this post was submitted on 27 May 2024
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Fuck Cars

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[–] [email protected] 194 points 5 months ago (2 children)

If a city cannot manage their bicycle traffic, how should we ever expect them to handle car traffic?

Any problems with bicycles is a simple issue of infrastructure and priority.

[–] [email protected] 149 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

As a cyclist in NYC the complaint that bikes are weaving through cars is hilarious.

Of course they are. Cars are almost always stuck in traffic while bikes move faster.

I can make my 12ish mile commute in 45 minutes. Until the bridge I spend every mile of that commute passing cars.

That's all besides the point though: there shouldn't be personal passenger vehicles in NYC. Business vehicles sure. A few taxis are personal vehicles because of Uber - sure. But there should be 0 street parking and heavy restrictions on where drivers are allowed to go. We need to take back our streets.

[–] [email protected] 72 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Ahhh, I see the problem! ... The car drivers feel like fools sitting around in their enormous polluting wastes of space and resources but not going anywhere! So naturally everything good must be destroyed in the name of making the wrong thing feel better.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 5 months ago (4 children)

Having been a motorcyclist in NYC this is true. They will try to hit you to keep you from doing something they can't. I can't imagine how much worse it must be for cyclists.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 months ago

I've seen multiple instances of driving being mad that they are in traffic while bikes or buses zoom by.

If they weren't so infected with car brain, the easiest solution is to leverage one or both of those transportation methods that zoom by you.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. As a cyclist in NYC myself, the hate that I see bicyclists get is fucking absurd.

“That person is riding their bike in traffic! How dangerous!”

Like, motherfuckers, you’re the ones forcing us to ride in traffic. And it wouldn’t be dangerous without the car element. The danger is in the cars. A bicycle crash can hurt and cause damage, but with a helmet? You’re mostly pretty safe from deadly accidents. THE CARS ARE THE ONES CAUSING THE DANGER. Not the cyclists.

And then all this talk about congestion pricing being ridiculous. TAX THE FUCK out of them. Ban them. It’s a fucking addiction. And a crippling one. Why people take cars into the city is mind boggling. Like you said, it’s necessary, especially here, for there to be some traffic. Deliveries for businesses, cabs. That’s pretty much it. But, no. Every single road is full of parked cars, driving cars, double parked cars BLOCKING THE FUCKING BIKE LANES EVERY 100 GODDAMN FEET…it’s actual lunacy.

It’s such a bikeable city. Few hills, relatively short distances. But with cars creating so much traffic, it seems far because everyone sits in a car in stop and go traffic for 45min to get from the FiDi to the park. All these wasted resources with cops directing traffic UNDERNEATH FUNCTIONING STOPLIGHTS BECAUSE EVERYONE IS SO AGGRAVATED SITTING IN TRAFFIC THAG THEYLL ALL JUST BLOCK THE INTERSECTION BECAUSE THEYVE GONE THROUGH FIVE LIGHT CYCLES, the constant construction…it’s lunacy. There’s really no other word for it.

This is a sensitive subject for me lol clearly

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[–] [email protected] 164 points 5 months ago (3 children)

"Teens are dying on bikes" - it's because of a bike of it's because of a fucking truck that weighs like 300 bikes?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Honestly it’s both. There’s shitty infrastructure combined with 2-ton passenger trucks. But you also have a society that while creating bike lanes, doesn’t create cyclists. Instead I see motorcycles driving down the bike lane, cyclists going against traffic, scooters cutting through shit like the end of world is behind them.

Really no one person is wrong, we’re kinda all wrong for not getting fucking organized.

The street doesn’t belong to anyone, it’s there to efficiently move as many people as possible, as safely as possible. That requires everyone to participate though.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

, it’s there to efficiently move as many people as possible, as safely as possible.

So you are saying you are in favor of banning cars from the street too then?

[–] [email protected] 25 points 5 months ago (17 children)

Yea honestly I’m not defending cars.

As a cyclist for decades my shit is all about safety. So running heavy motorcycles through a bike lane is a big fucking deal to me.

But I’m also smart enough to realize the solution isn’t to ban cars nor is it to force cyclists into weird positions. Got to be something in between no?

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago (10 children)

Douches driving big trucks doesn't preclude teens from doing stupid shit on ebikes. You don't have to pick a side, you can recognize that there are multiple problems that need to be addressed.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago

@EatATaco @Moonrise2473 teens do stupid shit without ebikes. And them using one doesn't increase the danger to non users by much.

Cars and trucks do.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (4 children)

Id say option 3. Both of the above.

People suck driving. They also suck at riding.

Frankly just like driving needs a better training/licensing system - so does bike riding.

Especially any sort of self propelled bike.

I realize this is fuck cars, but let's not pretend the biggest issues don't boil down to stupidity of people.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (12 children)

They also suck at riding.

I keep encountering cyclists riding against traffic, on roads with no shoulder and around blind turns. It's just about the most insane thing you can do on a bike, second only to sailing through red lights without looking. And it's people of all ages doing it, not just young people like I would expect.

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[–] [email protected] 81 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Elijah Orlandi makes deliveries for Grubhub in the evening after his 9-to-5 job.

“There are scenarios where people have the right to be upset,” said Orlandi, who lives in the Bronx and has been making e-bike deliveries for Grubhub — in addition to his 9-to-5 job — since October. He has seen e-bike riders “swerving in between cars and all that kind of stuff.” But Orlandi is also hoping for compassion. “People got to understand, we’re working,” he said. Delivery apps, he noted, keep track of how quickly workers make their drop-offs — and ding them if they take too long. “Sometimes you’ll be going somewhere and Grubhub will send you another order, and then no matter what you do, you’re going to be late,” he said. “So that’s why you’ll see a lot of people rushing.”

Surely the problem here this dude's e-bike. Not that people need to do gig job on top of 9-5 work day, unaffordable rent, inflation, and exploitative gig economy platform

[–] [email protected] 24 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah I was reading that and I’m like… ok so what does this have to do with an e-bike? This is just a condemnation of the gig economy. One can only assume that they are implying that none of these problems would exist if this dude was using a car, but they’d actually be 10x worse if he was

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago

How dare he zip past the congestion with a low-density vehicle instead of contributing to it, wasting fuel (whatever type) and making things worse for everyone like a proper, respectable, carbrained citizen?

Almost as bad as subways, I tell you! Those bastards take a whole chunk of people past the traffic at once, the audacity 😤


Sarcasm aside, I do think people need this angle pointed out to them: Low-density transport options for those where they make sense help those for whom it doesn't. The more short-range traffic happens on bikes, in busses and (light) rail, the more space there will be on the streets.

[–] [email protected] 76 points 5 months ago (1 children)

First New York Times came for the Palestinians. And I didn't speak out because I was not a Palestinian.

Then they came for my e-bike and there was no one left to speak for me.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The NYTimes has always been the US empire's paper of record. You won't find a US-backed war or coup they didn't support.

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I wonder if it has anything g to do with all the advertisements for luxury cars in every edition of the paper... :-/ Cheers for the post.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 5 months ago

Listen here now I've played simcity and good transport is the backbone of a strong economy.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 5 months ago (13 children)

With ICE, you control the population by controlling the oil. Like rest of the world has to eat up price raise without much retaliation, what else you're going to do, you have to work and you depend on oil. But since China is the major producer of batteries and EVs, the nations that dictate the policies are losing that control.

So US does what it does best, propagandize the masses. Mass produced solar panels are bad, EVs are unreliable, e-bikes are a menace.

The world powers will turn the world to ruins if it serves their interests.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 5 months ago (1 children)

To be fair electric cars are still cars. Fuck them.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago (13 children)

They really aren't that much better for the planet compared to ICE and when compared to transit or active transport they really are the least effecient "green" option.

Its not just about reducing carbon, we should be trying to reduce overall energy usage and focus on effecient systems.

Everyone driving their electric SUV to park in a sea of pavement is not effecient land or energy use.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Ebikes will be banned in most of North America in 5 years, calling it now :/

[–] [email protected] 49 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I don't know what this is about, but it reminds me of the constant ev-bashing in most major newspapers over the last two decades (since the beginning). I believe it's oil money in the press, and definitely had effect on the overall conversation, especially discouraging small evs, but not clear effect on policy. It just keeps consumers from adopting.

[–] [email protected] 58 points 5 months ago

Car manufacturers and oil producers have a vested interest in making bikes, ev bikes in particular, illegal.

Basically the same playbook that Henry Ford used to make cities less walkable.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago (4 children)

Those articles pulled a lot of weight because my province over the last few years have removed all purchase incentives for EVs. The gov used to give up to $10k CAD rebates for electric vehicles. They recently got rid of it and after the election next year, they’ll fully get rid of all remaining incentives.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 5 months ago (2 children)

the fuck? how do you hate on e-bikes but are okay with e-cars?

[–] [email protected] 42 points 5 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago

The companies hawking e-cars have much larger advertising accounts with NYT than those hawking e-bikes.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

In Rio de Janeiro happened something like this. An old woman and a children were walking on the bike lane and an ebike crashed to them and killed the old woman. A city councilperson hurried up to make a law banning e-bikes from bike lanes, saying that they should use the car infrastructure, but the Mayor vetoed the project.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 5 months ago
[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Genocide deniers and enablers also happen to be in the pocket of the regime that wants us all wasting our lives in traffic when we are not working to make them rich.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (5 children)

Having an ebike in New York is what having a car in any other major American city is supposed to work like (but can’t because car-centric infrastructure is terrible city design)

Nothing is more than 30 minutes from me. There’s parking everywhere. Only requires low cost infrastructure to be usable. Traffic jams are infrequent and short-lived. Ownership and fuel costs are low. Environmentally friendly. Quiet. Great for recreation. Is very safe for the user and pedestrians.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Yet, electric trains are a better alternative to most people's transport.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

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