Boston Globe Columnist Tweets Out History’s Dumbest Anti-Bike Rant

I hesitated to even respond to Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby's odious tweetstorm against cycling in Boston, because the man is obviously just trolling for attention.

But boy, Jacoby made it hard to hold back. In response to the death of Amanda Phillips, 27, who was struck and killed by a truck driver earlier this week, Jacoby went straight to the old bike ban argument:

Yep. Bikeless streets are clearly the solution to America's 35,000 annual traffic deaths. At least Jacoby provided a fat target.

So Jacoby doubled down with this gem:

After that the whole internet piled on.

Jacoby, relishing his troll-dom, continued to blur the line between profession columnist and anonymous bottom-feeding internet commenter:

It's not the first time Jacoby has spewed cartoonish and reactionary arguments to limit people's freedom to travel.

In 2015, after another woman was killed while biking in Boston, the Globe let Jacoby use her death as a pretext to insist "urban roads aren't meant for bicycles."

For all his bluster, Jacoby is right about one thing: Cycling is too dangerous in Boston. The city could fix that with more bike infrastructure and by calming car traffic throughout the city. Doing so would save a lot of drivers' lives too.