St. Louis DOT Beats Rita Robinson in Streetsblog Motor Mouth Poll

Sometimes public officials say regrettable things. But few of them display the flagrant disregard for part of their constituency that St. Louis County Department of Highways and Traffic spokesperson David Wrone has.

Wrone was the runaway winner in our recent “Motor Mouths” competition to find the most clueless statement from a transportation official, by demonstrating a complete contempt for pedestrians, cyclists, or transit riders. It shouldn’t be too surprising Wrone won the Motor Mouth trophy — after all, his remarks were the ones that inspired our whole competition. By the time we closed the poll today, 123 people had voted Wrone’s quotes as the worst, fully 50 percent of the total in a seven-way contest.

Let’s review the evidence against Wrone.

“We’re a highway department; not a bicycle department.”

– November 23, 2011, on STLToday.com

and our favorite:

“As a matter of policy, we don’t build dedicated bike lanes. St. Louis County salutes the bike-riding community, but we manage our system in the knowledge that motor vehicles comprise the vast majority of our customer base.”

– June 18, 2013, CBS St. Louis

What else can we say about David Wrone, except that he earned this title?

We’d also like to congratulate our runner up, Tulsa City prosecutor Bob Garner, who admitted to riding his bicycle on the sidewalk, in violation of the local law he himself is charged to uphold, because “that’s just exercising sound discretion for everyone concerned.”

Big thanks to our all contestants and submitters!