Welcome to September.
I know there’s a lot of despairing news these days. All the floods, fires, and fools in position of power are enough to make you want to drop everything and ride your bike off into the sunset. But if we’re going to get out of this mess, we can’t divert our eyes. (Especially those of us who are relatively well-off compared to those knee-deep in the stuggle.) We must learn what’s happening — and more importantly why it’s happening. In our little part of this world, one way we can help is by sharing the most important stories from the bike-transportation-mobility webospheres.
So without further delay, here are the most important stories we came across last week…
Sexism, still: UK-based Cycling Weekly magazine mistakenly printed a photo with “token attractive woman” as a caption. Now the magazine is facing mockery and a boycott from women who are tired of the sexist attitudes that pervade the industry.
VZ and LMI POC: Slow Roll Chicago Co-founder Oboi Reed says vision zero plans for neighborhoods where people of color and/or low-income people live need to be “owned” and implemented by residents — not by transportation professionals.
Auto-inspired sprawl has consequences: With an estimated 500,000 cars destroyed by Harvey, people in the Houston region — where many see sprawl as a huge culprit — now find themselves in the middle of a mobility crisis.
The security case for carfree cities: Taras Grescoe uses the NYT Opinion page to remind us of the importance of carfree zones in cities — and the urgent reason to create and fortify them.
A friend in high places: Former Secretary of State John Kerry worked the phones to find people willing to fund a struggling U.S. professional cycling team.
Trans-Canada trail fully connected: It’s now possible to cycle 24,000 km across the great country to our north. Time to plan a trip.
Woonerf in DC: Our nation’s capitol is about to unveil a section of their downtown that will have no curbs or striping and where all users — including those on foot, on bikes and in cars — will be expected to share the space.
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Light rail and bikeways: Oh look, in Edinburgh a new light-rail line will come with separated bike infrastructure after advocates raised concerns about crashing on tracks. Your move, Portland.
‘White people’ and e-bikes: The debate about e-bikes on the streets of New York City is missing a key constituency: The mostly immigrant workers who rely on them for their delivery jobs.
Big biz in Dallas wants human-centered streets: What’s this? The city council of Dallas, Texas, USA has voted in favor of making its downtown less auto-centric and more friendly to humans — because AT&T demanded it.
Citibike going dockless: Gothamist reports that Motivate — the company that operates Citibike bike share in NYC (and Biketown for that matter) — is working on a dockless bike.
Reviled and revered: The Washington Post is the latest outlet to cover the dockless bike share revolution that’s on the verge of sweeping through the U.S.
Problems with dockless bike share: And the NY Times has a story about the serious problems that dockless bike share has wrought on Chinese cities where more than 16 million dockless bikes are in use.
Congestion pricing equity: “People who worry about harms to the poor when roads are priced, and not when roads are free, may be worried more about the prices than the poor,” says UCLA urban planning professor Michael Manville.
97-percent carfree: A small city in Spain reduced its car use by nearly 100 percent in its central core and over 50 percent citywide. The result? “Quality of life in Pontevedra has drastically improved.”
The ladies of Bike Loud PDX: Get to know Bike Loud PDX co-chairs Emily Guise and Jessica Engelman in the latest episode of Sprocket Podcast.
Thanks to everyone who sent in suggestions this week. Did you know you can get The Monday Roundup delivered to your inbox? It’s easy and free. Sign up here.
— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org
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From the 97 percent carfree article. “His secret can be summed up in a simple sentence that Lores slips into our conversation: “You only need a small amount of cars to make a city work.” Perhaps we should put that in a PSA and play it on every radio and tv station around the clock until the auto-addled get the message.
Everyone who hears it will think that they are one of the “small amount of cars”, so there will be no change in the amount of cars. Unless, of course, you can specify the types of work or people that are contained in the subset “small amount of cars”.
Councilman Saltzman and the rest of the city Council, needs to read the article on Pontevedra, above.
“The city hasn’t suffered a single traffic fatality since 2011.” (!!)
Wow, who would have thought the most effective way to reduce traffic fatalities would be to reduce the cause of traffic fatalities?
What?! Surely there must have been some pedestrian training too, no?
“We took office on July 3rd, 1999,” Lores recalls. “And by August 6th, we’d already pedestrianized the historical centre.”
They clearly accessed an alternate dimension of space time.
PSA safety notice, back of Tri-met bus, Beaverton area, spotted yesterday:
‘Wait your Turn to Take Your Turn…driver’s, it’s the law…you must yield to cyclists turning.’
The latter part is not an exact quote of how the message reads, but I think it’s close. Accompanied by a couple illustrations of a car and a bike on the road together on the lanes. Someone else reading here might see it, take a pic, etc.The word ‘drivers’ is in smaller font size than some of the other text, but it seems to me the whole thing should be fairly effective in reminding people driving and behind the buses, and help towards reducing the right hook hazard.
Sigh… Another “white people” article…
Yes, because the american news media is fixated on the “fact” that minority people don’t ride bikes, when in reality of course they do. I don’t see a problem with Johnathan / BP calling out the media for ignoring people.
I don’t have a problem calling out incomplete coverage either. I’m just not sure why I am being called out for the same.
Sigh. Another “but I’m different/not all white people/why am I being blamed?” comment. If you feel you’re being personally called out, or if you’re not sure why “white people” are being called out, then there is a lot more you could learn if you’re interested.
It’s not that I’m different… It’s that we all are.
I’m not.
Same here.
Of course we are all different, are all individuals. But of course we also all make assumptions about each other – especially strangers – based upon certain pre-existing criteria. You and I are probably making assumptions about each other right now. We often make assumptions based upon group identities, and hence group dynamics have a large impact on our lives.
Of course it happens. And when you make assumptions based on appearance, background, or nationality, it is called stereotyping. We all do it, as a way of generalizing from our experiences, but it is a shortcut, and, in this case, was clearly intentional. It had little to no bearing on the content of the article, which presented an argument that enforcing e-bike laws would hurt employment prospects for immigrants. Aside from its title, the article had essentially zero to do with race. It was an attempt to use race to titillate.
I’m going to make the assumption that anyone who thinks this is an appropriate title for the article hasn’t read it.
Dear white people. “your ebike complaints are something something”
What do you mean, You people????
That summary was much more succinct than mine, and captured the essence of the article perfectly.
Jim, you are a bore.
See my comment at the bottom
The deal…on UK-based Cycling Weekly magazine on captioning a photo of a woman cyclist as ‘token attractive woman’: What exactly is the deal here? Maybe it’s hard to know without having been somewhat of a regular reader of that magazine, to get the drift, outside of the captioned photo, on how it views women that do club riding.
The two Guardian stories were sparse on details, but the Sept 4 story reporting on how some women responded to the CW mag captioning, was kind of interesting. They seemed to infer that the magazine was implying that women don’t work at being fast on their bikes( or maybe that the women that do work at being fast, aren’t somehow ‘attractive’, necessitating from the mag’s standpoint, the inclusion of a reference to ‘token attractive women of the sport’.). So they challenged writers from the magazine to ride with their women’s only club, to see if the writers…(the Guardian didn’t specify if the woman were directing their challenge specifically to guy writers.)…could keep up. What fun.
Nothing like excessive competitiveness and absence of conviviality to make casual biking a real ‘treat’. Maybe that’s something more particularly arising from some of the more aggressive casual or unofficial racer minded riders in the UK, like the MAMIL’s (middle aged men in lycra…and now it seems, perhaps their female counterparts.).
Didn’t go to its website to check on the gender balance of the magazine’s staff, but the two stories just mention the name of one person associated with CW, the editor, who by name, sounds like a guy..but in this day and age of interest some people have in gender neutrality and ‘binary’ gender identity, maybe that’s not so certain. Does CW have only males working for it?
In our area, I wish more women would ride. It’s kind of fun just riding along, guys and gals and kids together, taking in the scenery, smelling the fresh countryside air for those so lucky to be riding there. Too bad for the people that can’t stand riding if it’s not constantly a ‘pretend to be a racer’ kind of deal.
I don’t really care who rides, male or female or what color they are; and I don’t care if they wear lycra and are racer-wannabes or if they are casual group riders enjoying the scenery. What difference does it make? Can’t we all just ride the way we want (assuming we aren’t harming others, etc.)? Why do we have to divide everyone, even cyclists!, into this group, or that group. Good gawd!
Good point, but why did you need to call people names to make it?
Just paraphrasing what the previous post said:
“Too bad for the people that can’t stand riding if it’s not constantly a ‘pretend to be a racer’ kind of deal.”
Ah, fair enough. I don’t have enough patience to make it to the end of bob’s posts anymore.
So sorry dan. Thanks at least for trying!
“…Why do we have to divide everyone, even cyclists!, into this group, or that group. …” know it all
Depending upon who you’re thinking ‘we’ is; Apparently what’s happening over in the UK as reported by this cycling magazine, is that some of the people riding, do very seriously divide themselves into groups into which people that don’t conform, aren’t welcome. All informally, of course, or mostly so. Happens here in the U.S. in Beaverton, Portland, and elsewhere in the valley as well, it seems. Result, I think: lots of people that could ride, don’t want to ride.
Why don’t more women want to ride? At least in part, because a lot of recreational high profile cycling or biking, is pitched as a hotshot macho activity whose aficionados love to leave in the dust, mostly anyone that’s not at their level of fitness and competitive craving. A lot of guys are put off by that kind of stuff too.
Some people seem to love that competitive, dissing game. I don’t. But I am interested in keeping some track of where, when, and why it might be happening.
I’ve never read it, so certainly not a regular reader. But you needn’t be. “The deal” is that someone at the magazine saw a picture of a white blonde woman and assumed and/or joked she/her picture was simply there to include an attractive woman in the team/article. Of course such an assumption or joke only arises from a person’s or culture’s sexist views of women in sports (or in general). Had this editor thought women were equal, valued, and legitimate participants in the sport the thought that she was simply a “token attractive woman” would’ve not entered their head.
I agree — I think the caption tells us more about the editor’s perception of the sport rather than the editor themselves. I’ve often thought editors of these sorts of magazines include photos of women more to catch the eye of a presumed male readership than to highlight the diversity of participation.
“…someone at the magazine saw a picture of a white blonde woman and assumed and/or joked she/her picture was simply there to include an attractive woman in the team/article. …” gary b
That’s interesting…I hadn’t noticed the woman was blonde until you mentioned it; hair in braids, helmet. Noticed the nice smile. A full length shot would have been nice. Cyclist’s physiques, men’s and women’s are inspiring.
“What exactly is the deal here?
We women are cyclists, not tokens to pretty up your reading or to let magazines pretend they are diverse and representative when they are not. Even when we are fat, we are cyclists. Even when we are ugly, we are cyclists. Even when we are old, we are cyclists. Even when we aren’t white, we are cyclists.” joan
joan…don’t you think there’s some fair minded women out there too, that enjoy having good looking guys…and gals…beautify their reading material? It’s just a little discretion that’s called for to keep the mutual sexual attraction element from descending to something kind of foul. It didn’t seem to to me that Cycling Weekly’s oversight in publishing the captioned photo was terribly offensive, but maybe it was, within in the UK tradition of being sometimes polite to a fault…compared to the U.S.
The bad old days of sexism is alive, if not particularly well…depending upon your opinion…here in the U.S. Some stores like Fred Meyer and Winco, may still carry motorcycle and car enthusiast magazines that have lots of flashy gals adorning the covers and inside stories. And fashion magazines….Cosmopolitan, Vogue, and lots of others. Maybe you’re someone that doesn’t like seeing how men and women are used in such fashion magazines.
You have totally and completely missed the point. No one would have objected to the photo. Yes, there’s sexism (are you really lecturing a woman about that?). Yes, we know that young, athletic bodies and conventionally attractive faces are often featured in magazines. But the “token” label — pointing out that the role of this photo isn’t to illustrate the diversity of cyclists but only to pretend to do so — is what people are objecting to.
“…But the “token” label — pointing out that the role of this photo isn’t to illustrate the diversity of cyclists but only to pretend to do so…” joan
From what I’ve read of the articles about Cycling Weekly…I read another besides the one linked in this roundup… I have doubts that the role of the photo intended by the staff of that magazine, is the one that you’ve concluded it was. That’s why I offered an open question to people reading here, asking if they were somewhat regular readers of Cycling Weekly, and had some familiarity with how the staff for that publication thinks.
As I read the story, it seemed the writer or whoever chose the photo, intended for the caption to be a note to the editor, and wasn’t supposed to be included in final publication. So it seems someone goofed up, didn’t remove the caption before publication. Causing a big brouhaha in the outwardly ever so polite strata of the UK.
I don’t read that magazine, so I don’t know what passes for humor among it’s staff or its readers, or whether its range of story subjects includes women that bike, or whether the magazine tends for whatever reason, to exclude stories about women that bike, or that are racing professionally and so on. That’s the kind of thing I’d want to know something about before starting to suspect the staff of that magazine are a bunch of bums trying to pull of a pretense that they consider cycling to be gender diverse.
What exactly is the deal here?
We women are cyclists, not tokens to pretty up your reading or to let magazines pretend they are diverse and representative when they are not. Even when we are fat, we are cyclists. Even when we are ugly, we are cyclists. Even when we are old, we are cyclists. Even when we aren’t white, we are cyclists.
While reading about the auto destruction during Harvey, it made me realize that Mother Nature really doesn’t like cars.
The next time an ambulance arrives in time you can thank Mother Nature for allowing it.
No, actually it was the color on the 2016 vote results map in the Houston area that caused it.
But, since you brought that up – it’s a good opportunity to remind folks to not be buying cars from that area or the N’alens area, etc.
I stopped reading at another “Dear White People” rant. Racism is racism is racism.
I didn’t read it as racism, just as poor writing — sloppy and cliche.
Let me flesh that out a bit. The article mentions an activist who is concerned that e-bikes are creating a safety hazard to cyclists and pedestrians. He apparently wants e-bikes not to use the bike lane, claiming it is unsafe and illegal to do so. The activist wants to use existing laws to target businesses who make deliveries using e-bikes rather than chasing down and citing individual e-cyclists.
The author of the article claims this will hurt workers, because making deliveries using human powered bikes is too taxing. He also notes that there is a woman (of unspecified race) in Harlem complaining about noise from an ice-cream truck, and that some white residents there complain about loud parties. Read in context, these are complaints about gentrification.
Back to the e-bikes, the author claims that e-bikes are in fact not dangerous, and that instead of enforcing laws about businesses making deliveries on e-bikes, the city should legalize the practice and install speed bumps in the bike lanes to control e-bike speed.
Finally, the author makes the assertion that immigrants (of unspecified race) are the ones using e-bikes for deliveries, so enforcing the law against businesses might put immigrants out of work.
As far as I can see, the only connection to “white people” is that the activist opposed to e-bikes using bike lanes is white.
Exactly. Believe it or not, the current First Lady of the United States, the awesome Melania, is an immigrant, and she appears to be a white woman! Imagine that – a white immigrant. 🙂
“…As far as I can see, the only connection to “white people” is that the activist opposed to e-bikes using bike lanes is white.” h kitty
I don’t think it’s the main issue, but I think there is a racial angle to the e-bike delivery situation in NYC. Actually, some months back, bikeportland brought up this issue, and people here discussed it at some length.
Number one: people delivering by bike and e-bikes, may be mostly people of color, and logically, of much meager means of income than the people they deliver to, whom may be people mostly so called ‘white’ and of significantly higher income, even wealthy.
Number two: archaic as it seems, at least to me for a city like NYC where capacity for travel by motor vehicle, and parking for them is completely exhausted…the city still prohibits e-bike use (that’s a very rough approximation of the city’s ordinance…I’ve read of it, but not the actual law…a review is necessary.). Nevertheless…news stories I’ve read about life in the city, NYC, suggest that more and more people are catching on to the wonders of e-bike travel.
Number three: Some of the people in the neighborhoods to which things are being delivered by e-bike delivery workers, have for some reason, decided there’s something they don’t like about the way the vehicles are being ridden. So they’re attempting to use the city’s archaic e-bike ordinance to eliminate the manner of riding they object to.
May not be accurately reflecting the entire situation with e-bike use by delivery workers in NYC, but that’s what I’m understanding at present. Question: before e-bikes, were the neighborhoods that have resident’s objecting to their use, having things delivered, things like food, small packages…by bicycles instead, or by car? In the same general amount?
bias against white people in the usa and other colonial nations is, by definition, not racism.
hope this helps!
It’s wrong, but it helps!
Yes, thank you. People often confuse racism with prejudice. Anyone can be prejudiced based on race. This is not the same as racism. In America, prejudice against white people is not racism.
Stop, please.
no.
Good luck on the street bro. Street justice will humble all your delusional thoughts. Trust me, I’m from a much harder place than cupcake land Portland. I’m no hater, just a realistic man.
Prejudice is indeed not racism. Prejudice is making judgments, usually negative, about a person based on their race, religion, or other characteristics. Racism is looking down on others because of their race.
For reasons I don’t understand, some people insist on referring to “institutional racism” as just “racism”, then deny that “racism” in it’s fundamental sense is a thing. It is, and anyone, anywhere, can be racist.
White pride people are racist. As are many Black Separatists. At least according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, whose judgment I trust more than people here who claim only whites can be racist.
As Jesse Jackson has said:
Jesse Jackson is traveling the country with a tough anti-crime message that he is delivering to inner-city youngsters. In Chicago he said, “There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery — then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/12/opinion/in-america-a-sea-change-on-crime.html?mcubz=3
racism is the oppression of entire groups of people by a majority. redefining racism as mere prejudice diminishes the ubiquitous and terrible impact of racism in our society
I’m not redefining the word — you are. My usage is consistent with all mainstream definitions. Racism is not “mere” prejudice, it is the idea that one racial group is superior to another.
And how in your opinion does the issue prompting the exchange of viewpoints between people in NYC surrounding the use of e-bikes…constitute racism? The issue, or at least the primary issue, apparently being the manner of use of e-bikes for delivery by immigrant workers.
The story doesn’t go into details…other stories have, I believe…about the manner in which e-bikes are being used by these workers, but implies that complaints express people’s concern about e-bikes being used in ways that endanger other people.
The workers apparently use e-bikes to deliver food and whatnot to neighborhoods in which the residency tends to be people with skin color referred to as ‘white’. The workers? Mostly ‘people of color’, living at a much lower income than people they’re delivering to, it seems. Are there no so called ‘white people’ riding e-bikes for their jobs? If the workers are riding their bikes carelessly or recklessly, making people in the neighboring they’re delivering to, feel anxious and scared…of course, the workers may be complained about.
Fix this by working at getting the e-bike using workers to start riding their bikes responsibly and with consideration for people walking, biking, driving, and living in the neighborhoods they deliver to.
Workers: if you’re riding crazy daredevil style with your pizza’s and Chinese food deliveries through red lights, crosswalks, lane splitting, using sidewalks for bike lanes, scaring the hell out of people…stop doing that. Learn some manners, be nice to people whatever color they are, and the complaints will likely subside, your customers likely will come to love you, give you decent tips. And then De Blasio can turn his attention from you to dealing with bigger NYC problems.
As for storm damage in Houston: I bet we will have a new Urban Dictionary term very soon, a “Harvey Car” … a “dried out” swamped car resold nationwide [and south of the border] to unsuspecting future owners…
“Despite the National Insurance Crime Bureau partnered with Louisiana state police to catalogue tens of thousands of damaged vehicles, damaged Katrina vehicles were found in 26 states outside of the Gulf region within months of the storm with snakes and alligators inside, according to the bureau.”
…at least this solves the Takata airbag recall issue for some folk still waiting for it…
The article missed mentioning Zipcar’s 40 cars and city buses too…and as for this storm only effecting “vehicles” as in motorized vehicles…there are likely 350 bike share bikes (bcycle) now out of service and at least a million* personal bicycles (children, adults, commuters, etc.) likely lost or damaged.
Assuming the bikes do not float away and the locks not seize up… there will be a lot of flood damaged bikes being ridden around (as the only mobility option for many) and these – unless rebuilt – will have bearing or cable failure very soon. Sadly there will also be a spike in cyclist injuries and fatalities as Houston has among the worst such rates for an urban area in Texas…unless the storm creates “car free” areas for the next few months…
http://www.houstonpress.com/news/will-the-houston-bike-plan-end-the-battle-between-bicyclists-and-drivers-8762197
*Wired says a million car have been “Harvey’d” so in many cities there are as many bikes as cars typically owned…so a 1:1 guess.
And the DC article on the Woonerf street type…the more correct term would likely be Winkel due to the projects more commercial (“shop yard”) vs. residential (“living yard”) land use.
Yeah, I asked my Dutch friends about a mixed-use plaza we were riding through, “is this a woonerf?” They laughed at me. 🙂
One thing never mentioned that would have a miraculous effect on congestion is shortening the work week. The US is way overdue for a shorter work week and I have been advocating a 10% reduction in working time by going to a 4 nines schedule that would fit within the existing M – F work week. Employers would simply have employees work 4 of the five days effectively doubling the benefit of the reduction on congestion. Of course, no city or even state could do this alone, it would need to be a national effort.
This from the wikipedia entry for working time:
Beginning in 1950, under the Truman Administration, the United States became the first known industrialized nation to explicitly (albeit secretly) and permanently forswear a reduction of working time. Given the military-industrial requirements of the Cold War, the authors of the then secret National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68)[55] proposed the US government undertake a massive permanent national economic expansion that would let it “siphon off” a part of the economic activity produced to support an ongoing military buildup to contain the Soviet Union.
The cold war has been over for nearly 3 decades. It’s about time to get past this policy and avoid the massive infrastructure build out to which current linear thinking is leading us.
A four-day work week might help somewhat with congestion, but only 20% of all trips are commuting. If we eliminate 20% of those, we’re looking at only a 4% reduction in traffic at best, and likely much less.
There was a study done on congestion in 2008. Traffic that year went down 3%, and congestion went down 30%.
http://inrix.com/press-releases/2627/
Yes, this exactly.
Small changes in traffic lead to very large changes in congestion which is the result of peak traffic on key commuter routes. Here’s a longer term national trend. Note that congestion really took off in the Portland metro area in the past 5 years or so. Notice the national trend in vehicle miles traveled in that time frame. I’m sure the Portland metro area grew faster than this but I think the data is still relevant.
https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2017/08/31/vehicle-miles-traveled-another-look-at-our-evolving-behavior
https://www.treehugger.com/economics/study-shows-high-gas-prices-do-reduce-driving-encourage-use-alternatives.html
Also a 4 day workweek or 9 hr day assumes the work itself would fit that model — which it absolutely doesn’t for many jobs.
Sigh.
That doesn’t change the fact that it would work for many jobs.
Biking doesn’t work for everybody, but that doesn’t change the fact that it does work for people. Same with flexible work schedules, working from home, telecommuting from other cities, etc.
Exactly — we don’t need one solution that works for everyone, we need a spectrum of solutions to make it easier for individuals to find a solution that works for them.
Including cars for those people who find that the best option.
My chicken vindaloo in New York can be delivered by bicycle or cab just like it was meant to be. Screw ebikes, and screw the constant drivel on hating whitey.
“People ain’t no good”
Lux Interior
Does anyone know why ebikes are so hated in NYC? The article didn’t cover that too well…
I read the article linked to in the article, and the white activist doesn’t like e-bikes being ridden at speed in the bike lane. He feels they pose a safety risk to other cyclists (he is one) and pedestrians.
I don’t know that I would generalize to say that all white New Yorkers hate e-bikes. This was just about one guy, who is white, complaining to the mayor, who is also white, trying to get a crackdown on e-bikes, which are, apparently, ridden mostly by immigrants. And we all know immigrants aren’t white, except, possibly, for those who are.
Oops, maybe we read different articles? The one I read was by Josmar Trujillo, and was pro immigrant delivery workers’ ability to ride e-bikes. But regardless, is that the answer: safety risk? Are a lot of the e-bikes there the type that are not speed-limited? I can see pedestrian safety being an issue, if so.
I read that article, but could not make sense of it without reading a different article that Trujillo linked to, which is where most of my background came from.
I should clarify I don’t have a strong opinion about food delivery by e-bike in NYC, and I’m not even sure why JM thought it was particularly relevant to Portland. The article seemed very specific to NYC.
Soon, there will be a ban on white immigrants, because apparently we have too many already.
I hadn’t heard that. Is Trump building a wall with Canada and making them pay, now that the Mexicans have declined the honor?
I understand your jab, but have you ever personally harboured illegal aliens 8 deep in a two bedroom apartment in August in Houston in 1980 with no air conditioning? Because I have. I’m not indifferent to our southern neighboring Nation, I’m just worn out with the modern race issue and trying to raise a white male of 13 without white guilt. Sorry not sorry. Peace out y’all.
Never mind about the first part, I see you were talking about a link within Trujillo’s article, which I didn’t follow 🙂
The NYPD like low-hanging fruit.
1. Few people are going to complain that immigrant workers are targeted.
2. People on bikes are easy to stop. Just park in a bike lane and wait for an infraction. The police officer claimed that the person on a bike did not ride in the bike lane at some point because he didn’t see him.
3. It gives the perception that the city is targeting dangerous behavior.
4. They’re not great on using data for targeted enforcement of safety on roads.
I’m sure that must be it. If there’s one thing I’m sure people will agree on, it’s that stopping bikes targets dangerous behavior and should be a law enforcement priority…
eawriste…your satire or simple sarcasm, whichever it is, aside, do you really think the police would conviscate what seems to be dozens of delivery workers e-bikes, if they weren’t under a lot of pressure from the mayor, De Blasio, and some of his constituents, to do exactly that?
Sure, the occasional stop and cite kind of thing happening by some police officers that maybe have a grudge against certain people, an attitude they shouldn’t be allowing to enter into their professional responsibilities. This thing with the immigrant e-bike delivery workers seems to be something far more pervasive than simply the city’s police officers indulging in harassment.
Maybe it’s not so, but I’ve been under the impression that New Yorkers love being able to have all sorts of things delivered to their doors. They get driven around the city by an entire ethnic cast range of taxi drivers. Which we’re not hearing about the police harassing taxi drivers that aren’t so called ‘white’. NYC ought to get its head together, and figure out a nicer way to deal with whatever the true problem is, associated with use of e-bikes for delivery in the city.
This issue with e-bikes in NYC has been going on for months. You might search streetsblog archives for some of their stories, which I read months ago about the e-bike delivery thing in NYC. Papers like the WSJ and the NYtimes may have given some coverage too…I may have a read a story or two there, about the issue.
I can’t remember the specifics, but NYC has some ordinance forbidding the use of e-bikes in the city. Does that make any real sense at all? People buy and ride them anyway. The delivery workers get the flak for riding them. Why? Is it because they’re not so called ‘white’? That doesn’t sound credible to me, given the multi-cultural population that NYC is.
That’s why I’m more inclined to figure the e-bike delivery guys may be riding them carelessly and recklessly, causing residents’ alarm and irritation, to the point they’re attempting to use the city’s e-bike ordinance to bring pressure on the city to get the delivery guys to shape up.
Motivate already has a dockless bike. The bikes it uses for biketown can already lock to themselves and operate docklessly. If you’re ever by the Nike campus, you can see that most bikes are just locked to themselves and left around.
Re sexism at Cycling Weekly, I like Road.cc (for London and U.K.) and cyclingtips.com (“Ella” women’s cycling) better. They mix sport and some advocacy with ads and product “reviews.”
Our current Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces, a wildly successful and wealthy man, used to have his own bike race. Our former Secretary of State, a wealthy man by marriage, can’t sponsor a cycling team?
https://www.outsideonline.com/2132176/donald-trump-once-sponsored-major-bike-race
I consider the successful man the one that still rides his bike.
I feel sorry for you.
“wildly successful”?
Anyone riding with the air quality this poor? Anyone riding with a N-95 mask? Just checking options and figuring out what to do.
I rode in this morning. Not the best idea…
Why can’t we have an adult debate regarding the rules governing ebikes without the overt racism? There are plenty of white people and mixed-race people who work in delivery jobs in New York and elsewhere.
Because we’s libs and dats what we do.
So, you’re saying that “libs” speak Ebonics, eh? You were just saying upthread, “Why do we have to divide everyone…into this group, or that group.”
In the same vein as Peejay said it the other day, “I don’t want your comment deleted…”
I used to be very pro-Woonerf, however thinking about it more I just don’t think America’s car dominate culture will be able to make this type of incremental adjustment. I don’t think these types of roads, while awesome, are a successful model for American cities. Too much cost associated with transforming large car dominate roads into Woonerfs. Would be more cost effective to just start blocking streets off as car free.