Mayor Wu Promised to Crack Down on Cars Blocking Bike Lanes. Except for Her Staffers, That Is

townhall.com

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is probably one of the worst mayors in America, but there are so many bad ones she doesn't get enough attention. From saying Somalis and other immigrants built Boston, which would be news to the Brits and other Europeans who settled there, to her radical pro-LGBTQ+ agenda, to the abysmal state of Boston public schools and crime in the city, she's doing a bang-up job.

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Now, she's managed to tick off Beantown cyclists, which is probably one demographic you don't want mad at you. Wu promised to crack down on vehicles blocking bike lanes, but her own staffer was just busted blocking one just days after.

And it's actually a serious issue. A cyclist was killed on July 9 after a recycling truck went into the bike lane. Louisa Gag was 36 years old and a transportation planner and safe-streets advocate.

Here's more:

Cyclists gathered at Boston City Hall last week for a somber vigil for Louisa Gag, the 36-year-old city transportation planner killed by a recycling truck on Tremont Street. Hundreds turned out in yellow "Streets Are Safe" shirts, cradling the sunflowers that have become the memorial symbol for cyclists killed on Boston roads. They came to mourn — and to be told the mayor had heard them.

Michelle Wu, who once employed Gag as her City Council policy fellow, stepped to the podium and vowed to crack down. Blocked bike lanes, blocked crosswalks, double-parking — her administration would step up enforcement, she said. She was assigning two senior aides full-time to the city's streets cabinet. Protected infrastructure was coming.

Cyclists in the crowd called it what they thought it was.

"That's why I said 'bulls**t' out loud when she said that part in her speech," one attendee wrote hours later in a r/bikeboston thread — the second-highest-scoring comment on the discussion. "She just wanted to lie to shut us up." Another attendee said they caught "someone laughing or smth when she said she had upped enforcement."
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The cyclists had her number.

That's the motto of the Democratic Party.

There could be a case made for this, too.

The debate about bike lanes on busy city roads should, and can, be made. But Wu promised to clean up the bike lanes, and that lasted about two seconds.

Promises made, promises broken.