After I began this weblog again in 2007, change as afoot–or awheel–right here in New York Metropolis. Our mayor was this man Michael Bloomberg:
And he’d simply appointed somebody named Janette Sadik-Khan as commissioner of the Division of Transportation:
Who instantly set aside doing bizarre Euro stuff like carving out little plazas and constructing bicycle lanes, together with the town’s first “protected” one:
We’d had a bizarre blip again in like 1980 when then-mayor Ed Koch put in a motorcycle lane on sixth Avenue for 5 minutes:
And we’d additionally had a bizarre bicycle-riding mayor earlier than that:
And we’ve all the time had numerous bike paths because of–look ahead to it–that Robert Moses man:
However this was actually the primary time within the metropolis’s historical past it had made a sustained try to include bicycles into the road grid. The bike paths of the Moses period had been to serve those that “derive pleasure from this type of train” in mild of the truth that “use of Metropolis streets and boulevards for bicycling is harmful to the bicyclist.” Whereas Bloomberg’s bike-centric planning was additionally within the curiosity of public well being (this was the man who tried to ban massive sodas), it in the end endeavored to rework these streets and boulevards in order that they had been not “harmful to the bicyclist,” and to undermine the primacy of the auto. This additionally marked the purpose at which the bicycle advocates and the Division of Transportation started to brazenly cooperate:
Collectively they harnessed the facility of the cultural elite:
Actually we had been witnessing some form of a Golden Age of Smugness, and a few say 2007’s “David Byrne Presents: How New Yorkers Trip Bikes” was its Woodstock.
Even Lance Armstrong received into the act:
These had been heady days certainly–particularly for those who had been a semi-professional bike blogger:
And between all of the celebrities, and the media protection, and the daring public coverage, and the excesses of hipsterism and gentrification as embodied by all these totally ridiculous fixies, it appeared like the nice occasions would by no means finish:
However finish they did. Lance Armstrong confessed to doping and have become a podcaster. David Byrne received uninterested in getting made enjoyable of and moved on to different issues. Blogs grew to become more and more irrelevant as they had been supplanted by Twitter, and Instagram, and TikTok. Any city hipster fixie riders who didn’t stop bikes altogether moved to the desert, purchased classic Tacomas, and reinvented themselves as gravelistas. And whereas the town stored putting in bike lanes, they ultimately grew to become bike lanes in identify solely, and at the moment are largely simply filled with fast-moving autos with motors (each gasoline-powered and electrical) which have little in frequent aside from the truth that they’re not vehicles:
And it’s not simply occurring in New York. Even when I visited Amsterdam in 2011, individuals had been already grumbling concerning the rising presence of motor scooters within the bike paths. Now, based on David Hembrow’s weblog (and due to the commenter who linked to this within the feedback lately) bicycle gross sales are in decline as e-bikes take over:
Furthermore, they’re changing into a “menace” (although, to be honest, that is the Guardian, so it’s most likely extra like an irritation):
And there’s a name to decrease e-bike speeds to 12 American Freedom Miles Per Hour:
I imply who thought you’d ever learn a headline like this?
Should you’re even passingly conversant in urbanism and transportation infrastructure and all that different dorky stuff you’ve heard of the idea of “induced demand.” I assume it comes from economics, however in urbanist converse it signifies that, virtually talking, while you widen a freeway to scale back site visitors you simply get extra assholes in vehicles, and due to this fact extra site visitors:
Each time anybody needs to widen a street, advocates wield the “induced demand” argument like a Zefal body pump. Nonetheless, now New York Metropolis is widening the bike lanes to make extra room for faster-moving e-vehicles. Advocates are all in favor of this, and whereas I agree it’s virtually definitely each vital and inevitable, no person needs to think about that induced demand may simply imply extra and sooner autos making the “bike” lanes much less and fewer hospitable to the customers for whom they had been ostensibly construct:
Is a motorcycle lane filled with “Citi e-bikers, deliveristas and scooters” actually a motorcycle lane in any respect?
And irrespective of who’s utilizing them, ought to rising pace actually be the purpose?
As I’ve talked about earlier than, it actually doesn’t matter how an outdated curmudgeon like me thinks individuals ought to get round, and if individuals favor simpler and sooner autos then that’s the best way it’s gonna be irrespective of how I really feel about it–and in no level in human historical past have the vast majority of individuals opted for the slower and harder mode of transportation as soon as expertise offered them with a sooner different that required much less effort. It’s unhappy that the bicycle mania that characterised the Roaring Aughts is over, however on reflection it was inevitable, as a result of in the end what’s going to maintain the old style bike (particularly as e-bikes proceed to take over) isn’t bike lanes or coverage selections or superstar endorsements or anything. No, the one factor that’s going to maintain them is individuals who love bikes.
We had our temporary flirtation with the mainstream, however we’ll all the time be weirdos, and ultimately we’re on our personal.
