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Permalink Reply by DavID on December 16, 2009 at 2:27am

Touhy and McCormick, might have been off the path right there....on WGN news this am, i was in the other room tho.

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Permalink Reply by Amber K on December 16, 2009 at 3:45am

Someone just told me about this. They heard the person was hit by a bus.

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Permalink Reply by Tony Adams on December 16, 2009 at 6:01am

I hope everyone is ok. I have no news.

I heard the report. The traffic reports on WBEZ drive me insane. WBEZ clearly illustrates its suburban volvo SUV driving bias when it decides to waste 10% of each news hour to deliver "news" that almost never has any significance to most listeners. Even those who still commute by car generally have no use for this so called "news" since very few have any alternative driving routes anyway even on those rare occasions when the report differs from the norm. I'm appalled this our so called liberal progressive news outlet continues to celebrate and perpetuate the car culture status quo.

But this report was pretty great this morning. I can't recall the exact words, but it was something to the effect of - please remain aware that some brave souls are still riding their bikes and please keep an eye out for them.

Bravo WBEZ!

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Permalink Reply by Duppie on December 16, 2009 at 6:08am

Tony Adams said:

I'm appalled this our so called liberal progressive news outlet continues to celebrate and perpetuate the car culture status quo.

I don't think it's about celebrating car culture. Instead it all has to do with money. Either the traffic service pays WBEZ (and is allowed to slap on their own ads) or WBEZ realized that traffic info is cheaper than producing their own news segments.

Kindalike the Jay Leno show moving to 9pm. His multimillion dollar salary is still cheaper than producing a number of hour-long drama series to fill that slot

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Permalink Reply by jason tinkey on December 16, 2009 at 6:21am

yeah, not to mention that if cyclists started pledging to wbez en masse and demanding, i dunno, morning cycling reports or some such, i'm pretty sure they would take note of it. but then again, my bike doesn't have a radio.

Duppie said:

Tony Adams said:

I'm appalled this our so called liberal progressive news outlet continues to celebrate and perpetuate the car culture status quo.

I don't think it's about celebrating car culture. Instead it all has to do with money. Either the traffic service pays WBEZ (and is allowed to slap on their own ads) or WBEZ realized that traffic info is cheaper than producing their own news segments.

Kindalike the Jay Leno show moving to 9pm. His multimillion dollar salary is still cheaper than producing a number of hour-long drama series to fill that slot

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Permalink Reply by Lee Diamond on December 16, 2009 at 7:19am

The truth of the matter is the vast majority of radio listeners at any given moment in any given metropolis are in their cars. This is born out over and over again, so it is indeed a factor of catering to the listenership.

Here are stats from Nielsen for calendar year 2007:

Culled from radio stations in Major US markets:

FM Station A (Adult Contemp-Suburban)
68% Car
48% Home
21% Work
7% Other

AM Station A (News - Major Mkt.)
73% Car
51% Home
5% Work
1% Other

FM Station B (Pop/Rock Major Mkt.)
78% Car
42% Home
9% Work
4% Other


Arbitron puts the figure at 79% amongst its diarykeepers. The reason it cycles every 10 minutes is people are in the car for very short periods before they need to make decisions about getting on a highway or not in many situations.

This is not a defense of this practice, but an explanation as to the redundancy of traffic reports.

Incidentallly this is a highly accelerated trend as just in 2004, Arbitron showed with data from 2002 that the percentage of people listening in cars was only 33%.

I wonder how much of this is an increase in use of MP3/internet music at home and work vs. how much more driving we do as a society. A point I will ponder.

Back to original topic, there were reports (ON THE RADIO!) that the bike murder in Logan Square yesterday involved not only the driver bailing and running away after he fatally struck our fellow cyclist Jepson Livingston, but that eyewitnesses say the van veered into the cyclist to hit him.

I bike the Skokie trail every day and I didn't even know about that accident with the bus. There definitely was no sign of it when I went by any time in the last few days. I must have missed the accident on my way too work, and the way home was way later.

All of this is such tragic and preventable nonsense and symptomatic of a crazy, crazy society. Very sad.


Ride safe and cheers - Lee

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