by Steve Timmer

Aug 20, 2012, 9:00 PM

Bill Glahn won’t share the road II

When we last left Uncle Billy, he was wiping the spittle off his chin after one of his anti-bicycle rants. Bicycles and trains were the reason he was stuck in traffic on the freeway. Bikes are a nuisance and a waste of time to Glahn, who winds up his pitch with this:

Favoring motorized transportation has produced the world’s strongest economy, why stop now?

If you ever wondered what the guy who looked up at the last tree on Easter Island, then spit on his palms, lifted his stone ax and cut it down, looked like, or maybe the guy who gazed on the arid Great Plains and though to himself, “I can populate this place with millions of sodbusters,” only to find that when it was put to the plow it blew away, he probably resembled this guy:

Just today, the Star Tribune’s editorialists observed in an editorial about bike theft:

Biking reduces traffic — and burns calories — at a time when progress is needed on both fronts. While Minneapolis has yet to reach its 2014 goal of having 7 percent of commuters on bikes, the current estimate that 3.5 percent are wheeling it to work is well ahead of most metro areas. (Bike-friendly Portland, Ore., is at 6 percent).

There would be no way to cram all the people who work in the downtowns on the streets or parking ramps without public transportation, bicycles and pedestrians. And never mind the clients, patients, and customers who want to come downtown, too.

Oh, Uncle Billy has his supporters, all right, such as the woman at an Edina Department of Public Works hearing on bike lanes who said, “Cars were here first; why do we have to worry about bicycles?”

Ma’am, actually the horses were here before the cars.

You have to believe that Glahn, while driving around the city he’d like to represent, might have encountered a sign such as the one above, and thought to himself, “Gee, maybe this isn’t such a great fit.”