Bikes - privileged mode of conveyance?
I'm sure we all had a good laugh at Dorothy Rabinowitz's rant in the Wall Street Journal's video commentary about New York's CitiBike program. There's a letter to the editor of the New York Times today in response to a recent article about the bike parking nightmare in Amsterdam, that, while more coherent than Ms. Rabinowitz, still comes down firmly on the anti-bike side of the debate. The author, Gary Taustine, refers to bikes as a "privileged mode of conveyance":
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/opinion/invitation-to-a-dialogue-...
The Times tagged it as an "invitation to a dialogue," asking for responses by tomorrow for publication next Sunday. Might be worth a letter or two from Chainlinkers. Here are a couple ideas:
- Replace "bike" with "car" in Taustine's letter (that is, cars already have privileged status).
- Note that being early on the adoption curve, most American cities should be able to adapt before being overrun by bikes like Amsterdam.
- Point out that useful above ground and underground storage options exist. (I suspect underground storage would be out in Amsterdam, and might be problematic in cities like Chicago and New York which already have well-developed underground infrastructure.)
- New York, Chicago, and other large American cities could adopt a center city congestion charge like London's to free up more space to park and ride bikes. That is, make cars less of a privileged conveyance.
The Times doesn't identify Mr. Taustine's connection to New York, but if you Google for "Gary Taustine site:nytimes.com", you'll see that he has been a lifelong New Yorker, and doesn't lack for opinions.
As Divvy gets going and Mayor Emmanuel and his minions continue working to improve the cycling infrastructure in Chicago, it also makes sense to keep an eye on what's happening in New York. The reactions of people like Ms. Rabinowitz and Mr. Taustine are likely shared by many Chicagoans.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Carter O'Brien on
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The fact that Chicago's kids cycle in large numbers is precisely on topic. Chainlink may not be well represented by the under-17 demographic, but I assure you it is real and quite sizable.
I was riding to school in the 80s and I was far from alone. In fact, bike storage in schools is a serious impediment for growing ridership. Most people I grew up with stopped biking to school once we moved up to high school, as bikes weren't welcomed. I'd like to think times have changed, but...
Peenworm "8 mile" Grubologist said:Getting back to what the actual topic is about, I should think if we had anything close to the ridership of Amsterdam or Copenhagen and the bike parking concerns they're facing, we'd be able to repurpose a tiny fraction of the space devoted to car parking presently, and have enough space left over to put the space dedicated to car storage to actual use by human beings.
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Permalink Reply by globalguy on
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+1 You Hirsute-American!
Peenworm "8 mile" Grubologist said:Interestingly, this sentiment almost always reveals a load of bullshit.
Reboot Oxnard said:The horror of stereotypes isn't that they are fundamentally wrong, it's that they almost always reveal at least a kernel of truth.
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Permalink Reply by Christine (5.0) on
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Bikes are a privilege in the same way mountain hiking, or healthy homemade meals which take a long time to prepare, are a privilege. I sit at a desk all day; biking around doesn't exactly overtax my system.
But the fellows who helped me move last night? If I was them, the last thing I would want to do after a day of manual labor is bike home, and then stand in the kitchen washing lettuce. Far easier to drive to McD's for a bigmac, then crash on a couch. Time consuming, physical activities done in one's leisure time are by default a bit of a privilege.
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Permalink Reply by yai danche on
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You'd be surprised. My relatives work in kitchens and they used to walk the 3 miles to work, which took them roughly 40 minutes. They didn't want to spend $4 a day on the bus. I gave one of them a bicycle which made it more manageable. Now their kids are old enough to drive and saved enough money for a car so now they get chauffeured.
Christine (5.0) said:Bikes are a privilege in the same way mountain hiking, or healthy homemade meals which take a long time to prepare, are a privilege. I sit at a desk all day; biking around doesn't exactly overtax my system.
But the fellows who helped me move last night? If I was them, the last thing I would want to do after a day of manual labor is bike home, and then stand in the kitchen washing lettuce. Far easier to drive to McD's for a bigmac, then crash on a couch. Time consuming, physical activities done in one's leisure time are by default a bit of a privilege.
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Welp, I stand corrected. Coming from privilege, I had just assumed. But I can definitely understand the, "I have a bit of disposable income, instead of investing it I'm going to get a car for my tired feet" mentality, if such a thing exists.
badwolf said:I think those are all faulty assumptions. I come from working in kitchens, as well as other very physical on-your-feet-all-day jobs. One roommate used to be a mover, and the other is still a mover. We all ride our bikes to get places (to and from work included, no matter how tired we are) because, more than anything else, we're all too poor to maintain cars or fork over at least $75 to the CTA every month.
A meal that takes two hours to make and is made up of Whole Foods bullshit? Sure, that's a leisure activity of the privileged. I guess I just don't consider 20 minutes of biking to get somewhere that I need to be as a "time-consuming, physical activity done in one's leisure time." I usually just consider it commuting, just like everyone else is doing.
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Permalink Reply by Skip Montanaro 0mi on
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Just to bring this back toward the original letter to the editor...
I did not interpret "privileged mode of conveyance" to mean that only middle- and upper-class white guys ride bikes and thus get the benefits of improve bike infrastructure, to the detriment of less affluent members of society. Instead, I interpreted it to mean that the author believes that bikes and their infrastructure as a whole are getting preferential treatment. His last sentence sums up his views:
Cycling should be neither deterred nor promoted, but certainly not singled out as a privileged mode of conveyance whose operators enjoy segregated lanes, free parking and exemption from the licensing, insurance and safety precautions (like helmets) required for other two-wheeled vehicles such as motorcycles.
Basically, if cars and motorcycles have to pay to park, pay road use taxes, wear helmets (or seat belts, one presumes), and sit in traffic jams, then bikes and the people on them should be similarly constrained/inconvenienced as well. I think it would be best to simply reject Reboot Canard's original statement as not on-topic for this discussion.
In my mind, the author completely ignores the fact that cars and trucks have been a "singled out as a privileged mode of conveyance" for over a century, and look where it's gotten us. If bicycles can make the urban environment more livable and workable, I'm all for throwing a bit of privilege in that direction.
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Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on
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You know, there are neighborhoods in Chicago where automobile ownership is as low as 50% of households, due to being too expensive, and people do ride bikes to get from place to place rather than with the primary goal of making a social statement.
You should see if there's some sort of class at the Discovery Center that includes a field trip to a poor neighborhood (It's right in Lincoln Park-- probably walking distance for you.)
Reboot Oxnard said:All arguments about whether or not biking is a privileged mode of conveyance pale with a quick reality check: bikers are almost exclusively pale. The people riding bikes look like a netroots/occupy rally: almost exclusively affluent bourgeois white children, as over-educated as they are under-integrated, as intent on forcing people to conform to their norms as their parents ever dared to. Bikers are the children of privilege, engaged in an angry coming-of-age act of transitional defiance, testing their nascent social identities and political muscles like fledglings testing their wings before taking that leap of faith into adulthood. After a few years of self-righteous Critical Mass rides and kamikaze rides through car-infested (but otherwise safe) streets, the survivors will pair off and start to breed and then they will trade in their Surly bikes, if not their surly attitude, for the comfort and convenience of a Prius.
Of course there are outliers but they are so few as to constitute a proof instead of a rebuttal to the truth: biking may not be reserved for the privileged but it is a preserve of the privileged.
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Permalink Reply by Michelle S on
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That chart you link to is from 2005. I'm sure Germans in Frankfurt would be thrilled if gas were still $5.57/gallon, like it was in 2005. Today, it's actually running 1.62 Euros a liter, which is US $8.15/gallon, if my math is correct.
Michael J Blane 6.5 said:Just to throw a little more into the mix: today the price of gasoline in Amsterdam NL is: $6.48/gallon.
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Permalink Reply by Ben Gray on
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The Trib columnist who will not be named was right about one thing. I think that once ridership is up to a level that Rahm deems acceptable, the fees will start. This is the land of nickeling and diming. Can't see how cyclists will be spared.
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Agreed. For anyone not familiar with what this meant in dollars-and-cents (google Oil Depletion Allowance for endless resources/debate), here's a nice summary:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/03/01/1654501/oil-subsidies-c...
Skip Montanaro 12mi said:Just to bring this back toward the original letter to the editor...
I did not interpret "privileged mode of conveyance" to mean that only middle- and upper-class white guys ride bikes and thus get the benefits of improve bike infrastructure, to the detriment of less affluent members of society. Instead, I interpreted it to mean that the author believes that bikes and their infrastructure as a whole are getting preferential treatment. His last sentence sums up his views:
Cycling should be neither deterred nor promoted, but certainly not singled out as a privileged mode of conveyance whose operators enjoy segregated lanes, free parking and exemption from the licensing, insurance and safety precautions (like helmets) required for other two-wheeled vehicles such as motorcycles.
Basically, if cars and motorcycles have to pay to park, pay road use taxes, wear helmets (or seat belts, one presumes), and sit in traffic jams, then bikes and the people on them should be similarly constrained/inconvenienced as well. I think it would be best to simply reject Reboot Canard's original statement as not on-topic for this discussion.
In my mind, the author completely ignores the fact that cars and trucks have been a "singled out as a privileged mode of conveyance" for over a century, and look where it's gotten us. If bicycles can make the urban environment more livable and workable, I'm all for throwing a bit of privilege in that direction.
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Permalink Reply by Gort 12-mile Pinklegneep on
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There's a pretty large body of data showing fairly conclusively that every bicycle on the road is a fiscal net gain for a city and every car on the road is a net loss. More bike and transit infrastructure benefits the entire city. We don't individually pay for just the infrastructure we use personally. If we did, driving would be immensely more expensive to drivers than it is.
Evan said:
These are the questions:
What percentage of the community do investments in bicycling infrastructure serve and who should pay for those investments?
Is it only people who have so many great things going for them already? Is it largely for them but everybody else is gonna have to pay for it?
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Permalink Reply by Haddon on
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I agree and disagree:
Part of what is not being mentioned is just the notion of living in an urban center. I have friends whose rent is more than my far south suburban cousins mortgage on a quarter acre.
To some degree the fact that we are all a few hundred yards from a public transportation stop or a couple miles push from a bike store changes the equation dramatically. Numerous times I have had bike issues and simply gotten on the bus to get to home/work. If our routes were along rural, less well lit paths we might not consider the bike as an option. If you live further out and are a 15-20 miles from the supermarket and 15-20 miles in the other direction to the day care a bike isn't really an option.
As cyclists we are privileged to live in an urban center and we all make use of the existing infrastructure (roads, paths, public trans) to get to where we need to go.
On the flip side I cannot understand why more people don't do it. Yea, it's cold in the winter riding but waiting for a bus is worse. I routinely pass buses and wonder why so many people are packed onto them. Perhaps cycles ARE somewhat privileged but are SEEN as underprivileged? I've tried talking people into getting bikes and sometimes their reaction was frankly "I don't want to be seen on a bike" so they take the bus. There is something to this that I have seen a few times that I don't quite understand.
Anyway, there are multiple parking spaces for every car in America. (Church lots are full occasionally, business at certain times, malls at others) so if it comes down to it I think we'll find a place to put some bikes.
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