Biking in Boston

Beautiful day for a bike ride along the Charles!

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#bancars said:
Thanks! It does look more mint green given the light in the photos but in person it's more a beige/cream color. Benno eJoy. It's a lovely e-bike!
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I got the Aventon Sinch.2 earlier this month and I've been loving it. I'm probably going to get rid of my car later this year now that I have an e-bike, and I'm pretty excited about finally going car-free.
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Josh Kraft is unsurprisingly anti-bike infrastructure.
www.bostonglobe.com

Boston mayor’s race off to a fiery start as Josh Kraft launches campaign to unseat Michelle Wu - The Boston Globe

The nonprofit leader and son of the Patriots' owner said Wu "has not risen" to the city's challenges.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com
Kraft on Tuesday gave the first outlines of his platform, which includes policy issues scattered across the ideological spectrum. He drew his biggest applause of the morning for promising to immediately pause the construction of bike lanes.
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We don't need a mayor who prioritizes the wants of suburban drivers over the needs of urban cyclists. Honestly, fuck anyone who thinks bike infrastructure is a bad thing in urban metropolitan areas like Boston.
 
themissinglink said:
We don't need a mayor who prioritizes the wants of suburban drivers over the needs of urban cyclists. Honestly, fuck anyone who thinks bike infrastructure is a bad thing in urban metropolitan areas like Boston.
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It's maddening that this pandering will likely get him some votes. Cities with strong bike infrastructure tend to be far more vibrant and livable. Boston is getting close to having a solid network, this is absolutely not time for a pause.
 
HenryAlan said:
It's maddening that this pandering will likely get him some votes. Cities with strong bike infrastructure tend to be far more vibrant and livable. Boston is getting close to having a solid network, this is absolutely not time for a pause.
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Agreed, any inkling of interest I had in Kraft's platform has been squashed by his inane, uninformed, and reactionary position on bike lanes. This man has no business being mayor of a major city like Boston. Period.
 
themissinglink said:
Josh Kraft is unsurprisingly anti-bike infrastructure.
www.bostonglobe.com

Boston mayor’s race off to a fiery start as Josh Kraft launches campaign to unseat Michelle Wu - The Boston Globe

The nonprofit leader and son of the Patriots' owner said Wu "has not risen" to the city's challenges.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com


We don't need a mayor who prioritizes the wants of suburban drivers over the needs of urban cyclists. Honestly, fuck anyone who thinks bike infrastructure is a bad thing in urban metropolitan areas like Boston.
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What’s surprising about that? He’s a billionaire son of a sleaze bag Trump lover who lives in Chestnut Hill and used his inherited money to buy a condo to establish residency in Boston, solely to run for mayor, motivated solely by the arrogant entitlement that as a billionaire he knows better than any progressive movements, most of which he finds offensive due to his bourgeois tastes. Boston better deliver a decisive “no” to this prick. Over a century of machine politics and while Wu ain’t perfect, she’s the first time we’ve had a breath of fresh air since the 19th century.
 
www.cbsnews.com

Mayoral candidate Josh Kraft on Boston bike lanes, struggling schools and how he's different from Michelle Wu

Josh Kraft is challenging Mayor Michelle Wu in the 2025 Boston Mayoral election, and in his first Sunday TV public-affairs interview, Kraft sketched out some details of what he'd do differently from the first-term incumbent.
www.cbsnews.com www.cbsnews.com
Kraft also weighed in on the city's controversial expansion of bike lanes into downtown and neighborhood business districts.

"I'd set a pause on bike lane to bike lane construction. I am for bike lanes, I just think the proliferation and the haphazard way it's laid out is not benefiting the everyday people in our city, families, seniors, our disabled communities and small businesses who are getting hurt by it as well," Kraft said. "A lot of the folks I've spoken to who have had those complaints feel like they haven't been listened to by the administration. There just doesn't seem to be a thought process toward a strategy to it. It seems to me like rushing to put them down has caused more of congestion and lack of ability to move around the city."
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Josh Kraft said:
I am for bike lanes, I just think the proliferation and the haphazard way it's laid out is not benefiting the everyday people in our city
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This guy is looking at an incomplete network and saying it makes no sense. The logical next step would be completing the disconnected parts, but no, he wants to just stop or even roll them back. At least be honest, don't pretend you are for them, then propose doing something that will make them useless.
 
FK4 said:
Think he’s got a chance, F-Line? You usually have some choice insights…
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I don't even know who he's pandering to with this bike lanes nonsense. A fear-based plea centered around "bike lanes = congestion" is pretty much only going to appeal to someone who never sees the city outside the window of a car, who drives everywhere including Downtown and the Financial district, and who sees none of these amenities in their neighborhoods. Ergo, suburbanites who don't even live and vote in the city. Seeing bike lanes is a normalized enough experience even in the outer residential neighborhoods that I doubt there's a persuadable coalition of voters to be had here. And if they're to be had, they're part of an inherently unreliable coalition of NIMBY's who hate everything that represents progress...including some of the things that Kraft likes. And that's only going to drive him into a corner on the other issues.

It's messaging indicative of a guy who knows fuckall about the city he's recently claimed residency in. It's early yet, but if he doesn't get a way better set of core issues for actual constituents of the city this isn't going to be much of a race at all.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
I don't even know who he's pandering to with this bike lanes nonsense. A fear-based plea centered around "bike lanes = congestion" is pretty much only going to appeal to someone who never sees the city outside the window of a car, who drives everywhere including Downtown and the Financial district, and who sees none of these amenities in their neighborhoods. Ergo, suburbanites who don't even live and vote in the city. Seeing bike lanes is a normalized enough experience even in the outer residential neighborhoods that I doubt there's a persuadable coalition of voters to be had here. And if they're to be had, they're part of an inherently unreliable coalition of NIMBY's who hate everything that represents progress...including some of the things that Kraft likes. And that's only going to drive him into a corner on the other issues.

It's messaging indicative of a guy who knows fuckall about the city he's recently claimed residency in. It's early yet, but if he doesn't get a way better set of core issues for actual constituents of the city this isn't going to be much of a race at all.
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You do know who he's pandering to, you said it yourself. He's pandering to suburbanites who don't even live and vote in the city, because that's what he is and those are the only people he interacts with.
 
bigeman312 said:
That’s a winning message in West Roxbury.
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It may be, and I expect him to have a strong showing against Wu there, given that it was one of her weakest neighborhoods against Essaibi-George (albeit Wu still won it). But Essaibi-George's 35% is probably Kraft's ceiling. He'll pick up Boston's Republicans and conservative white dems, but I don't see how he can build a winning coalition against Wu.

Moreover, I think the Chestnut Hill carpet-bagger label is really going to stick and be a big issue in the campaign, so he may not even do as strongly with the conservative white dems as Essaibi-George did.
 
BronsonShore said:
It may be, and I expect him to have a strong showing against Wu there, given that it was one of her weakest neighborhoods against Essaibi-George (albeit Wu still won it). But Essaibi-George's 35% is probably Kraft's ceiling. He'll pick up Boston's Republicans and conservative white dems, but I don't see how he can build a winning coalition against Wu.

Moreover, I think the Chestnut Hill carpet-bagger label is really going to stick and be a big issue in the campaign, so he may not even do as strongly with the conservative white dems as Essaibi-George did.
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From your keyboard to god’s ear (in case anyone thought my quip of his message playing well in West Roxbury was endorsement).
 
RandomWalk said:
Is he making a play to run for Governor?
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If he is, he's going about it the wrong way.

He's going to have to run to the right against Wu in Boston and attack her on several issues that are extremely popular with the Democratic voting base, so this campaign will probably sink his chance at ever being the Dem nominee for governor. He could switch parties, but the Mass GOP has been completely taken over by Trumpists so he won't be welcome there and the party as currently constituted has no shot of taking back the governor's office anyway.

I think his motivation is pretty simple: he's a privileged billionaire who just assumes he should be in charge.
 
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