Suggesting people should bike isn't ableist, or, at least, is no more ableist than suggesting people should drive.
Thank you for listening to this PSA.
Suggesting people should bike isn't ableist, or, at least, is no more ableist than suggesting people should drive.
Thank you for listening to this PSA.
I know it's not your argument, but this still doesn't make much sense to me. They are basically arguing that infrastructure is zero sum, where we have to choose between bikes or public transit?
Not really, at least I don't think. I mean there was a clear "bicycle infrastructure if for elitists in lycra" component here, but mostly it was about, say, on street parking theyd need to be removed for bike lanes. I guess I can see it, if you're able bodied you park a block further and walk there (allthough people still go :frothingfash: at the idea), with a disability? One asshole who parked in a curb cut, some misplaced street furniture or a construction site or any number of reasons and that just gets exponentially harder and I'd be lying if I said I'd believe in every planning process including thse knock-on effects to an acceptable level.
I can see their point that every accomodation they have in the public space was long and hard fought for and if we change the entire thing drastically, like getting away from car oriented planning, there's a good chance they'd have to do it again and get the short end of the stick for a while.
I don't agree, obviously, solving for good bike infrastructure has all the same requirements as solving for disabilities, but I don't think that sort of thinking for this case comes entirely from a point of malice
Thanks for sharing.
When they re-did Washington Ave in Philadelphia they didn't even get to the "bikes are abelist" stage of discourse. We got stuck on :frothingfash: business owners losing the ability to park their cars on the sidewalk or use a travel lane to double park.
Although there was some astro turf groups making rumblings about how it's racist to create bike lanes because that's gentrification and all gentrification is racist, but I think most of it was just being done to distract from the businesses on west broad that didn't want anything to change.
I once had the owner of a dive bar at a community meeting say he'd have to close his location if the on street parking was removed because then his guests wouldn't come lol
What the fuck lol
idk i've heard of business going out because of road construction, if there's a better dive bar closer to wherever the parking or transit is that could be legit enough to worry about.
fuck (small) business owners though.
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The parking spaces are stil there btw so I'm guessing this is the first actual dril-tweet-based policy decision
Why yes I do create drunk drivers all the time, how can you tell? :meemaw:
That argument would hold more water with me if there were anywhere that had a significant number of curb spaces restricted to parking for people with disabilities. But as it is now they're just fighting with everyone else for street parking and their odds aren't any better that the spot in front of where they need to go will be available. Like, it's accessible if you consider a coin flip accessible.
Beats no coin flip.
I'm not convinced of the argument either, but I think you gotta wrestle with the fact that some people might have actual grievances here and aren't just wokewashing their concerns, and that's me saying it on this topic.
Edmonton, AB just did this exact thing. They set up a trial run of bike lanes that were poorly thought out and inconvenient for cyclists, and also removed curbside parking spots. Which, you know, is the normal neoliberal playbook: promise something for the public good, then compromise with the hogs, and the final product is something everybody hates. Oops, we can't do anything unless it's cops or freeways! Sorry!
One of the main rationales for declaring the project a "failure" is because disabled folks now have nowhere to park. Ignoring the fact that the road borders a fucking golf course that's just bare open land. :honk-enraged:
Okay I will say at this point though, infrastructure is basically zero-sum. That's exactly the reason why you can't have a transportation system that caters to the needs of car-brains, pedestrians & public transportation all at the same time. There is a finite & largely fixed amount of physical space that you can allocate to both commuters (of all kinds), and localities for use in whatever they need to do, and various forms of automated locomotion (cars, trains, busses) all take up a lot more space than walking or cycling somewhere.
I agree with 7bicycles conclusion though, btw. But the thing you're saying here is not the part of the argument that's wrong.
Good point, I should have clarified that I meant zero-sum, when it came to pedestrians, bicyclists, and disability accommodations. Basically all three are against cars, but the ableism discourse pits the three against one another, to the benefit of cars