You're touching on something which is much trickier than any policy or planning effort- the culture of driving/biking in a given place. Being on the road in NYC is combat, it's almost dogma that a bike lane is worthless if it's not protected by concrete. When I was in London and Paris I was shocked how much of the bike infrastructure is not grade or barrier separated- The culture of driving and biking is simply calmer and more respectful (in the case of London the largest traffic camera system in the world also helps keep cars at or below the speed limit). I have no idea how we foster something like this in NYC, but I increasingly think it's the root of a lot of our problems.
"It is easy to dismiss this all, absent a death toll, as a moral panic. "
Lots of people have no idea how easy it is to sustain a life-ruining brain or spine injury that might make you wish you were dead. To say nothing of how horrific it is to have your jaw shattered, or lose half your teeth. Death is not the only seriously bad thing that can happen in life. I have to work not to wish dark things on these dismissive people.
I’m sympathetic to a lot of what you’re saying, but I love my eBike and think they have a place in the ecosystem of transit options in cities — a highly regulated and circumscribed place. E-bikes make cycling more accessible to folks like myself who are a bit out of shape, or to older riders or to riders who are lugging kids or groceries. I’m in favor of a) banning or restricting high speed throttle e-bikes b) building more separated bike lanes c) ticketing offenders. I also am in favor of expanding public transit options — I think bikes and buses and subways can enjoy phenomenal synergies in a well designed city.
One final thing I’ll say is that in a city like New York, building separated bike lanes is probably easier to pull off than tunneling new subway lines, given the complex morass of eminent domain / bureaucratic politics at work.
Agreed. I've also come to appreciate Citibike lately--to keep up with my son's bike riding habit. Private public partnership neoliberalism blah blah blah but great to have bikes accessible (and I live in a not very gentrified area and can see they have been installed even further into less gentrified areas). But citibike is also pushing e-bikes.
Ugh. Citibike is a horrible program pushed by the DOT and legislators who are paid by Lyft. No safety program whatsoever and a useless call center in Nicaragua. Please. Riders are beyond reckless and have killed people. And the privatization of public space for their damn racks everywhere is a disgusting eyesore, and just plain in the way.
Chicago, where I live, is kind of a mashup of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Harlem. Our problems are similar but the distribution is a bit different, mainly less intense here. Given our winters, less density, and more sparse public transport, cars are a bit of necessity for most people. But one thing I’d like to see is a citywide speed limit of 15 mph for all vehicles.
I don't really disagree with the substance of this piece. I have a few disagreements with your prescriptions at the end but your analysis of the issues seems mostly correct to me.
What I'd personally point out is that this piece and others like it about the e-micromobility issues in cities, simply by virtue of their proliferation, are indicative of a kind of status quo bias around transportation. We don't get manifestos written about the epidemic of car accidents or car safety (not outside of niche anti-car or urbanist internet forums) at the same rate that we get them about mopeds and ebikes because the car problems are seen as fait accompli, and most people have accepted them as a fact of life rather than a tractable policy issue.
In my lay opinion, part of the problem with policy and discourse around e-microvehicles in cities is classification. You have a lumping together of vehicles with vastly different capabilities--something this piece itself is guilty of--ranging from 15-20mph pedal assisted bikes to 30+mph gas powered mopeds, which seems to often lead to hamfisted reactionary solutions like trying to implement ebike licensure requirements for any device with a battery and a motor. In fairness there are grey areas when it comes to classification and this is all probably confusing for a lot of people who don't use these devices, but I think people who write about and promote policy around this issue do have some responsibility to try to learn these nuances so that we don't end up with bad solutions that make things worse.
To add a little bit to my disagreements with policy prescriptions: I think any talk of an outright ban of loosely-classified "ebikes" and similar devices is profoundly short sighted/reactionary and will remove the ability to commute for a lot of people who need it. We hear a lot about commuters coming into the city who depend on their cars, but a little known secret in Manhattan is a growing workforce from Jersey that rely on electric scooters to get into the city. Another is parents who pick kids up/take them to school with electric cargo bikes. Ignoring all these constituencies, many of whom operate their vehicles safely and which aren't even designed to go faster than 15-20mph, will not lead to sensible policy for anyone and probably put a lot of people back into cars.
I remember visiting NYC within the last year or so and in a cab on the way to a Broadway show (actually, couldn’t get the Citi bike to take my card). Just watching the driver navigate car traffic and the wide wide variety of other obstacles (pedestrians, various scooters, bikes, mopeds, other) was very much like a chaotic video game - just an absurd bombardment of traffic stimuli. This is not and should not be a normal approach in how traffic is managed.
Wow. A cleverly-written article that is full of opinion and devoid of fact, and seemingly from an ignorant-entitled pen. Have you ever been HIT BY AN EBIKE? Hospitalized? Permanently injured? If not, then don't write an article claiming laws regulating evehicles are demonizing poor delivery workers. Traffic laws are not followed, and it's not the Apps fault. Yes they should pay insurance for riders, but they are not culpable for the rogue jackass reckless and often deadly-behavior of a deliverista - which is rampant. Also hazardous and causing unrest every second are entitled reckless lawbreaking Citibike riders. Children under 16, not allowed to ride Citibikes, are using their parents accounts or stealing them, and joy- riding thru city streets and parks. Enough. No sympathy for any of this. And p.s., congestion pricing is a scam. Supported by Uber, Lyft and Mark Gorton Open Plans, (Tower Capital) a hedgefund, with huge profits which support the corrupt lobbying group under a fake 501C3 status, Transportation Alternatives. Hope this wakes you up. Please, this issue us too critical to be assuming what you have. It's offensive and wrong.
Excellent. I cannot recall any other reporting that has accurately captured the whole chaotic picture. I have had innumerable close calls with scooters and mopeds - on sidewalks! Insane that these vehicles have become a life safety issue because riders act like the rules of road don’t apply. DOT and NYPD need to craft restrictions and ensure they are enforced. I like the idea of holding the app delivery services to account on providing the vehicles, but also customers need to lower their expectations on delivery time.
We have an urban traffic environment here in the USA that evolved, with the introduction of the horseless carriage, into one that consisted primarily of the horseless carriage and pedestrians. A couple of decades ago, bikes were reintroduced to the urban environment. Now we have introduced a variety of mopeds (electric rather than gas) and motorized skateboards. The struggle with bikes was to understand that they are not cars, and drivers need to have a different expectation about what the bikes are capable (or incapable) of doing in the streets. In some places, that need has been grasped by the traffic authorities, who have tried to engage by restructuring the physical street environment. As a one-time bike commuter (old & retired now) in Chicago, I don't think it's been a very successful approach, though it's helped in some places.
The only practical solutions I can see are predicated on diminishing the dominance of the horseless carriage. This is why I start with the idea that the allowable speed for cars, and for all vehicles using the streets, should be 15 mph, or even 10. (Your mileage may vary.) if we could get all these vehicles moving within a predictable Overton speed window, we might be able to restructure the physical environment in a way where the rules of engagement work in a cooperative fashion rather than the antagonistic one that currently exists.
And this will help the pedestrians, who should, in my view, sit atop the heap in urban environments, rather than at the bottom, because people on foot are what makes the city livable.
But we have to wary of top down solutions. Back in the 70s, Chicago tried to make buses the dominant mode of transportation in the Loop, with the expectation that it would reduced car traffic, and make being on foot more like being in a suburban mall. All logic pointed to it working; all experience - including the foul Chicago winters, was that it didn't.
We have an urban traffic environment here in the USA that evolved, with the introduction of the horseless carriage, into one that consisted primarily of the horseless carriage and pedestrians. A couple of decades ago, bikes were reintroduced to the urban environment. Now we have introduced a variety of mopeds (electric rather than gas) and motorized skateboards. The struggle with bikes was to understand that they are not cars, and drivers need to have a different expectation about what the bikes are capable (or incapable) of doing in the streets. In some places, that need has been grasped by the traffic authorities, who have tried to engage by restructuring the physical street environment. As a one-time bike commuter (old & retired now) in Chicago, I don't think it's been a very successful approach, though it's helped in some places.
The only practical solutions I can see are predicated on diminishing the dominance of the horseless carriage. This is why I start with the idea that the allowable speed for cars, and for all vehicles using the streets, should be 15 mph, or even 10. (Your mileage may vary.) if we could get all these vehicles moving within a predictable Overton speed window, we might be able to restructure the physical environment in a way where the rules of engagement work in a cooperative fashion rather than the antagonistic one that currently exists.
And this will help the pedestrians, who should, in my view, sit atop the heap in urban environments, rather than at the bottom, because people on foot are what makes the city livable.
But we have to wary of top down solutions. Back in the 70s, Chicago tried to make buses the dominant mode of transportation in the Loop, with the expectation that it would reduced car traffic, and make being on foot more like being in a suburban mall. All logic pointed to it working; all experience - including the foul Chicago winters, was that it didn't.
There is an additional class that has emerged: Joggers. Similar in thier selfishness to bike riders, these "humans" with too much testosterone coursing through their veins think it's their god given right to go charging up and down promenades far and wide in an attempt to make sure everyone sees their perfect bodies and how hard they are working to maintain them. I walk with my elbows out and if someone runs into them, not my problem.
You're touching on something which is much trickier than any policy or planning effort- the culture of driving/biking in a given place. Being on the road in NYC is combat, it's almost dogma that a bike lane is worthless if it's not protected by concrete. When I was in London and Paris I was shocked how much of the bike infrastructure is not grade or barrier separated- The culture of driving and biking is simply calmer and more respectful (in the case of London the largest traffic camera system in the world also helps keep cars at or below the speed limit). I have no idea how we foster something like this in NYC, but I increasingly think it's the root of a lot of our problems.
"It is easy to dismiss this all, absent a death toll, as a moral panic. "
Lots of people have no idea how easy it is to sustain a life-ruining brain or spine injury that might make you wish you were dead. To say nothing of how horrific it is to have your jaw shattered, or lose half your teeth. Death is not the only seriously bad thing that can happen in life. I have to work not to wish dark things on these dismissive people.
I’m sympathetic to a lot of what you’re saying, but I love my eBike and think they have a place in the ecosystem of transit options in cities — a highly regulated and circumscribed place. E-bikes make cycling more accessible to folks like myself who are a bit out of shape, or to older riders or to riders who are lugging kids or groceries. I’m in favor of a) banning or restricting high speed throttle e-bikes b) building more separated bike lanes c) ticketing offenders. I also am in favor of expanding public transit options — I think bikes and buses and subways can enjoy phenomenal synergies in a well designed city.
One final thing I’ll say is that in a city like New York, building separated bike lanes is probably easier to pull off than tunneling new subway lines, given the complex morass of eminent domain / bureaucratic politics at work.
I’m 82 years old and find e-bikes to be a plague on our BIKE paths here in Albuquerque. Despite signs that state “No Motorized Vehicles.”
They ignore normal biking etiquette, do not announce themselves, but go blasting by with little or no warning.
Being “out of shape??” That’s a reason??
Agreed. I've also come to appreciate Citibike lately--to keep up with my son's bike riding habit. Private public partnership neoliberalism blah blah blah but great to have bikes accessible (and I live in a not very gentrified area and can see they have been installed even further into less gentrified areas). But citibike is also pushing e-bikes.
Ugh. Citibike is a horrible program pushed by the DOT and legislators who are paid by Lyft. No safety program whatsoever and a useless call center in Nicaragua. Please. Riders are beyond reckless and have killed people. And the privatization of public space for their damn racks everywhere is a disgusting eyesore, and just plain in the way.
In fact, judging by ads, a lot of their users are having trouble properly controlling the e-bikes.
Chicago, where I live, is kind of a mashup of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Harlem. Our problems are similar but the distribution is a bit different, mainly less intense here. Given our winters, less density, and more sparse public transport, cars are a bit of necessity for most people. But one thing I’d like to see is a citywide speed limit of 15 mph for all vehicles.
I don't really disagree with the substance of this piece. I have a few disagreements with your prescriptions at the end but your analysis of the issues seems mostly correct to me.
What I'd personally point out is that this piece and others like it about the e-micromobility issues in cities, simply by virtue of their proliferation, are indicative of a kind of status quo bias around transportation. We don't get manifestos written about the epidemic of car accidents or car safety (not outside of niche anti-car or urbanist internet forums) at the same rate that we get them about mopeds and ebikes because the car problems are seen as fait accompli, and most people have accepted them as a fact of life rather than a tractable policy issue.
In my lay opinion, part of the problem with policy and discourse around e-microvehicles in cities is classification. You have a lumping together of vehicles with vastly different capabilities--something this piece itself is guilty of--ranging from 15-20mph pedal assisted bikes to 30+mph gas powered mopeds, which seems to often lead to hamfisted reactionary solutions like trying to implement ebike licensure requirements for any device with a battery and a motor. In fairness there are grey areas when it comes to classification and this is all probably confusing for a lot of people who don't use these devices, but I think people who write about and promote policy around this issue do have some responsibility to try to learn these nuances so that we don't end up with bad solutions that make things worse.
To add a little bit to my disagreements with policy prescriptions: I think any talk of an outright ban of loosely-classified "ebikes" and similar devices is profoundly short sighted/reactionary and will remove the ability to commute for a lot of people who need it. We hear a lot about commuters coming into the city who depend on their cars, but a little known secret in Manhattan is a growing workforce from Jersey that rely on electric scooters to get into the city. Another is parents who pick kids up/take them to school with electric cargo bikes. Ignoring all these constituencies, many of whom operate their vehicles safely and which aren't even designed to go faster than 15-20mph, will not lead to sensible policy for anyone and probably put a lot of people back into cars.
I remember visiting NYC within the last year or so and in a cab on the way to a Broadway show (actually, couldn’t get the Citi bike to take my card). Just watching the driver navigate car traffic and the wide wide variety of other obstacles (pedestrians, various scooters, bikes, mopeds, other) was very much like a chaotic video game - just an absurd bombardment of traffic stimuli. This is not and should not be a normal approach in how traffic is managed.
they banned scooters here in Paris because so many (well, 7 or 8 people in one year) were killed.
Wow. A cleverly-written article that is full of opinion and devoid of fact, and seemingly from an ignorant-entitled pen. Have you ever been HIT BY AN EBIKE? Hospitalized? Permanently injured? If not, then don't write an article claiming laws regulating evehicles are demonizing poor delivery workers. Traffic laws are not followed, and it's not the Apps fault. Yes they should pay insurance for riders, but they are not culpable for the rogue jackass reckless and often deadly-behavior of a deliverista - which is rampant. Also hazardous and causing unrest every second are entitled reckless lawbreaking Citibike riders. Children under 16, not allowed to ride Citibikes, are using their parents accounts or stealing them, and joy- riding thru city streets and parks. Enough. No sympathy for any of this. And p.s., congestion pricing is a scam. Supported by Uber, Lyft and Mark Gorton Open Plans, (Tower Capital) a hedgefund, with huge profits which support the corrupt lobbying group under a fake 501C3 status, Transportation Alternatives. Hope this wakes you up. Please, this issue us too critical to be assuming what you have. It's offensive and wrong.
Excellent. I cannot recall any other reporting that has accurately captured the whole chaotic picture. I have had innumerable close calls with scooters and mopeds - on sidewalks! Insane that these vehicles have become a life safety issue because riders act like the rules of road don’t apply. DOT and NYPD need to craft restrictions and ensure they are enforced. I like the idea of holding the app delivery services to account on providing the vehicles, but also customers need to lower their expectations on delivery time.
We have an urban traffic environment here in the USA that evolved, with the introduction of the horseless carriage, into one that consisted primarily of the horseless carriage and pedestrians. A couple of decades ago, bikes were reintroduced to the urban environment. Now we have introduced a variety of mopeds (electric rather than gas) and motorized skateboards. The struggle with bikes was to understand that they are not cars, and drivers need to have a different expectation about what the bikes are capable (or incapable) of doing in the streets. In some places, that need has been grasped by the traffic authorities, who have tried to engage by restructuring the physical street environment. As a one-time bike commuter (old & retired now) in Chicago, I don't think it's been a very successful approach, though it's helped in some places.
The only practical solutions I can see are predicated on diminishing the dominance of the horseless carriage. This is why I start with the idea that the allowable speed for cars, and for all vehicles using the streets, should be 15 mph, or even 10. (Your mileage may vary.) if we could get all these vehicles moving within a predictable Overton speed window, we might be able to restructure the physical environment in a way where the rules of engagement work in a cooperative fashion rather than the antagonistic one that currently exists.
And this will help the pedestrians, who should, in my view, sit atop the heap in urban environments, rather than at the bottom, because people on foot are what makes the city livable.
But we have to wary of top down solutions. Back in the 70s, Chicago tried to make buses the dominant mode of transportation in the Loop, with the expectation that it would reduced car traffic, and make being on foot more like being in a suburban mall. All logic pointed to it working; all experience - including the foul Chicago winters, was that it didn't.
We have an urban traffic environment here in the USA that evolved, with the introduction of the horseless carriage, into one that consisted primarily of the horseless carriage and pedestrians. A couple of decades ago, bikes were reintroduced to the urban environment. Now we have introduced a variety of mopeds (electric rather than gas) and motorized skateboards. The struggle with bikes was to understand that they are not cars, and drivers need to have a different expectation about what the bikes are capable (or incapable) of doing in the streets. In some places, that need has been grasped by the traffic authorities, who have tried to engage by restructuring the physical street environment. As a one-time bike commuter (old & retired now) in Chicago, I don't think it's been a very successful approach, though it's helped in some places.
The only practical solutions I can see are predicated on diminishing the dominance of the horseless carriage. This is why I start with the idea that the allowable speed for cars, and for all vehicles using the streets, should be 15 mph, or even 10. (Your mileage may vary.) if we could get all these vehicles moving within a predictable Overton speed window, we might be able to restructure the physical environment in a way where the rules of engagement work in a cooperative fashion rather than the antagonistic one that currently exists.
And this will help the pedestrians, who should, in my view, sit atop the heap in urban environments, rather than at the bottom, because people on foot are what makes the city livable.
But we have to wary of top down solutions. Back in the 70s, Chicago tried to make buses the dominant mode of transportation in the Loop, with the expectation that it would reduced car traffic, and make being on foot more like being in a suburban mall. All logic pointed to it working; all experience - including the foul Chicago winters, was that it didn't.
There is an additional class that has emerged: Joggers. Similar in thier selfishness to bike riders, these "humans" with too much testosterone coursing through their veins think it's their god given right to go charging up and down promenades far and wide in an attempt to make sure everyone sees their perfect bodies and how hard they are working to maintain them. I walk with my elbows out and if someone runs into them, not my problem.