Zwei Is Banned By The Tyee

Critical mass blockading the Lions Gate Bridge in pre covid days.

Well, it was bound to happen, good old Zwei has been banned by the on line newspaper the Tyee, because he questioned the “Left’s” sacred cow, the bicycle lobby, by mentioning that the cycle lobby has done great damage to future regional transit planning.

I did not use foul language, nor did I threaten anyone but stated an opinion, but the author of the piece as well as the Tyee editorial board saw fit to ban my comments and ban me from commenting.

Now, I have sent people to “spam”, mainly for the tiresome memes of “SkyTrain good, LRT bad” sort of thing. I was banned for an informed opinion.

Zwei picked up a badge of honour being called a “Curmudgeon Laureate”, with postings asking questions about a whole range of issues.

How have we come to this point?

After many years watching the bicycle lobby in action, including their evil twin, the “rails to trails” folks, they only one agenda and that is bike lanes and they do not care an iota about the after effects of bike lanes.. This small but well choreographed and vocal group of people, put the fear of god into politicians and the cycle lobby’s PR team are superb with their Orwellian message of “bikes good, cars bad”.

The Critical Mass group especially love blocking traffic to bring attention to their cause. Sadly, they have become so full of themselves, they are embarking on another assault of politicians and motorists.

Local politicians do what they do best, politic and have seduced the bicycle lobby to support SkyTrain and subway expansion and in turn, the cycle lobby will get bike lanes. Of course, the bad old motorist will pay the price in gridlock. Kow-towing to the cycle lobby is a win/win for politicians as they love the 10 second soundbites for the evening news and ever important photo-ops at election time because it is both easy politicking and cycle lanes are very cheap when compared to other transit infrastructure.

Sadly it puts long term transportation planning into chaos.

By seducing the cyclists with the promise of bike lanes, the region is expanding the politically prestigious SkyTrain light metro system, to a tune of $11 billion to build a mere 21.7 km of light metro that will not take cars off the road and just may do the opposite.

For that opinion,  Zwei has been banned.

From Metro Vancouver, mode share of commuters. Please note the percentage of those cycling has not perceptively budged. Post Covid the trends are continuing.