“This is not a scientific poll”

The Patch has a fairly ridiculous poll up today on the subject of the nixed-for-now Plaza Street bike lanes.  Here are the choices:

Polls like this are little more than bait for page views and comments, but rarely have I seen one written in a manner so obviously geared towards ginning up controversy.  Not only is the poll unscientific, but phrases such as “what more do those cyclists want” and the high-journalistic acronym “omg,” hardly lend themselves to rational discussions of why, exactly, the Plaza Street bike lanes were taken off of the table for now.

Still, the way this poll is phrased reveals a lot about the two “sides” of the Great Bicycle Wars.  The first two response choices speak to questions of safety and convenience while the second two suggest that uppity cyclists have more than enough aesthetically displeasing bike lanes on which to ride.  As such, this thow-away post gives me hope; the future belongs to the calm and rational, while NIMBYism has little more than shallow desperation on its side.