Two Wheels Good

In the old days, a columnist would write some vaguely controversial opinion and maybe the newspaper or magazine would receive some letters and nothing much would happen. Now things are very different. On 8 March, John Cassidy (a writer I normally like very much) begins a post on his New Yorker blog, thus: 'At the risk of incurring the wrath of the bicycle lobby...' and then mounts an attack on the increase of bike lanes in Manhattan. His Jaguar gets stuck in traffic, he complains. He can't find anywhere to park when he has a restaurant reservation.

In the old days nothing much would have happened, but as the old song puts it, that was then but this is now. All hell breaks loose. There's not just an outpouring of rage and grief from New Yorker readers in the comments section, but responses from Felix Salmon (here and here), Nobel Prize-winner Paul Krugman, Ezra Klein and even the Economist, all worth reading and all devastatingly critical.

By 12 March, the New Yorker has a special bike-lane page on its website, including a robust defence of bike lanes by political editor, Hendrik Hertzberg. 

It's democracy in action. The disappointing bit is that Cassidy returned twice to the debate (here and here) and tetchily and rather self-pityingly re-states his position, taking no account of the rebuttals at all. How often in your life have you ever seen anyone presented with evidence, accept it and change their mind?