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Anon likes bikes
(sh.itjust.works)
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this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
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Bikes are ableist aren’t they? They work well for you if you don’t have any physical or cognitive issues.
A bike centric city would be just as, if not more, wheelchair friendly as a car centric one. There's detachable front wheels that can be attached to wheelchairs and pedalled by hand so wheelchair users can use bike infrastructure just as well.
I get that, but how does take away the inconvenience of inputting more strength, energy, stamina and time for your commute? So it basically locks people in to finding opportunities which are commutable by biking distance?
I don’t mind other people having bike centric cities, but I want to be to drive around as I find that a more productive way to commute. If trains were less riddled with human misery and harassment issues, I’d prefer trains or buses.
Oh sure I get what you mean. In my idea of bike centric cities decent public transport is assumed by me simply because that is so ingrained in my experience with living in a place where the car has the lowest priority. Streets are disappearing and turned into bike paths where cars are explicitly "guests" and have to give way for cyclists. Public transport gets dedicated lanes and even roads and bypasses stoplights entirely by tunnelling under crossings. The result is that driving here is an absolute nightmare, you'd really have to have a good reason to justify taking the car into the center instead of taking the bus, tram or bike.
Hmm, I hear you. Though note that Japan has one of the best public transport systems (and always have had it), but it is not immune to public transport harassment issues. It’s a human issue, not sure it has transportation solutions, but probably more policy ones.
Cars sure as hell don't work for someone who has cognitive issues.
But at least you can get taxis. The car-free utopia leaves out a lot of people like disabled and elderly.
Car-free utopia doesn't mean, can't mean no roads and no taxis. Taxis are actually the important part of that car-free utopia. It just means you aren't expected to own your own car and use it as the prime source of transportation.
This is where public transit would come in. And it's not like most of us want to do away with all final mile delivery, emergency vehicles, etc. We just don't want the car infrastructure to be the primary concern in the design of public spaces.
Straw-maning the elderly and disabled for car use is also interesting, as those are probably both groups that either shouldn't or can't drive a car for other reasons.
If we were talking about banning cars entirely, that would be relevant.
Oh, some people do talk about banning cars completely. I guess you’re a fuck cars moderate lol. Local ordinances can really change the way people live in an area, like banning plastic bags etc. So it’s not unreasonable to worry about total bans, people who want less car usage policies should try to understand other perspectives.
People might talk about banning privately own cars, but nobody seriously talks about completely banning cars at all. Service vehicles have their place in a walkable city, and taxi and carsharing is part of that, and even the most fuck-cars people are in favour of those.
I mean, there is always someone with a weird position, but those are flat-earthers of the movement, nobody cares about those.
I know. FuckCars in general is a purity contest that doesn't understand how certain things work. Cars are here to stay in our society for a variety of reasons, but that doesn't mean all our decisions for city planning have to center around them.
My city has less than 5% of people commuting by bike, and around 25% work from home. These numbers seem roughly typical of US cities. If we got 20% of people commuting by bike while keeping the work from home number, that would be transformative. That's a huge number of cars off the road. Basically like adding a whole lane of traffic, but without the induced demand problems.