Why is Riding a Bicycle in the City Turning Into a Culture War
Why is Riding a Bicycle in the City Turning Into a Culture War
Here are some key reasons why a safety and efficiency issue is turning into a bicycle culture war.
I honestly think conservative media just tries to start as much shit as possible so they have something to talk about.
At this point they probably start out by picking some slightly complex idea that's objectively correct and then work backwards to find a way to disagree with it.
If they can distract you, they can take more from you.
If they make you angry you keep watching.
And it's not just conservative media.
The issue is that these changes are beneficial to society but detrimental to them personally. So they try to rationalize their stance without sounding like selfish assholes.
I think it's more that the right wing media tries to identify grievances and then provides rationalizations for them. I don't think this is an organic, ground-up process.
It isn't even detrimental, it is just different from what they prefer. How does a bike line on a road they probably don't even live on really effect them? It doesn't.
Man I am so tired of the endless parade of articles with the premise "How could conservatives possibly think this?? Surely if we just take the time to carefully understand their reasoning we can blah blah blah...."
Here I'll answer the the "why" right now:
A) Most US conservatives live in suburbs and rural areas and generally hate and fear inner cities and the people who live there. They also generally hate and fear environmentalism. They also greatly resent the idea that the USA isn't the best country on earth at literally everything. They're also violently homophobic and have such deeply toxic ideas of masculinity that they consider it to be weak and "gay" to drive a smaller vehicle.So when an urbanism advocate says they want people to give up their lifted truck to live in a city and ride a bicycle so the US can be more like Europe and East Asia to help the environment how in the world do you expect them to react in any other way?
B) This is a population that's addicted to hate, fear and opposition like a drug, and conservative politicians and news orgs are the dealers. They need to periodically find something new to tantrum about. If there is no reason to hate something then a reason will be created. This was the case with LED lightbulbs, with COVID, with Romneycare, and so on and on and on. The 15 minute city conspiracy theories are not some sort of new unprecedented pattern of behavior.
I don't have or want a lifted truck but I also don't want to live in a city. If that means biking a hundred miles to get anywhere I'll do it.
Historically, rural towns had walkable centres and access to rail. Throw in a comprehensive bike network and you can live without a car easily. And I agree, I'd personally be willing to bike pretty long distances when I visit rural towns if it's safe and pleasant.
Right - they are only performing ingroup loyalty. We keep asking each other what conservatives really believe. But conservatives don't believe things. Conservatives believe people.
There should be zero delivery trucks clogging city streets. Zero.
Good luck with that. And the bike-riding population will do all their shopping far outside the city, where shops still survive? A cargo bike is nice for personal shopping, for deliviering letters or small packets, but you won't be able to fill the shelves of a supermarket this way. And whoever thinks about using freight trams for this, sit down and actually think this idea through for a change.
Delivery trucks are fine. They don't contribute to sprawl, are driven by professional drivers, and don't need parking lots.
It's personal automobiles that are the problem.
Sure, if you focus on the "zero" part of the phrase you can score a cheap point. Now focus on the "trucks" and the "clogging" part. A van can stock up a small to medium store just fine, and a walkable neighborhood doesn't need big box stores to begin with (and small business ownership is a plus for economic conservatives too). And with fewer cars carting individuals around, delivery vans can move in and out much more efficiently without clogging up anything.
If I had a dime for every time somebody made this reply, I’d have a lot of dimes.
Nobody has ever said that. What people are saying is that the private automobile is the worst way to move masses of people in cities. They command ungodly amounts of space, make everything more expensive thereby, and aren’t even good at moving masses of people.
You want to increase the capacity of your road? You can:
- spend millions adding lanes and possibly destroying houses
- turn a lane into a dedicated bus lane
- turn a lane into a bike lane
- hell, pedestrian areas have higher people capacities than car lanes
So, why do we need a supermarket? Is there any reason a supermarket couldn't be replaced with it's contingent parts? A butcher, a veggie shop, a convenience food shop, a pharmacy, a bakery, and a condiments shop?
I don't see why they have to be stapled together when separate works just fine. All of which could fairly practically be stocked individually by small light duty trucks, or even a bike with a decently sized trailer.
I also don't see why even if you staple everything together, a cargo tram wouldn't work. Have two, a passenger tram that works one route, and a cargo line that runs by the loading bays of local stores. They can be switched on and off the overarching infrastructure without interfering with each other.
It would be a paradigm shift for the US, but I fail to see how it would be an unworkable one.
And, all in all, they will need the same amount of goods to supply the same amount of people. And they will be substantially more expensive in comparison to a big box supermarket.
Many smaller businesses could be served just fine with cargo bikes. And once every inch of free space is no longer clogged up by parking cars, it'll be easy to assign loading zones for bigger vehicles that supply supermarkets and the like. Now make those electric and everything becomes much quieter and less polluted. Then people will actually enjoy coming to the city centre again so business there can thrive.
Yeah I can only think of people envisioning small downtown stores only using small trucks/vans or the weird one underground cargo tracks (there is a startup in Texas pushing for that one).
Even then trucking tends to just make more sense from everything I've experienced, but what do I know
It's not exactly some unsolvable logic puzzle. This is a problem not everywhere has, it's pretty simple.
Two solutions.
First, you create a second way in. It can be anything from dedicated streets for cargo with all the loading docks to shared warehouses at the edge of the city and underground tunnels like Disney. The main idea is to dedicate most streets to people and bikes, which can have all the storefronts
Or the easy way we could do far more quickly... Instead of slicing space you slice time. Limit deliveries from 4am to 7am, maybe an afternoon slot if necessary. The idea being people get the prime time, and you work out the logistics with that constraint
For better logistics, limit the size of the trucks and do shared distribution centers as a buffer for normal shipping times.
Ideally, you do #2 while transitioning to #1. Put a slowly increasing off hour delivery tax and create an incentive. The logistics will magically come together as the tax grows
The Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank, argues that the costs of such green initiatives outweigh their benefits, suggesting that they impose unnecessary economic burdens (Heartland Institute, 2017).
Guess some people see everything in a cost-profit margin only.
Guess some people see everything in a cost-profit margin only.
Especially when it's convenient. I'm sure they would happily look the other way if you showed them the economic burdens of having a car-centric society.
And thinking that way about everything is obviously the wrong way to go about life and will end up failing.
Anything the Heartland Institute publishes should never be treated as anything but toilet paper.
Same goes for any and all think tanks
They're all horseshit perversions that exist to push out mountains of academic-seeming material to legitimize whatever positions their funders want to legitimize to advance their interests
See Slavery (3500 BC)
- New thing goes against capitalist interests
- Propaganda machine manufactures consent via anti-thing news coverage
- This works on people who are generally aligned with internalized capitalist assumptions (ex. climate regulation is worse for humanity than allowing market forces to act unimpeded)
- People (conservatives) are now generally against thing and will block progress out of fear, even (and especially) if they don't really understand it on a meaningful level
- Status-quo is maintained through perpetuation of internalized capitalist assumptions and self-censorship by those aligned with market forces
- Profit (for billionaires)
A large part of this is about control. E-bikes are affordable, easy to use, and make it easy and cheaper for anyone, even poor people, to get around. The upper classes do not want the lower classes free on any level.
I LOVE my e-bike. I just got a tern NBD and I can finally ride on my own with a bike that fits me even when my disability flares up and I am at my most limited.
Now that my bike time has increased dramatically I have noticed aggression towards me has also increased. I've had people yell slurs out of their car windows, people rev threateningly behind me when they couldn't pass, people speed around me through intersections, etc. Mostly I've noticed it from class traitors.
In my area especially people tie cars to freedom. Public transit is practically non-existent so kids and teenagers never ride a bus or a train and assume cars are the only way to get around. This seems to be especially strong among the lower and lower-middle classes, where people struggle to get and keep their cars, and seem to have an unhealthy emotional attachment to them.
If only there were a way to allow bikes on roads without directly impeding car traffic...
My country has the most ridiculous ebike rules. Speeds are limited, and it needs to function as a bike at all times.... Among others.
This means even if you have one of those moped style ebikes, you have to unnecessarily carry around pedals (which would be impractical and awkward to use), despite having no intention of using them. Cops can just stop you and ask for them. If you can't produce them, then you're getting a ticket.
Stupid.
But I agree, I would liken it to the electric vehicle problems. Though fundamentally different due to several factors, the motivations are the same. People are making money continually from the use of automobiles. Automotive repair and maintenance shops, gas stations (or EV charging stations), all the way to road maintenance and such.... It's a monster of an industry. Nobody wants to stop that gravy train, so they keep fighting against these alternatives that save us lowly "poors" some money. (Only considered to be poor because we don't drive dinosaur burning monster trucks everywhere, so we must be too poor to afford it)
those people want you out there spending your money (aka giving it to them), all the time. This doesn't make them more money, so it's bad.
Forcing bikes into conflict with cars is of course going to create problems. When I first started riding being on a sidewalk was fine. If that wasn’t available there was usually a sufficiently wide breakdown lane. Only fools and couriers rode in busy urban environments. But with the big push for bikes both municipally and on the basis of personal preference they had to get bikes out of conflict wirh pedestrians on sidewalks, but in built-up urban environments where there isn’t any room to put in proper bike lanes. It’s just a recipe for inflamed tempers. Even on roads that are more suburban, a couple of 18mph bikes blocking a 45 mph road is stupid even if they have a right to be there. But we need more bikes.
This is such a crazy take. You want me going 15mph on the sidewalk?
No, we'd want cyclists going a sensible speed on the sidewalk when the road is too dangerous to cycle on.
Frankly if a road has traffic going >30mph on it, I'm not cycling on it without a dedicated cycle lane, and I don't just mean a thin line painted in the gutter.
I literally said we had to remove the bikes from sidewalks to separate them from pedestrians. What’s crazy about that?
No, riding on the sidewalk was never "fine". I know it FEELS more safe, but cyclists are struck more often and killed more often per km of sidewalk than road. And I am never okay with pushing risk off on other people because I'm afraid to accept it myself; even if riding on the sidewalk were safer for me, it is less safe for everyone else, so I don't fucking do it.
Dude(ette), I’m over 50. It was “fine” in the sense that it was what we all did and there were rarely any rules against it. I don’t know where you’re getting that I said it was acceptable in the modern context, in fact I stated pretty much the opposite. You’re making controversy where there really isn’t any.
I live in a rural area, driving is basically a requirement. I've gotten to the point where I've driven for so long that, I don't really want to drive in cities anymore. Too many stupid people. I'd be happy to drive to the city limits, then hop a bus/train/subway/bicycle/scooter/electric riding thing to where I need to go.
I only still have a car because I live in such a remote area and there's literally nowhere nearby to go if you can't drive. It's literally an all day outing if you want to go to the nearest city by any method other than a vehicle.
I've been working from home the last few years and my car only really gets use when I'm called to a site for work, or running errands on weekends. I literally only travel maybe 30 hours of driving a year. This is in contrast to doing more like 60 hours behind the wheel every month before COVID...
IDK what you people are doing in cities, but "bike friendly" shouldn't be a conversation or debate. It should be the rule. However, far be it for me to tell you city folk what to do.
There have always been jerks. I had things thrown at me from cars and cars swerving at me 40 years ago. Back then they were just random jerks and no part of some us/them mind set.
Apologies as this is off topic, but does anyone have suggestions for how to minimize the extremely intrusive advertising that kind of ruins reading articles like these? 2/3rds of my mobile screen is covered with ads. If it matters I'm on iOS and use Chrome for my default mobile browser. I'm aware of the privacy implications of those choices.
Firefox with uBlock Origin or Rethink DNS on Android cab block ads, the best you can do on iOS is DNS adblocking with something like Adguard
It's not as good as a real adblocker but you can install "ad guard" from the app store (you have to enable it in settings -> safari -> content blockers)
I am not sure if this works with Chrome on iOS but there is an app called Hush (yellow icon with face having tape over mouth) that works with Safari to get rid of popups. I’ve not had it very long but I tried it on this article and had no pop ups.
You can use DNS based adblock, but this tends to break on public WiFi networks.
One other option is to use brave as a web browser. It's a chrome derivative with a built in adblock. Most browser extensions don't work on iOS so there's not many options.
If you're open to switching browser, try out brave, it has built-in adblock
Because cyclists are narcissistic people who think the vast minority of people who live in cycling distance of their work and everything else and never get enough from the store or anywhere else that is problematic to carry back home (seriously, do these people ever actually get anything of substance?) think they need entire city blocks completely dedicated to them while giving a big middle finger to people who just want to get to where they're going directly because they CAN ferry any decent amount of goods back and forth.
Not to mention their massive ableism that ignores people who cannot easily walk or ride for any decent distance and denies them direct access to places. Cities already do this to a point where there's no actual free parking anywhere for people, even parking dedicated for them which, in the suburbs, every single parking lot has spots right next to the building for them so it's as easy as possible to access. Most cities rely on garbage paid parking decks and lots far away from most things people need to get to, and even if they have spots for those people, they're still not as accessible as the vast majority of places in suburbs.
Cyclists are basically like vegans and religious people: ignorant, hateful, and annoying. It's not "turning" into a culture war: it is a culture war, with rich, fortunate elitists on one side and the rest of us on the other.
Poe's Law, thou art a bastard.
Yes the "rich, fortunate elitist" trying to commute on a $200 bike instead of a $60,000+ SUV that spews noxious gases.
Unpopular opinion: because cyclists are entitled assholes 😘
Yeah I'm the entitled asshole with my bike because I wanna go from A to B
Not the person who takes up 8 times as much space as me to transport the same or more often less cargo than me, poisons the air I breathe, pollutes my drinking water, endangers my life because they're busy reading texts or think their time is more valuable than everyone elses, uses my tax dollars to fund massive roads I'm not even allowed to use and, best of all, honks at me to get out of the way on the narrow streets I live on as if I'm the uninvited guest.
But one dude in spandex made you swerve a little some 2 years ago so go off queen
Bicycles on their own don't turn people into assholes, the same way toaster ovens or flip-flops don't do it, so we have to assume there is some percentage of the population that are assholes no matter what they drive. So before letting them loose in the city, would you rather equip an asshole with a multi-tonne metal murderbox or with a bicycle? The more assholes on bikes the fewer assholes with the means to murder people.
Counterpoint: r/idiotsincars (or !idiotsincars@lemmy.world)
Also there's a whole dictionary term created for car drivers called "road rage".
So going by statistics, car drivers are entitled assholes.
Because the powers that be created both r/fuckcars and pushed anti 15 min city bullshit. They now play both sides using research done by former wall street quants now working for major think tanks
You went a tad too conspiratorial there.