wrong about the media – if I am right, it is just too depressing to contemplate. So I am ready to be corrected.
Has anyone seen any cyclists being interviewed by the media during this entire ugly debate about the Hornby Street bike lane?
CTV’s coverage on this issue has been incredibly biased.
CTV’s camera did follow a cyclist in a prior spot about the issue, but the promotion for that piece was unendingly about whether the city was lying about the number of cyclists using the Dunsmuir lane. After much promotion about the LIES??, when the piece actually aired CTV’s reporter quietly ended the piece with a statement that, nope, it looked like the city wasn’t lying about good weather usage, but the jury would be out until it was seen what happens in the winter.
Sensationalist journalism – it seems these days that it isn’t a story unless there is a controversy, even if it is the ‘journalist’ him/herself that creates it. Incredibly irresponsible.
Yes, I heard about that. Irresponsible and really, really irritating. Obviously they were HOPING to find there were lies, and they invested time and money in investigating – found they were wrong – and had to put a spin on it to make it attract all the cyclephobes out there, anyway. If the promotion was “Yes, there really are a lot of cyclists on Dunsmuir,” I think they assume that viewers would tune out. Maybe they under-estimate average intelligence, because there are a lot of us out here who are pro-cycling, and who are intelligent enough to understand that promoting cycling is good for the enviroment, for health, for the health care system, and ultimately even for the economy.
Donchaknow, Joe, the purpose of civilization is to make cars happy!
And you are really not so naive to think that there is any such thing as an impartial “free” press. Follow the advertising…
There’s a great book about that, called “Divorce your car” – I bought it to help myself along when I was transitioning from family van to bike.
Sadly, I WAS that naive when I first got here. I come from South Africa, so I grew up with MASSIVE, iron-fist censorship (they even banned the children’s book, “Black Beauty,” because they didn’t like the title). So compared to that, seeing all the different points of view in the media here was just so great. It’s taken me a while to see the problems – they are less blatant, but still pervasive …
One of the major problems with media in Vancouver is its extreme concentration. CanWest owns both major newspapers, and roughly 70 % of the local television news. CTVglobemedia owns much of the rest of the television news, as well as the only other barely local newspaper alternative, the G&M.
Canada as a whole has one of the highest concentrations of media ownership in the western world, with Vancouver leading the nation.
Who needs censorship when this is what we’ve got?
Pacpost, those are some interesting stats. I wonder if it’s higher or lower in the States? Still, we do sometimes see alternative views in the press, such as Don Cayo’s article the other day.