This article makes a case against Bill de Blasio in New York City talking a good game on climate change while refusing to make safe bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure happen. I could ask exactly the same thing of my mayor, Jim Kenney in Philadelphia.

Bike lanes have expanded in de Blasio’s time but at a shameful pace and in a frankly dangerous way. Most new lanes are not protected. Instead of a firm barrier that moving cars are unable to cross, all that separates bike riders from their deaths is a painted line or a plastic stick every 20 or 30 yards. This has been referred to as a “paint and pray” policy: painting bike lanes and praying nobody will get hurt. It might be sufficient if several other things existed that do not. They include the following:

Drivers respecting the lines and not driving into bike lanes.

Delivery trucks and other vehicles not parking in bike lanes.

Drivers not opening their doors in front of bikers.

Police enforcing these rules.

These things do not prevail, which is the main reason bikers and pedestrians are being killed and injured by the tens of thousands every year. On my daily commute, it’s not unusual to encounter several delivery trucks, Ubers, or other vehicles parked in unprotected bike lanes on a single block, requiring me to merge into moving car traffic. Often the vehicles, rather than being stationary in the lane, are moving into it.

This could describe my bike commute in Philadelphia. And I am a (relatively) young, able bodied person. Biking should be the mode of choice for families with small children and healthy older people, and we are not even close to that being a safe option.