Additional to yesterday’s publish, this morning I took benefit of my strategic place on the fringe of town to go for a brief journey exterior of it:
However alas, today there isn’t a escape from The Scourge Of The Motor Scooter:
Motor scooters have been taking up town’s bicycle infrastructure for the previous few years now, however at this level merely seeing them within the bike lane now appears quaint, and also you now discover them within the woods, on the subways, and peering at you excessive of the stall whenever you’re attempting to make use of the restroom.
In concept the proliferation of motor scooters in New York needs to be an excellent factor, since they’re small and environment friendly, and positively a extra sensible alternative than a automobile in an city atmosphere, which is why they’re so widespread in different components of the world. Nevertheless, in follow it’s been a shitshow, since that is New York and we suck at every thing. The issue is that folks right here usually journey motor scooters like they’re bicycles–which is to say poorly, and completely wherever they will probably match them. Poor biking (and there has all the time been loads of it in New York) actually wasn’t that huge a deal within the outdated days, because the riders have been restricted by their very own meager energy output. However now that they’re assisted by electrical and gasoline engines it typically appears as if no place is secure, although the upside is folks hate them a lot they’ve forgotten how a lot they used to hate bicyclists.
As for the broader “micromobility revolution,” that was supposed to exchange automobile journeys, however from what I can inform it largely consists of individuals rolling round languidly on numerous electrified contraptions and getting excessive in the course of the day. Additionally, I’ll complain about what battery-powered shifting has carried out to the fashionable highway bike, nevertheless it’s nothing in comparison with what motors have carried out to the commuter bike:
As a result of all of the e-bike battery fires, the Big Retailer Named After A River received’t ship this bike to New York Metropolis anymore:
Nonetheless, at the least round these components, that is just about the everyday non-delivery particular person e-bike. I suppose as a Jones rider I ought to admire the voluminous tires, and the fenders and rack are sensible–and to be truthful it’s much more helpful than the everyday Targ-Mart bike with out being that rather more costly. So perhaps that is progress? Nevertheless it additionally weighs 68lbs, I can’t assist questioning if the web impact when it comes to effort of using a 68lb bike with a motor versus a 30lb bike with out one is principally a wash.
As for hearth threat, you possibly can after all keep away from that by choosing a extra respected model–effectively, often:
Talking of motorbike lanes, there’s a regulation that each three months newspapers should run an anti-bike lane opinion piece, and there’s the newest from the Washington Submit:
New column: Bike lanes — a part of a “highway food regimen” that sounds wholesome and nutritious however is definitely a recipe for site visitors constipation — are sometimes a stealthy technique to push wholesale class and racial change https://t.co/SxsXRFFzCx
— Marc Fisher (@mffisher) November 20, 2024
I couldn’t learn it as a result of I don’t have a subscription, however I’ve a reasonably good concept of the place it’s going:
Regardless of its repute as a liberal enclave, D.C. is just not and can by no means be Amsterdam, Portland or a type of faculty cities the place the streets teem with extra bicycles than automobiles.
However typically, it’s not for a scarcity of attempting.
The District’s planners are intent on placing most of the metropolis’s most vital streets on what’s referred to as a “highway food regimen,” which sounds wholesome and nutritious however is definitely a recipe for site visitors constipation and commuter complications — and perhaps a stealth mechanism for encouraging a wholesale shift in race and sophistication in sure neighborhoods.
Bike lanes or no bike lanes, the individuals who don’t like them are usually unwilling to confess that the explanation for site visitors is…too many automobiles. Toronto is eradicating its bike lanes, and it’s a reasonably secure guess that their site visitors isn’t going to go away in consequence:
On the identical time, the opinion author is true that bike lanes are sometimes “Not concerning the bikes”–not within the sense it’s a conspiracy to make you reside in a 15-minute metropolis and eat bugs (although I’m not ruling it out), however within the sense that what designers wish to accomplish with the bike lanes is usually secondary (at greatest) to their utility for bicyclists. Designers are usually up entrance about utilizing bike lanes to calm site visitors and create shorter crossings for pedestrians and enhance visibility and all that stuff, and it may well actually work, however the expertise of truly utilizing the lane on a motorbike might be somewhat fraught, like once they run them proper previous freeway on-ramps
Generally the bike lanes in New York lull you right into a false sense of safety, which ends very abruptly on the first intersection, and also you typically get the sense they constructed them totally anticipating that no one would use them.
Or that they’d say “fuck it” and begin utilizing motor scooters as an alternative. You’ll be able to journey these unhealthy boys wherever.
