Friday Funny: The Onion Eviscerates Bike Planning

More scathing satire from The Onion, which continues a long history of dissecting the priorities of society as reflected in the built environment and the public realm.

1 minute read

December 7, 2018, 11:00 AM PST

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


Bike Infrastructure

Richard Masoner / Flickr

"In an effort to improve riding conditions for the city’s long-neglected bikers, Los Angeles officials announced Friday a $10 million plan to add lanes for cyclists to recover from getting hit by cars," reads the lede of a totally fake article in The Onion.

The article includes one of our favorite techniques of the genre, a totally made up soundbite from a very real politician. This politician just happens to be a media darling and our hometown mayor, so the twist of the knife seems a little more excruciating in this case. Here's the completely fabricated quote from Mayor Eric Garcetti:

Countless accidents occur every day because of our poor cycling infrastructure, reckless motorists, and many other factors within our control, but luckily Central L.A. will soon have miles of road fully dedicated to letting riders regain consciousness from these collisions. Never again will you be side-swiped, rear-ended, or cut off by a distracted Uber driver without having a place to tend to your wounds.

We left out a few jokes here so you can read the rest in the source satirical article.

Friday, December 7, 2018 in The Onion

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