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One Neighborhood’s ‘Bizarre Culture War’ Over Bike Lanes
(www.nytimes.com)
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this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2024
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Do you mean the two residents who were in their healthy prime? Article made it sound like every house on the block was not a fan of this. Likely (given the people they did interview) it is because these are all older folks with no other means to travel.
Fuck old people though right?
Maybe those old people could still use the cycle lane if they had decades of exercising their muscles and joints on a bike instead of sitting in traffic in a car.
The lane also provides mobility for people too young to drive, unable to afford to drive, or those who prefer not to drive.
Fuck teenagers who want to get around without their parents though right? Fuck the kids who can safely bike to school though right? The old people can still drive, they didn't rip out the car lane.
@FireRetardant @Zoot In fact, narrowing roads and reducing speeding makes it easier for seniors to keep driving as their vision and reaction time decline. Older drivers tend not to feel very comfortable driving on 5 or 6 lane wide stroads.
It's worth noting that adding transit here is definitely the best option, as elderly can start to be less safe drivers too for a whole variety of reasons and most states have fairly poor practices for catching that before someone gets hurt. There seems to be an opinion that when you can no longer bike or walk you can always drive which is not the order that often does or should go in.
Old people shouldn't be on the road in the first place. But many can still ride a bike, just like many people with disabilities can't drive but can ride.
Old people drive better than16-29yo when using objective safety benchmarks. Check the iihs.org website https://www.iihs.org/topics/older-drivers#age-and-driving-ability I often advocate for raising the driving age to 25. There's no secret young drivers contribute a disproportionate share of car related damage to society. As a bonus, raising the driving age will make autonomous vehicles safer since we moved the goalposts into a safer direction. It's easy to make an AV safer than the average driver when the stats are skewed by young drivers
The summaries in that link don't seem to indicate that older drivers are safer, but sure, young men in particular have been shown to take more risks in their driving which is unsurprising.
But why not both? Minimum of 25, maximum of 80. Or failing that, additional testing on both ends of the spectrum.
We would need massive changes to our transportation systems before raising the minimum age to 25. Most people have a full time job by that age and are much less dependant on their parents to get around. I also think raising the age isn't the best solution overall, you'd have to wait until 25 or older to start a career with driving including trades, bus drivers, truck drivers, emergency services personnel, and many other jobs. We can't expect the fire department to take a tram to the fire.
Sure, there could be exceptions and I'm operating under the assumption that viable alternatives to driving already exist so people can get to work. Most of those driving based careers require specialised licences already I would assume (I'm not from the US), so that could be worked into the hypothetical legislation.
Higher license requirements would help, but could be hard to enforce depending on the implementation. Beyond that, we are back to road design issues which may well be a better way to solve all this. Make roads and cars so safe that even a drunk person won't kill themselves or others (including pedestrians and cyclists), and then you've got a well designed system.
There are plenty of options for old people to use bike lanes, from regular bikes to electric recumbent trikes.
So you're saying that the infrastructure for a senior person is all there? An easily lockable spot for their bike at the bank, market, and anywhere else, an easily attached cart that doesn't need to be lifted for groceries, and bike lanes the entire route?
Again. How about we start with the solution that fits all categories of life: Public transportation. Do that FIRST. Then attack cars for all I care.
Its even stated in the article, and I've said it how many times now: they live in a public transportation desert, and this is hardly even a bandaid fix.
There is no way to get to a place with all those things all at once. Public transit is great. So is biking infrastructure.
A bike lane is not an attack on cars.
Then you're still missing my point. They removed something deemed as a necessity by this community, and in place, added something that only a minority can enjoy. Do both. Start with the one that helps the majority.
Honestly tho fuck old people, ive heard about 10 million going towards a small extension to a retirement home near me - while homeless tents burn to the ground.
If its them or us, fuck old people
Ya know, one day you too will be old. I hope the youth of your time don't have the same reaction as you do.
Very unlikely that the seniors had a choice of where to build said retirement home, and id also be quite surprised if it was purely the old people who caused the homelessness.
It's more likely poor city council planning, poor infrastructure all around, and our collapsing government, but sure... Lets just blame the old people.
Also, not you specifically, but I do love that everyone's first choice was "Fuck old people" and not "Lets make it better for everyone and add public transportation, before actively harming seniors".
And I hope the youth of my time even exists.
Honestly if I get to retire I'll consider myself having done well, but let's let these vicious old people tell us off for their final years (ive worked on a couple homes personally)