getting around

Why Is No One Talking About This Bike Lane in Westworld?

Photo: HBO

The robots of Westworld are back and up to their old antics (opaque motives, whisper-talk). In season four, which I didn’t know existed until last night, Evan Rachel Wood’s Dolores, now called Christina for some reason, lives in New York City. It’s the future, and things are looking good in Manhattan: There’s green space, nicely appointed pedestrian plazas, and very few cars on the street. Sign me up, Delos. This is all leading somewhere pleasant and totally straightforward, I bet. There’s just one problem: As Christina-Dolores approaches the High Line on her walk to work (nice), something sinister appears in the frame — a self-driving car parked in a bike lane.

I stopped watching after 16 minutes into the first episode — fool me once, season two of Westworld — but it seems that in the future we can cure all disease, invent sex robots that turn into murder robots, do whatever stuff happened in season three that I am not familiar with, and transform New York into a more verdant, pleasurably walkable city. But we still can’t build protected bike lanes to ensure that in a future episode Christina-Dolores can enjoy a tranquil, unobstructed ride to work. Someone, maybe a character you assume died in a previous season but has inexplicably come back, should call 311.

Why Is No One Talking About This Bike Lane in Westworld?