Some readers may recall that yesterday I wrote about an SFGATE article entitled “'Epidemic levels': California's e-bike war explodes in Orange County.” Today saw a “response” to this “call” in an article by Luke Spray, identified as a freelance contributor. This time the headline was “The e-bike is quietly reshaping life in SF.” Spray never makes any mention of yesterday’s article, but it is clear that he is on “the other side of the fence.” Instead of yesterday’s “darker vision of the e-bike world, where suburban idyll is shattered by hordes of law-breaking riders, often children, on souped-up electric weapons of discomfort, mayhem and, occasionally, death,” Spray’s three-paragraph article optimistically concludes that the “e-bike is transforming how people experience the city and redefining what freedom of mobility looks like.”
Cyclists on e-bikes on Market Street in San Francisco (photograph by Justin Sullivan, taken on July 29, 2004, from the SFGATE Web page for this article, courtesy of Getty Images)
Personally, I am not sure that Spray knows was “freedom of mobility” is! Does he know that the Department of Motor Vehicles has a well-defined code of the “rules of the road,” which makes it clear that “mobility” has its constraints? Sadly (at least to the best of my knowledge), there is no such “code” governing sidewalks, suggesting that, in that setting, “freedom of mobility” knows no bounds. As a result, I think it is fair to ask Spray whether he interviewed any pedestrians (who are, after all, “people”) before writing his article!
