What's significant here are the number of alcohol-related accidents (involving bikes, pedestrians, cars). Local bartenders need to stop over-serving both locals and tourists. And, yes, closing the bars at 2 a.m. would send a much stronger message than some "safety information" p.r. campaign and another "crackdown" by Chief Donna Lee.

We need to drastically change our image from that of a drunken trash heap to one of a safe, family destination.

Dear Urban Cyclists: Go Play in Traffic

The bicycle is a parody of a wheeled vehicle—a donkey cart without the cart, where you do the work of the donkey.

A fibrosis of bicycle lanes is spreading through the cities of the world. The well-being of innocent motorists is threatened as traffic passageways are choked by the spread of dull whirs, sharp whistles and sanctimonious pedal-pushing.

Almost everything that travels on a city street, including some of the larger people in the crosswalks, can crush a bicycle. Everything that protrudes from or into a city street—pot holes, pavement cracks, manhole covers—can send a bicycle flying into the air.

Given that riding a bike in a city is insane and that very few cities need more insane people on their streets, why the profusion of urban bike lanes? One excuse for bike lanes is that an increase in bicycle riding means a decrease in traffic congestion. A visit to New York—or Bogotá—gives the lie to this notion. You can't decrease traffic congestion by putting things in the way of traffic.

Bike lane advocates also claim that bicycles are environmentally friendly, producing less pollution and fewer carbon emissions than automobiles. But bicycle riders do a lot of huffing and puffing, exhaling large amounts of CO2. And whether a bicycle rider, after a long bicycle ride, is cleaner than the exhaust of a modern automobile is open to question.

Bike lanes violate a fundamental principle of democracy. We, the majority who do not ride bicycles, are being forced to sacrifice our left turns, parking places and chances to squeeze by delivery trucks so that an affluent elite can feel good about itself for getting wet, cold, tired and run-over. Our tax dollars are being used to subsidize our annoyance.

Bicycle riders must be made to bear the burden of this special-interest boondoggle. Bicycle registration fees should be raised until they produce enough revenue to build and maintain new expressways so that drivers can avoid city streets clogged by bike lanes. Special rubber fittings should be made available so that bicycle riders can wear E-ZPass transponders on their noses. And riders' license qualifications should be rigorous, requiring not only written exams and road tests but also bathroom scales. No one should be allowed on a bicycle if the view he or she presents from behind causes the kind of hysterical laughter that stops traffic.

Let's get real here ... an island of less than 20,000 and the city has to hire a bicycle and pedestrian safety coordinator ????? What does that cost us a year in salary, pension and Health Care???

More of your tax dollars brilliantly at work

This is much to do about a crazy (even then) resolution (96-396) by the city commission back in November of 1996 - it ain't the same island - but the idea of a spaghetti knot of double bike lanes throughout the entire island is still just as screwy