Cape Fear MTB

If you vote in the city of Wilmington, DO NOT vote for Dana Page if you want bike lanes. As I'm watching the council debate on the public access channel, he called the bike lanes that are proposed to be built "silly." I believe he said they were a waste of money and should not be built. He is not getting my vote.

No surprise here. I've yet to hear this man say anything sensible.

The biggest cause of crime in Wilmington right now is the “Great Recession” that Obama/ Biden have landed us in with a stimulus bill that does nothing for unemployment. The Obama/ Biden stimulus plan pushes silly “green solutions” and bank bailouts.
- Dana Page

source: http://watchdogs.blogs.starnewsonline.com/10545/city-council-candidate-dana-page-on-crime/


So.. umm.. Mr. Page also thinks the Obama administration caused the recession and is responsible for a majority of the crime in Wilmington.

Of course he is against bike lanes. They fit nicely in his "silly green solutions" category.

Thanks for that link.

I'd like Dana Page to tell the families of the cyclists who died on Wilmington streets last year that bike lanes are silly.

Tell that to Portland and Seattle, which now have 10% of the people commuting by bike. They save money and get healthy. Imagine that.

The studies show that it saves money for everyone, not just cyclists/walkers -- check out the Rails-to-Trails report Active Transportation of America.

Besides, much of the funding will come at the Federal level, so it won't cost the city/county anything.

There are two things the federal government did right: 1) creating the National Parks system, and 2) this one -- increased investment in bicycling and walking.

Sounds like he wants to have high taxes and high costs in the long run for every Wilmington resident.

What an ass.

Is Dana Page on the City Council? Why isn't his name and contact info not on the City Council staff webpage:
http://www.wilmingtonnc.gov/CityCouncil ... uncil.aspx

Didn't the City Council endorse and Bill Saffo sign a Proclamation back in May stating that the "Wilmington City Council is committed to the promotion of safe and convenient bicycling for both transportation and recreation"?

He's not on; he's running for a seat in the upcoming election. Sorry if there was confusion. And yes, they did sign that proclamation.

an email exchange with dana page from facebook friend of mine.

In a message dated 11/01/09 12:02:22 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,(i deleted sam's email) writes:

Dana,
You said that spending $16 million on bike paths is a waste of money. Do you not think that we need to use more and more alternative (not oil based automobiles) forms of transportation? (Bus, bicycles, mopeds, etc). I may still vote for you, despite your apparent insensitivity to those of us who travel around wilmington on bicycle and risk our lives because of the lack of bike lanes.
Thanks,
sam

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sam
Sam you have to be sensitive to the majority of the folks that take their lives into their own hands every day with the pot holes and the cracks in the pavement on the city roads.

Ride Shipyard Blvd. from the shipyards on the river to College Road. You will see what I mean. The poor condition of Shipyard Blvd. contributed to the death of a Wilmington policeman earlier this year. He was responding to a call and lost control of his police cruiser and lost his life. My son rides in a school bus every day on this dangerous road. I believe the policeman, my son, and everyone else's safety is far more important than some hippie dippy bike rider who drinks the Obama "green Kool-aid".

What you have to understand is that when Obama says "green" he is talking about money coming out of my pocket and others who are successful in society and going to some unnecessary scam for some feel good idiotic program that is not cost effective!

Repair all of the existing roads and bridges and then I might consider bike paths.

Do you realize the state of NC is $300 million behind in road and bridges repairs. Why would any one but an idiot want to spend money on bike paths when the roads are so under funded?

In life as you grow older you will learn that you have to learn to put needs in front of wants. We need a safe road and bridge network from Murphy to Manteo before we build bike paths that will not be maintained properly either. There is not enough money for bike paths and for good roads and bridges both. We have to choose roads and bridges over bike paths.

If you want more bike paths move to California where they are so broke from building bike paths that folks are fleeing the state in droves.

Think about what these Obama robots are saying. They want to make the rest of the country suffer the same fate of California and Europe. Why not make a stand in Wilmington this November 3, 2009 and fight the dictators in Washington and use our stimulus money to repair our crumbling road system before we build bike paths to nowhere.

Dana Page, Candidate for Wilmington City Council 2009. (A Reagan/ Jesse Helms Conservative)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dana,
I respect your analysis of Shipyard Blvd and recognize the need for it to be repaired.
I've ridden Shipyard Blvd from Carolina Beach Rd to College road quite a bit. Although its bumpy in quite a few areas, I didn't come across any pot holes. However, your lack of respect for people who chose to find an environmentally friendly way to commute is extremely evident and quite disconcerting.

Your statement "I believe the policeman, my son, and everyone else's safety is far more important than some hippie dippy bike rider who drinks the Obama "green Kool-aid", is an example of the lack of civil discourse that the public dislikes in elected officials/candidates. Your demeanor in presenting your position makes me question whether you have the kind of disposition necessary in being a public official. If you want to get elected, you may want to present your position with the facts (roads, bridges are in horrible shape and need to be fixed before bike lanes are created) rather than all the epithets at people that see environmental issues differently than you.

Sam

Wow. This guy's obviously got something against Obama and cyclists. What an ignorant redneck moron. I don't believe it's a roads vs. bike lanes thing anyway. Notice how he paints it this way. It's about giving people choice and lowering costs in the long run. What he is suggesting will actually increase costs vastly for everyone in the long run. How? By giving people zero choice in how they move about. By increasing our dependence on fossil fuels, what I believe is the number one security threat to our country. By increasing health care costs. Transportation reform equals health care reform. Heart disease costs this country $400 billion each year.

Roads need to be fixed, bridges rebuilt. That's the only thing I'm going to agree with. But if you build ways to get around other than by car then you reduce wear and tear on the roads and then you don't have to keep widening roads and building more and more of them.

Only someone insanely stupid would imply that CA is broke because it built bike paths. Hey, dufus, NC is in trouble too, and why they raised taxes. Most states are in trouble and it has little or nothing to do with how many bike lanes they have.

I hate ignorant people. The cycling community should not vote for this guy. This guy wants to be a leader? No effin' way. I am actually a fiscal conservative. I love these people that get all bent out of shape when a little money is spent for the common good yet it's ok to spend trillions to bail out the failures of the rich.

Spread the word.

-SBA

I was just reminded that the police officer that is mention in the email was avoiding a box in the road and it had nothing to do with road conditions. That's quite a lie to be telling to suit the agenda.

Wow. Russell Kirk must be weeping in his grave.

Since I'm sure he's in favor of personal responsibility, and there's no doubt that motorized traffic causes the need for repairs, I'm sure he'd be for an increased gasoline tax in the city so that those who do the damage pay for the repairs. Fair is fair. You break it you buy it.

Too bad he's so obviously a nut, because he's dead on about the need for government to spend project money locally, forced annexation, and fiscal responsibility. Anyone else running that supports those positions sans the idiotic demagoguery about bicycles and "the Obama-recession." How stupidly partisan do you have to be to not see the seamless consistency between the last two administrations' handling of the economy?

On a positive note, I always appreciate the laugh when someone calls me a hippie.

I can hardly believe (though I must, because it happened), that a candidate will respond to a potential voter with such condescension and scorn. If I could vote, I would tell him that he has very definitively lost mine. For poetic justice, I hope his son grows up to be a "hippy dippy bike rider". Bike riders are not some outcast group living in another dimension. Bike riders comprise of policemen, students, bus riders/drivers, basically almost every subset of society, and are tax-payers and voters too. Can we pass the exchange on to the media somehow?

More from Dana Page: The city of Wilmingtwood is not supposed to be a Berkely California or some other hippie paradise. People in Wilmingwood drive cars and the bikes need to look out for the cars. If you want a bike paradise move to Cuba or China, They love bicycles there!

http://www.starnewsvote.com/group/wilmingtonelections

Who is he to determine what Wilmington is or is not supposed to be?
Last I checked we had a democracy in this country.

sirbikes wrote:Who is he to determine what Wilmington is or is not supposed to be?

If you take the view that how there are is the way they're supposed to be and meant to be in the future, then it follows. Of course, by that same reasoning the city is supposed to be in debt and remain in debt (Page's main issue is fiscal responsibility) and people who want the government to spend less than it brings in should move.

I happened to come across this history of Portland's bicycle renaissance recently. Excerpt.

Portland is known as one of the most bike-friendly cities in the country, and accommodating the bicycle commuter is a critical component of the region's multi-modal transportation policy. In the late 1960s and early 1970s this would have seemed to be a remote and fanciful idea.

An organization called the Bicycle Lobby coalesced in Portland in 1970 and it took years of hard work to get where they are today. We look at the bicycle friendliness of Portland today there and think "Oh yeah, well that's Portland." But the welcoming landscape for cyclists didn't appear magically, it is the result of decades of dedicated and persistent work by a group of citizens. It wasn't something that had to happen.

Ha Ha!! It looks like he almost tied for dead last ..........with Ricky Meeks!!!!!!
http://www.starnewsonline.com/section/news102

Good riddance.

I happen to be a fiscal conservative, and am appalled at the debt that our government is incurring. However, no matter what, all governments will run up debt, because that is how the system is designed. Governments issue debt to pay for services and must pay interest on that debt. The only way the interest can be repaid is with the issue of yet more debt. Thus the debt must always grow. Our monetary system is an exponential system by its very design. Now that's why governments are always preaching the mantra of growth forever, because that is what MUST happen to mask the constant debt issuance. Cities, counties, states must always grow, forever. That is why you have real estate developers as candidates for city council yapping on and on about growth. What has happened, however, is that growth has stopped, and so now cities, counties, state governments are in big trouble, because they can't keep the charade going anymore. Now they have to raise taxes or cut spending or file for bankruptcy. The only way to truly grow is to export goods and services produced here in this country. But we are no longer doing that, so we are just running up more and more debt trying to pretend we can go on living the way we have been the last 20 years. I'm afraid that the many clowns around here like Dana Page and others in government are in for a rude awakening if they think they can continue our current wasteful and unsustainable living arrangements.

On another note, there is a meeting tomorrow at 5:30 PM (Wed Nov 4) at the market street Port City Java concerning the Wilmington Cyclovia (or Sunday Road Closure) if anyone is interested. This is the one that burned down and was rebuilt, across from Wallace Park, just south of N 23rd st.

I am all for forming a bicycle lobby, but I have very little time with kids and a demanding job, plus the mtb stuff. Getting Connected was doing that for a while but I think they got burnt out after lobbying for over a year and getting two Share the Road signs for all of it. Perhaps winning the $15 million grant will spur more of this. Everybody I talk to, and I talk to a lot of people, want more bicycle facilities. It is a way better climate than Portland, is flatter so that's easier for regular non-cyclist folks to get around, and we have the beach and tourism. It is a no brainer and will return 10 times the amount invested. I've already seen it with Blue Clay when folks come into town to visit, go to the beach, etc. they bring their bikes now and do some riding. It's another thing to do here. Maybe I can organize a huge peaceful but impactful demonstration by hundreds of people wanting more bike facilities. It's got to happen, one way or another.

sirbikes, can you post what happens at the cyclovia meeting? I would love to go, but I have a prior commitment. It's a great idea and would love to see it get off the ground.

sirbikes wrote:On another note, there is a meeting tomorrow at 5:30 PM (Wed Nov 4) at the market street Port City Java concerning the Wilmington Cyclovia (or Sunday Road Closure) if anyone is interested. This is the one that burned down and was rebuilt, across from Wallace Park, just south of N 23rd st.

I'd like to attend this, as I think the Cyclovia idea is a more effective goal than the other stuff I've seen people working toward locally. Do you know if that PCJ will allow people to bring their bikes inside? I'd be coming straight from work and don't have a lock with me today.

Thanks for the heads-up on the cyclovia meeting, Erol. It definitely sounds very exciting and I'm looking very much forward to it. Hope it passes all the checks it's supposed to go through and get approved! You can count me in as one of the volunteers.

Can't wait to hear more about it Erol!

I love that the discussion of the cyclovia is in a thread about Dana Page. Perhaps the event should be named after him?