The Thoreau You Don't Know by Robert Sullivan: What it would take to lose all the bike lanes in NYC

What it would take to lose all the bike lanes in NYC

Bike Snob is, among other things, a genius. He has proved it again by calculating the number of a particular subset of bikers—he defines a member of this subset as a "Nü-Fred Bike Hate Unit," or NFBHU—it would take to have the city pull up all the bike lanes: 80,000. First he sets the scene:

Anyway, I don't have a problem with people who choose not to use the
bike lane, or who ride Pistas, or who shop at Old Navy for that
matter. However, what this Nü-Fred was also doing was running all the
lights, and this being rush hour it meant that the crosswalks were
pretty crowded. I made no attempt to keep up with him, but I kept him
in my sights for awhile, during which I probably watched him ride
against the light through three or four crosswalks. Furthermore, at
each of these crosswalks, I'd estimate that at least five pedestrians
looked at him like they wished he'd get run over by a truck--and this
wasn't even in the most crowded part of town.

Then he points out their PR potency, which is high.

Basically then, a single hapless Nü-Fred (though I suppose calling a
Nü-Fred "hapless" is redundant, since the haplessness is implied) has
the power to turn five New Yorkers against cyclists every single
block. This means that, in the course of a 20 block journey during
peak hours, one (1) Nü-Fred will make one hundred (100) New Yorkers
hate cyclists. (If you'd like, we can refer to this 20-block
100-person figure as one (1) "Nü-Fred Bike Hate Unit," or NFBHU.)

Of course, it's impossible to say with any certainty how many Nü-Freds
there are in New York (at least without subpoenaing Bianchi,
Specialized, and Felt and forcing them to disclose their regional
"urban fixie" sales records). What we can determine though is how many
NFBHUs it would take to turn each one of New York City's eight million
people against cyclists, and the answer is this:

80,000 NFBUs.

Really, if you think about it, that''s not all that much. All it would
take to would be for some evil anti-bike mastermind to unleash 80,000
Nü-Freds on the streets of New York and in a single weekday morning
the entire populace would turn against us. By week's end, bicycles
would probably be illegal, they'd turn the bike lanes into free car
parking, and without cyclists to preoccupy them the police would then
be free to focus the entirety of their efforts on beating Occupy Wall
Street protesters, harassing food trucks, and insulting the poor while
they defend their right to break the law.

He describes his calculations are "crackpot" but that's not fair, and besides, crackpot has never stopped anybody from calculating before. Speaking of indignities:

1 comment:

dave_solheimThursday, January 05, 2012
Several writers have confirmed that TYDK achieves the goal implied by its title of outlining a more accessible, humorous, and human Thoreau for contemporary readers. I agree. The book also develops significant points in re-interpreting Thoreau and his writing, such as the nature-urban connection and T as a social and sociable activist, not exclusively an eccentric hermit. The success is due to Sullivan doing two things other writers on Thoreau have not done, or not done so well. The first is that Sullivan is widely read in historic popular culture and uses several fields of the knowledge to place Thoreau in the context of his times. The range of topics includes: the economic panics and crashes in the US especially New England during T's lifetime, the building of railroads and related immigration and household servitude, the shift from craftsmanship to factory work, the rise of organized labor, and land use and re-forestation around Concord before the Civil War. In addition Sullivan presents T as a fellow free-lance writer, when such an occupation didn't quite exist. This insight particularly gives the book a perceptive look at T, and lends authority to Sullivan's speculations about T's several life choices. In addition the book is written in an informative, entertaining style with supported speculation and personal experience well-woven together.
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Available now from Robert Sullivan, the New York Times best selling author, and published by Harper. A description from the publisher:

What if Henry David Thoreau—America’s pioneering nature lover, the man who famously lived in a little house of his own construction—was actually pro-city rather than just a monkish introvert who wanted to be left alone in the woods? What if the man we think of as so serious and introspective was really a joker, a bit of clown, a kind of stand-up comic in his day? And what if the fact that he often went home to his family or into town for supper didn’t show him to be a cheater or a fraud as far as self-reliance goes? What if spending time with his friends and family—i.e., community—was his point all along?

Reasons that Thoreau is maybe more applicable to these troubling times than you may imagine

¶ He was living not in a peaceful time where he could just sit there and look at a pond but at a time of financial crisis, panics, even, when unemployment was first being recognized as a crisis, when people began to think that the economic system was broken—to wit, there were unemployed workers often living at Walden Pond.
¶ He was not just writing about butterflies (though he uses one to excellent, redemptive effect at Walden's end) but about how work was taking over our lives, how play was disappearing, how things like conversation were disappearing, along with sympathy, empathy and gratitude.
¶ He was very interested in gadgets, being an engineer himself--no technophobe--and living at a time of intense technological excitement.
¶ He was big on tunes, as in music, as in having a playlist, though in those days it was called a repertoire—he played a mean flute.

A Review

A mischievous reporter on the universe, Sullivan has found beauty in a notorious swamp in The Meadowlands (1998) and wisdom in an alley in Rats (2004). In his latest slyly philosophical inquiry, he endeavors to free Henry David Thoreau from his calcified reputation as a cantankerous hermit and nature worshipper. Sounding like your favorite teacher who manages to make history fun and relevant, Sullivan vibrantly portrays the sage of Walden as a geeky, curious, compassionate fellow of high intelligence and deep feelings who loved company, music, and long walks. An exceptional writer mad for puns, Thoreau
was also a bold social critic and—the crux of Sullivan’s stimulating argument—a brilliant, tongue-incheek
humorist. Sullivan, himself plenty saucy, also elucidates Thoreau’s radical focus on “man’s
interaction with nature.” In command of a great diversity of fascinating material, Sullivan succinctly illuminates the striking parallels between Thoreau’s time and ours—foreclosures, lost jobs, and rapid technological change. Thoreau remains vital and valuable because of his acute observations, wit, and lyricism and his recognition that the “force of life is everywhere,” a perception even more essential now that the consequences of the societal choices Thoreau prophetically critiqued have reached staggering proportions.--Donna Seaman, in Booklist

More from the publisher:
Henry David Thoreau is one of those authors that readers think you know, even if they don’t. He’s the solitary curmudgeon with the shack out in the woods, the mystic worshipping solemnly in the quiet church of nature. He’s our national Natural Man, the prophet of environmentalism. But here Robert Sullivan—who himself has been called an “urban Thoreau” (New York Times Book Review) presents the Thoreau you don’t know: the activist, the organizer, the gregarious adventurer, the guy who likes to go camping with friends (even if they sometimes accidentally burn the woods down). Sullivan argues that Walden was a book intended to revive America, a communal work forever pigeonholed as a reclusive one, and that this misreading is at the heart of our troubled relationship with the environment today. Sullivan shows us not a lonely eccentric but a man in his growing village, a man who danced and sang, who worked throughout his short life at the family pencil-making business, and moved into his parents’ house after leaving Walden Pond, but always paid his father rent. Passionate yet whimsical, The Thoreau You Don’t Know asks us to re-examine our everyday relationship with the natural world, and one another.