By David Norcross, Alexandria
(File Photo)

To the editor:

I want to congratulate Rich Baier, director of the Alexandria Department of Transportation and Environmental Services, for his candor.

After all of the sound and fury of the bicycle battle, we at last have the real issue summed up in a short quote from Baier in a recent Sunday edition of The Washington Post: “We are trying to achieve a dramatic change in behavior, and that must be accompanied by an attitude change.”

This has not and is not really about bicycles. It is about social engineering on the local level.

Fostering attitudinal change is not a role for local government, if — for that matter — it is an appropriate role for any government. That Alexandria City Council has facilitated this social experiment is appalling.