Additional to yesterday’s publish, this morning I took benefit of my strategic place on the fringe of the town to go for a brief trip outdoors of it:
However alas, nowadays there isn’t any escape from The Scourge Of The Motor Scooter:
Motor scooters have been taking on the 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 while you’re making an attempt to make use of the restroom.
In idea the proliferation of motor scooters in New York must be a superb factor, since they’re small and environment friendly, and definitely a extra sensible alternative than a automobile in an city surroundings, which is why they’re so widespread in different components of the world. Nevertheless, in observe it’s been a shitshow, since that is New York and we suck at every thing. The issue is that folks right here typically trip motor scooters like they’re bicycles–which is to say poorly, and completely anyplace they’ll probably match them. Poor biking (and there has all the time been loads of it in New York) actually wasn’t that massive a deal within the previous 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 generally appears as if no place is secure, although the upside is individuals 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 switch automobile journeys, however from what I can inform it largely consists of individuals rolling round languidly on varied electrified contraptions and getting excessive in the midst of the day. Additionally, I’ll complain about what battery-powered shifting has achieved to the trendy street bike, however it’s nothing in comparison with what motors have achieved to the commuter bike:
On account of all of the e-bike battery fires, the Large Retailer Named After A River gained’t ship this bike to New York Metropolis anymore:
Nonetheless, no less than round these components, that is just about the standard non-delivery individual e-bike. I suppose as a Jones rider I ought to respect the voluminous tires, and the fenders and rack are sensible–and to be honest it’s much more helpful than the standard Targ-Mart bike with out being that rather more costly. So possibly that is progress? But it surely additionally weighs 68lbs, I can’t assist questioning if the online impact when it comes to effort of using a 68lb bike with a motor versus a 30lb bike with out one is mainly a wash.
As for hearth threat, you possibly can after all keep away from that by choosing a extra respected model–nicely, often:
Talking of motorbike lanes, there’s a legislation that each three months newspapers should run an anti-bike lane opinion piece, and there’s the most recent from the Washington Publish:
New column: Bike lanes — a part of a “street weight loss program” that sounds wholesome and nutritious however is definitely a recipe for site visitors constipation — are sometimes a stealthy option 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. just isn’t and can by no means be Amsterdam, Portland or a type of school cities the place the streets teem with extra bicycles than vehicles.
However generally, it’s not for an absence of making an attempt.
The District’s planners are intent on placing lots of the metropolis’s most essential streets on what’s referred to as a “street weight loss program,” which sounds wholesome and nutritious however is definitely a recipe for site visitors constipation and commuter complications — and possibly 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 typically unwilling to confess that the rationale for site visitors is…too many vehicles. Toronto is eradicating its bike lanes, and it’s a reasonably secure guess that their site visitors isn’t going to go away because of this:
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 commonly secondary (at greatest) to their utility for bicyclists. Designers are typically 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 could actually definitely work, however the expertise of really utilizing the lane on a motorbike may be fairly fraught, like after they run them proper previous freeway on-ramps
Typically 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 generally 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 a substitute. You possibly can trip these unhealthy boys anyplace.
