We fear change, and we don't like new things in our space. The bikes are eyesores. They take up valuable parking spaces. They're used by tourists who ride on sidewalks, don't know their way around, and try to take pictures and read maps and buy chachkes while riding. Some Hasidic Jews are upset that "biking clothes and lifestyles clash with [their] traditional values."

At this point someone is already writing a chapter in a health policy book about the unanticipated safety hazards, another in a city planning book about implementing massive bike programs into traffic flows unequipped to deal with them, and another in a sociology book about the cultural-economic disparities highlighted by the program. And probably something in a young adult novel, too. Which isn't really relevant, just inevitable because everyone is writing a young adult novel.

When Citigroup signed on to privately fund New York's bike-share project, surely paying handsomely to put their brand on 10,000 searing-blue bikes, the multinational financial services corporation probably didn't anticipate that they would become objects of derision. ("Should we pay X million dollars to put our name on a thousand moving obstacles that will incur hatred from Manhattan's wealthy elite, our most valued clients? Yes? Okay. Who wants lunch? I'll have a panini.")

Pulitzer-Prize-winning Wall Street Journal editorial board member Dorothy Rabinowitz summed up the "majority of citizens'" position on the Citi bikes earlier this month, as James Fallows brought to our attention:

WSJ: Why would we want a program like this, anyway? Are we too fat? [Editor's note: Yes]

Rabinowitz: Do not ask me to enter the mind of the totalitarians running this government of the city. Look, I represent the majority of citizens. The majority of citizens of this city are appalled by what has happened. ... We now look at a city whose best neighborhoods are begrimed by these blazing blue Citi bikes. It is shocking to see how much they have snuck under the radar in the interest of the environment. ... The bike lobby is an all-powerful enterprise. But even without it, the mayor's stamp on this city is permanent, unless an enterprising new mayor undertakes to re-dig all of the streets and preserve our traffic patterns.

Rabinowitz: The fact that a city is helpless before the driven personal and ideological passions of its leader in the interest, allegedly, of the good of the city. This can take many forms, but we have seen the most dramatic exposition of this in our city.

WSJ: With the latest example being the bike-share program.

Here's the full video of that exchange (click to play):

In an interview yesterday with New York Magazine over salmon roe, Rabinowitz described the subsequent reaction to her comments.

Excitedly, [Rabinowitz] reached into her purse and found a greeting card a woman had sent to her. "This sums up the general attitude -- this is the biker-fanatic sensibility." She handed it to me. "You are still a cunt," it read. I gasped. "This is nothing," she said, laughing.

So ... opinions are mixed.