https://nitter.net/DavidNHarvey/status/1740869714522595760

  • Egon
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    edit-2
    3 months ago

    deleted by creator

    • 7bicycles [he/him]
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      11 months ago

      I'm not going to bat for bazingarentals (great term btw), but looking at this picture and singularly being against the rental bike is such a nonsenical position to hold.

      Is it because you care about pedestrian space? If so, at least like 5 other problems should jump at you. I'd have no quarrel with this if it was "Look at how much it fucking sucks to be a pedestrian here", cause, true. But then the bike's not the problem any more than the fact that the streetlight is on the pavement, give or take 2,5 sidewalk spaces of car parking or how that sidewalk looks in fairly rough shape compared to the road surface

      • Egon
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        edit-2
        3 months ago

        deleted by creator

        • 7bicycles [he/him]
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          11 months ago

          See I'd blame this on lack of traffic enforcement and not on a bike rental. It seems odd to me to put forth that people magically get worse as they get onto a rental bike in ways they wouldn't be using other transportation options

          • Egon
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            edit-2
            3 months ago

            deleted by creator

            • 7bicycles [he/him]
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              11 months ago

              The whole thing genuinely seems like the contradictions heightening here. Everybody got really car brained over the latter half of the 20th century, as such, nigh all public land that isn't VERY explicitly not car-land has been claimed and since everybody likes it that way even the fig leaf of regulations that should stop that from happening are basically unenforced. I mean pretty sure you can't park on the sidewalk with your car in the UK, that red line means you can't park on the street there and that Mercedes isn't even taxed currently. Big ol' free-for-all.

              Given basically just cars and some weirdos like myself on bicycles it works out fine for most people, but suddenly, at the intersection of "all public land may be used for whatever as long as it's vaguely transportation" and "we can never ever do anything again as a state or constrict businesses" these bike rentals and scooters get dumped all over the place, making people who've long been blind to how much space we sacrificied to cars see that problem for the first time, just not with cars.

              There's just no way out of it that the majority of people would like. You'd have to do traffic enforcement. Basically that entire street of cars would have to be towed to assure compliance. That is political suicide, if done at scale. Other than that you actually just remove the bicycle, at which point the business in question will be very happily point out to you as to why the bike is a problem and all of the illegally parked cars aren't, sue you, and win.

              Same basically goes for moving traffic enforcement. Fig leaf at best, really, but most people really, really wouldn't like the other option. I know I would.