Video: Brian Williams Compares Bike Lanes To Cult

Brian Williams opens his mouth to foot-width (Screenshot)

Last night, "Rock Center with Brian Williams" dipped its toe into the topic of New York City transportation: specifically, DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. Overall the piece is a fair one, and gives Sadik-Khan plenty of room to answer her critics and lay out her vision for a safer, cleaner, more efficient city. But Brian Williams, who is supposed to be the network's "young," affable anchor, turns into NBC's Steve Cuozzo. Williams tells reporter Harry Smith that he's "drunk the Kool-Aid" when Smith lauds the DOT's efforts, and calls Sadik-Khan "a very powerful woman with an exotic name." Haha, it's mass suicide to support bike lanes! And isn't "Ronald Reagan" exotic compared to "Brian Williams?"

Mayor Bloomberg also gets some face time, and Smith asks him about a "rumor" that Sadik-Khan intimidates him. "I don't think thats quite—I've never heard that rumor before, there's not a lot of truth to that." The mayor then delivers some bad news to bike lane haters: "The way to have permanent employment in my administration is to have the newspapers demand that I fire you. You can rest assure that you'll have a job a very long time." Sure, just ask Chancellor Cathie Black!

Streetsblog has an excellent roundup of what the piece is missing. The biggest criticism? If you're doing a story on pedestrian plazas and bike lanes, it helps to interview people using pedestrian plazas and bike lanes, not people stuck behind the wheel in rush hour traffic.

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By Christopher Robbins in News on December 6, 2011 2:43 PM

Comments [rss]

Thomas Sevey

I very much enjoy getting around the city via my bike, what was not addressed is the fact pedestrians have now in increasingly huge numbers co-opted the bikes lanes as "express walking/passing lane" & as a head start waiting station for when the light turns green for them to cross. All in all, a city this huge has to take "baby-steps" toward alternate means of moving form A to B!

James Donohue

There are good drivers and there are bad drivers. The bad drivers should get tickets, or get their license revoked, or get locked in jail, but they don't.
So roadways get marked "No Motor Vehicles", and all the drivers have to pay for the bad habits of a few.
That's the way it is.

Think2wice

I said it before and I'll say it again. One of the most vocal opponents to bike lanes and congestion pricing are news anchors who insist on driving or being driven to work.

Peanut_Butter

The Kosciusko's potholes weren't filled until this October. The Kosciusko is one of the major arteries in the City. No action was taken from the time we were hit by the blizzard.

Lane markings on major streets and avenues are missing or faded. Egregiously so. Did DOT delegate the duty of keeping traffic lanes clearly marked to residents and 311?

Wouldn't a DOT commissioner make these a top priority? Wouldn't these seem fundamental, albeit a bit mundane and less sexy than snazzy new bike lanes and pedestrian plazas? Aren't these common sense?

bggb

Your analysis of how the DOT functions and prioritizes is both comprehensive and compelling.

Politburo

Surely JSK is the first DOT commissioner to allow a pothole under their watch.

canofpeas

Brian Williams can suck my cock.

randomtransplant

Between the Hainlne and Markowitz bits, this seemed like a 2010 year-in-review more than a contemporary story. Especially because they neglected to mention that they ALREADY LOST, several times over, or that the main purpose was for safety. Less people have died or crashed, and that really should have been mentioned.

They mentioned how a 1980 transportation strike gave rise to the term "gridlock", but no mention was given to resounding failure of today's MTA. The price of cabs and parking wasn't mentioned, either.

They pointed out how a minority of people bike, but they took that out of context of the zillion reasons why a majority of people, mostly non-bikers, can understand & support the biker's in the first place.

It all seemed like more of a national tourism story than anything relevant to people with any sort of rubber on the city pavement.

kevd

"It all seemed like more of a national tourism story than anything relevant to people with any sort of rubber on the city pavement."
It IS a national show.

Colonel_Ingus

I'm a bike commuter and recreational rider... -some- (few) bike lanes are ridiculous. But other than that, I think she's done a wonderful job. Also, I didn't think Williams was that skewed.

kevd

Jesus. 100% agree with you over here.

Williams made one somewhat misinformed statement that 95% of american's would make. "Those cars aren't going to go away" Thats it.

so_annoyed_again

"don't think Williams was that skewed" ?? how about, a snarky, self-righteous, fake-tanned, TOOL, what a schmuck! (williams not you)

Colonel_Ingus

snarky, yeah. Self-righteous? I don't even know how that would've come up. Fake tanned? I don't really notice any particular tan... TOOL... if you say so.

I guess I'm just not so_annoyed.

Pixelwhore

LMAO!!!

Fronko

Don't miss Louise "Spy Camera" Hainline, counting bikes from her expensive apartment.

FIRE

This she-beast needs a stake through her heart.

bggb

‎"Elsewhere on the planet Earth, a transportation commissioner who wants to prevent people from getting run over and killed by other people's luxury consumer goods would merely be doing their job. However, in America, a person who actually places people over cars (or who even suggests that maybe people are almost as important as cars) is considered a crazy shrewish bike lady in the throes of menstruation-induced hysteria."

Or in your case, you consider her someone who needs to DIE.

http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.co...