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This lens is underutilized in the discourse, but people feel it acutely. Even a lot of the anti-cycling stance comes down to, “What am I, poor?” When you are us

• gruez 3y ago
  >Even a lot of the anti-cycling stance comes down to, “What am I, poor?” I agree with the overall point that people don't want to cycle because the experience sucks, but your description feels like an unnecessarily inflammatory way to say "people are willing to pay for a more pleasant experience". Nobody says "a lot of the anti-cheap laptop stance comes down to, "what am I, poor?".
  • Guvante 3y ago
    Nothing about the post you responded to says "people are willing to pay for a more pleasant experience". The closest is "people aren't willing to pay to improve an unpleasant experience" which isn't related to purchasing a laptop in anyway.
    • gruez 3y ago
      > Nothing about the post you responded to says "people are willing to pay for a more pleasant experience". Are we reading the same post here? The one I'm seeing lists out all the reasons why cycling/public transport sucks, all of which can be avoided if you pay several hundred dollars per month for a car.
    • dahfizz 3y ago
      OP's whole point is that paying for a car is a much more dignified and enjoyable way to travel. And then the tax base doesn't want to pay to improve public transit, because they already have a car.
  • goda90 3y ago
    I have literally seen people scoff at biking or riding the bus as something for poor people. It is a common sentiment.
    • adra 3y ago
      This is a hyper regional statement. Where I live, you'd be considered a weirdo for carrying that sentiment. Drive an hour away, and the statement could be considered a lot of credence. All we can do is make the right choices for ourselves and help influence those in our spheres to encourage the behaviour we want to see.
    • xtracto 3y ago
      Anecdote time. Ten years ago I (Mexican, living in Mexico, a bit "white-er" than the average Mexican skin color) worked for a Silicon Valley startup with HQs in Mountain View. One time I was visiting said HQ, I met several people, I got to talk with one of them (Chinese/Asiatic looking woman) about how I was moving while I was there, and where was I staying (she didn't know where I was from). At some point I told her that I hadn't rented a car, so I was basically walking. And because I wanted to go to some outlet, I was thinking on taking the bus. Her comment was: "Don't take the bus, that's for Mexicans!", I had to swallow my surprise and keep a poker face, just answering something along the lines of "ooh yeah? thanks for the advice". I guess the stigma that only poor people (And we Mexicans are poor you know haha) take the bus is pretty alive in some parts of the US.
      • thereare5lights 3y ago
        What a weird thing for her to say given that Asian Americans use public transit in great numbers. Then again, I've noticed that the ones with money are utterly alien to those of us that don't have it or grew up without it.
        • robertlagrant 3y ago
          If you take the ethnicity out of this and stick to economics does it have the same outcome?
  • UtopiaPunk 3y ago
    There's an ad in rotation right now on a popular local radio station where the whole bit is that character A's car isn't working, and character B talks about the great deals at a specific car dealership. "Don't walk," he exclaims and he shares the gospel of car ownership. Literally, the whole framing is that walking sucks and is embarrassing :(
    • closeparen 3y ago
      In the vast majority of American postwar development, walking does suck and is embarrassing. That’s why the article’s framing about dignity for pedestrians in street design is interesting.
    • pbhjpbhj 3y ago
      It's like idiocracy where they say something like "you drink water? like water, that you use to flush the toilet?". People are easily manipulated because they want to signal that they're valuable and/or rich; "walking is for poor people" ... well yes, also people who want to stay fit, or who care about the environment, or want to be closer to their community, or ...
      • ta1243 3y ago
        If you're walking there are fewer opportunities to advertise to you
        • OfSanguineFire 3y ago
          > If you're walking there are fewer opportunities to advertise to you How so? I’m reminded of that sequence of shots in Zabriskie Point where Mark Frechette walks around Los Angeles and is assailed by billboards everywhere around him.
          • pxeger1 3y ago
            Perhaps GP meant that you can't fruitfully have cars advertised to you if you don't want to buy one
  • ClumsyPilot 3y ago
    > inflammatory way to say "people are willing to pay for a more pleasant experience" You got it all wrong! It does noy matter how the expience feels physically. The problem is social stigma attached to cycling. Like tell you mates you spent 3 weeks fixing your car, or built your own house, and it was super u pleasant and you broke your hand in the process - you are cool. But tell them you cycled to work to improvr fitness, and you are a weirdo.
    • zdragnar 3y ago
      Few companies have showers on site, and "fitness" is frequently associated with sweating. The last thing I would want to do is show up at an office for an 8 hour shift soaked in sweat. Where I live, it is humid enough during the summer that there's really only at most 4 months of the year where "pleasant" can be described to use the weather for biking. In fact, the weather forecast for today is 85% humidity, and is going to hit 93% twice this week.
• pharmakom 3y ago
  A great post. My only nitpick is that Amsterdam isn’t a particularly good example of active travel in NL.
  • JDEW 3y ago
    Why not? I’ve lived there for years, and although it’s not perfect, I think it’s very easy to get around both walking and cycling.
    • User23 3y ago
      Maastricht, to give one example, is considerably nicer for walking and cycling. Remember GP isn't saying it's absolutely bad for walking and cycling, just that Amsterdam isn't great by NL standards. And it's not.
      • gota 3y ago
        Amsterdam may not be the best existing public transit (+cycling friendly), but it is the most visited city in the NL - and it is good enough at it - that it is understandable how it becomes the standard for how a (large) city can be decent to non-drivers I myself have never been to any other places in the NL and use Amsterdam as an anecdotal example of how things can be good (Also of how bikes with peda- instead of handgrip-breakes designed for tall people are tricky for us shorter folk)
      • slowmovintarget 3y ago
        I imagine more people who've traveled, and are not from the Netherlands, are likely to have been to Amsterdam than to Maastricht, meaning it's easier to index on how Amsterdam functions than Maastricht for discussion.
  • smodo 3y ago
    From an American perspective it could be. Amsterdam is the largest city in our country and it still pulls together walking, cycling and public transport in a way that doesn’t suck. Of course smaller towns have it easier in some ways because of the way Dutch towns are historically configured. What makes the large cities interesting is that they are somewhat metropolitan and still have the Dutch vibe.
• pimlottc 3y ago
  > Even a lot of the anti-cycling stance comes down to, “What am I, poor?” Or this tired bit of "wit": "Oh, you're biking? Let me guess, DUI?"
• whimsicalism 3y ago
  > Even a lot of the anti-cycling stance comes down to, “What am I, poor?” When you are using transportation infrastructure that’s designed with contempt for you, you know, and you don’t want to be there. I grew up in close contact with a large urban poor population and I think the view of bikes was the exact opposite of this. Biking in the city is considered the purview of affluent white people
  • kccqzy 3y ago
    In some way it makes sense. The poor are driven by high property prices to live far away. The more affluent can choose to buy property in the heart of the city and use bikes in the city.
    • whimsicalism 3y ago
      I think a lot of people are overgeneralizing the dynamics of urban poverty from what they have observed in the last decade of home ownership trends, but affluent white flight from cities only really ended in the mid-00s-2010s (for some cities) and there are plenty of significant poor populations near urban cores able to remain because it's either where section 8 housing was built or by rent control. They just take public transit or walk. Not biking.
      • 7speter 3y ago
        You know how long the waitlist is for section 8 is, in say, New York? All poor people don’t just go out and ask for section 8 or rent stabilized apartments and instantly get them.
        • whimsicalism 3y ago
          I think I likely know more about urban poverty than you do. It is incredibly hard to get a section 8 apartment, especially if you aren't a family, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to do that in urban cores as section 8 contracts are being shifted towards outlying areas. Nonetheless, there are lots of people in urban areas living in section 8 housing and it is a substantial part of the story around urban poverty and how people still afford to live in urban cores.
• rz2k 3y ago
  I have a pretty strong anti-cycling stance, because I watched my New York neighborhood that was a pedestrian paradise significantly degraded by bike lanes. The balance of walking, subways, busses, taxis and delivery trucks had worked pretty well. Bicyclists introduced the concept of failing to yield, then acting indignant and entitled.
  • whimsicalism 3y ago
    Failing to yield to pedestrians where? e: Actually, not going to get into it but c'mon - cars kill pedestrians in a way that bikes rarely do and removing the cars from your NY neighborhood would have an obviously better impact on pedestrians compared to the bikes.
    • renlo 3y ago
      As a New Yorker, with cars on the road I have a reasonable expectation of where they might be coming from or what direction they're headed (ie, they're following traffic laws). With bikes, they can (and do!) come from any direction, on the sidewalk, riding the wrong way on the road, wrong way in the bike lanes, etc. These bikes could be considered as motorcycles (ebike designation is a legal one), they often go 20mph or faster by delivery drivers with little consideration of pedestrian safety, and you really don't know where or how you might encounter one so your head needs to be on swivel as pedestrian in NYC. That said, I'm still pro-bike and acknowledge that cars are much more dangerous for pedestrians, just I'd like to see the delivery bike / ebike problems fixed.
      • whimsicalism 3y ago
        I think with e-bikes we've entered a new equilibrium that will take some time to shake out. It used to be that the fastest bikers on the road were usually the most experienced, this is no longer the case and as a street biker I have noticed it causing more danger.
        • Aerbil313 3y ago
• digdugdirk 3y ago
  "Muni trains close their doors and pull one foot out of the station just to wait at a red light" What is the reason for this? I see it all the time in metro areas, and it always blows my mind that traffic lights aren't synced with the tram schedules.
  • NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    I answered upthread. Sometimes I suspect that there is signaling going on that helps the traffic signals to favor the light rail train here. Then, sometimes, I suspect that there is not.
• causality0 3y ago
  It's so strange because it isn't that people are flooding into cities and bringing their car fixation with them. As a rural/suburban person, nobody I know from here drives when they're traveling in a city because the driving experience is so miserably bad compared to driving in the country. It's the city people who think moving five feet every thirty seconds and bathing in an ocean of car horn noises is somehow compatible with human life.
  • Aerbil313 3y ago
    > It's the city people who think moving five feet every thirty seconds and bathing in an ocean of car horn noises is somehow compatible with human life. Some even manage to enjoy it. I did not believe anyone actually wanted, let alone enjoyed the misery of modernity until I experienced one such person firsthand. It blowed my mind, I was in shock for a straight day. The guy genuinely "liked" the new Transformers movie (which was beyond awful), "enjoyed" fast food, and "liked" the big car-honk-filled city center and CO2-infested loud mall. I'm yet to see a more oversocialized person. When I think of words 'deranged' and 'insane', no criminal but this guy appears in my mind's eye.
    • vivalasvega 3y ago
      Respectfully, who made you the arbiter of taste? Are people not allowed to like movies and foods and environments that you don't? Isn't it great that the world has something for everyone?
      • causality0 3y ago
        This argument becomes recursive almost immediately. He criticizes their opinion; you criticize his opinion of their opinion; he criticizes your opinion of his opinion of their opinion, and so forth.
      • Aerbil313 3y ago
        You're right, my comment reads like I was stating merely my taste from your perspective and mine. My mistake. To clarify, I don't buy subjectivism and believe that there's an universal one moral truth independent of human minds. I believe this truth says humans ought not live in a technological world, for that they're not designed for it, and that one who have successfully (!) adapted to technological life as to not feel any distress and even enjoy it must be one with a malformed psyche, one far from his original nature and thus morally bad. Indeed from your perspective this is still merely my "taste", my point is that this is truth independent of my existence from mine and apparently many agree.
• NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  > how Muni trains close their doors and pull one foot out of the station just to wait at a red light There are safety and scheduling reasons for this. They are not merely trying to snub riders. For example, the light rail trains here have a standard for how long they open their doors at each station. It's something like 14 seconds. A vehicle with open doors will also allow passengers to disembark; it's a two-way passage. So should they sit in the station with closed doors, or push off a few yards down to the intersection? Now, other motorists see a train stopped at a station and they think one thing. They see a train stopped and waiting for a red light and they know that it will proceed through on green. It seems weird to imagine a train that lingers at the station as if it's boarding but it's not, it's really waiting for the light to change, and then it will pounce on the opportunity. That's less than predictable behavior, as far as other motorists are concerned. Our transit authority reminds riders to arrive at the stop 5 minutes early. We're also reminded that if we miss this one, another one is on the way. Passengers need not inherit that toxic road rage.
  • Doxin 3y ago
    > Our transit authority reminds riders to arrive at the stop 5 minutes early. For reference, In the Netherlands you only strictly need to be at the stop 30 seconds before departure, as that is when the doors close in preparation for departure. > Now, other motorists see a train stopped at a station and they think one thing. They see a train stopped and waiting for a red light and they know that it will proceed through on green. Why in the hell would drivers need to know that? Leave the train with the doors open at the station to allow any late comers to board. When the track clears start the traffic light cycle to stop car traffic, close the train doors and depart. The drivers see a red light and hopefully know to stop, whether or not they can see a train waiting.
    • armandhammer 3y ago
      That's nothing compared to Tokyo and Osaka. The train arrives within 20 seconds of its scheduled time, the doors open for about 10 seconds, and 3 seconds after the doors close the train starts moving again.
  • 3y ago
• cscurmudgeon 3y ago
  Ah, let us look at the data. In reality, only rich (and white) folks can afford to live in areas that are not car-dependent. https://granfondodailynews.com/2020/01/17/is-north-american-cycling-now-a-rich-white-mans-sport/ https://granfondodailynews.com/2020/01/17/is-north-american-... > From 2001 to 2017 the number of people cycling increased the fastest among high income, highly educated, employed, white men between the ages 25 and 44.
  • brightlancer 3y ago
    That doesn't have data. It doesn't even have good summations. How is "cycling" defined? For pleasure or for day-to-day travel? How was the data collected? How did they include/ account for the unemployed 20-somethings in poor suburbs who aren't biking to work, aren't "cycling" in events, aren't carrying the family groceries home in a basket, but are on bikes constantly going between houses (and maybe a gas station food mart)?
  • vivalasvega 3y ago
    All that means is that pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods are in demand, which is great! What if we built more and more of them?
  • ClumsyPilot 3y ago
    > In reality, only rich (and white) folks can afford to live in areas that are not car-dependent It’s just artificial scarcity, like fine art.
• __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
  > Short of tickets to Amsterdam for everyone, I don’t know how to fix it. I just got back to the US from Amsterdam. I'll never look at these awful streets the same again.
  • mkaic 3y ago
    This was my experience as well. I went in fall of last year for four days to attend Blender (the 3D modeling software) Conference, and it was simply delightful. I walked to and from the conference center every day, took the metro a few times, got to ride the high-speed rail from the station that's literally integrated right into Schipol airport, and witnessed more bikers than I've ever seen in one place. All of this while the city and its infrastructure was clean, quiet, safe, and beautiful. Then I came back to Los Angeles. For reference, one time while taking the metro I had to evacuate because one of the cars caught on fire and had smoke billowing out the windows. I wound up trapped near the Walk of Fame in Hollywood at roughly 11PM, because when I tried to catch a bus out of there, a bunch of idiots were parked directly in front of the bus stop and the bus driver was forced to just drive right past me because they couldn't pull over and stop. So then I hailed an Uber and had to wait nearly half an hour for it to arrive and pick me up because of how utterly packed the streets were with bumper-to-bumper cars. I used to semi-jokingly tell my friends and family I wanted to move to Europe. Then I went to Amsterdam. Now I am dead serious when I tell my friends and family I want to move to Europe. Although, I'll probably go somewhere with slightly warmer weather than the Netherlands — Portugal and Spain are both high on my list of candidates currently.
    • 4iuvosvjf23 3y ago
      I'm seriously thinking about this as well because I look at my future in America and see very few options but car-dependent atomized misery and I'm terrified of it. I just can't go back to the crushing boredom that characterized my childhood. But I'm afraid to make a move because everything I see says tech salaries are a joke in Europe unless you make it to, like, Google in Switzerland or something. The improvement to my mood of being somewhere nice, safe, and walkable is truly ridiculous. It feels like someone slipped some drugs into my coffee. How sad it is that we in America starve like this for a human way of life. Living here feels like a misery for money tradeoff and I don't know what to do.
• sershe 3y ago
  The cause and effect might be reversed. 1) Most people prefer to drive... look at any country that is getting richer - people want to buy cars. 2) It is only when people cannot afford to drive or driving is too inconvenient (traffic, or narrow streets/lack of parking in Europe, or outright restrictions ), they will use alternative modes of transportation. 3) The more people are thus inconvenienced, the more public support there is for the alternative modes (simply by the numbers); moreover, an average person biking and taking transit becomes richer/nicer, so the political will to improve the experience increases even faster than the number of people; plus the experience becomes nicer even without extra investment. It's a flywheel either way. Now, you could argue that global warming is bad / enough freeways cannot be built / etc., sure. Maybe we cannot have nice things. But don't argue that people want to live in urban paradise and some contrived system is simply not giving them what they want. Most people everywhere, when they can, want to drive and live in houses. Except in some places many can afford that and have the infrastructure, and in some only a few do. It's not like car ownership and traffic is that low in Europe, given how admittedly convenient it is to not have one and how relatively expensive car ownership is, esp. in relation to incomes.
  • TacticalCoder 3y ago
    > It's not like car ownership and traffic is that low in Europe, given how admittedly convenient it is to not have one Indeed. Germany, France, Italy, Spain, etc. are all among the countries with the highest vehicles per capita in the world (it's not as much as in the US, but then in the US people can drive starting at 16 years old, so it messes the stats quite a bit).
  • ClumsyPilot 3y ago
    > 1) Most people prefer to drive.. You don’t know that. You would have to run the experiment - spend equal amount of money on infrastructure for bikes and for cars. Then see. Most British cities are tiny, you can cross most of them on an e-bike in like 15 to 30 minutes. Except London of course. But there is usually no safe way to cross them. When I ask people in London, why are your not cycling, 95% say they are afraid of getting hit by a car. They are wrong - they will be killed by a truck. Most cyclists in London due to 4 axle construction trucks. I have seen one of the bastards illegally drive into a cycle lane, then onto a pavement where women walk with kids, and drive on that pavement to get around traffic. I have seen a BMW stuck on a bend in a segregated cycle way at Tower of London. I’ve seen a wolksvagen in a cycle lane upside down. Go to a rich and cycling safe are of London like hackney, there are plenty of bikes. Go to an area with dangerous roads, like Surrey, no bikes We spend insane amount of money on car infra. We just built a new tonnes in east London, the only way to cross the river for miles, and you can only cross in a car.
• jjav 3y ago
  > Even a lot of the anti-cycling stance comes down to, “What am I, poor?” Maybe this will change now that bikes cost more than most used cars. Spending 15K on a bike is a thing now.