If you read blogs about bikes you likely saw how Seattle’s DOT installed a dozen and a half bike racks in a place nobody would lock a single bike, let alone dozens of bikes. SDOT did this, quite obviously, to block homeless people from camping in the location, as everyone figured out pretty quickly. Condemnation… Continue reading Pitting Cyclists Against the Homeless Is Peak Neoliberalism
Tag: bike
In Defense of Detroit’s Slow Roll
Imagine the absurdity of somebody saying, “Detroit can’t handle 6,000 Tigers fans flooding downtown with their cars anymore, this has to be put to a stop!” You’d be laughed out of town. But say the same thing about people on bicycles and somehow many nod approval. That’s essentially the hack job Model D shat upon the… Continue reading In Defense of Detroit’s Slow Roll
Why Do Bicyclists Fear Bicycle Enthusiasm?
“Don’t call me a cyclist!” How many times have you heard that demand from dudes who want utilitarian urban biking to share no similarity with bros in spandex zipping through stop lights? “We’re people on bikes, we’re NOT cyclists!” Okay, whatever. Recently I saw an even more confounding preamble in a StrongTowns article. The author declares, “I don’t ride a… Continue reading Why Do Bicyclists Fear Bicycle Enthusiasm?
There Won’t Be Resilient Coastal Cities in the 22nd Century
In the lexicon of urbanist jargon, the term ‘sustainability’ has become virtually meaningless. We know cities will never be sustainable, not in their energy use, their food production, or their ability to afford economic or housing stability to large numbers of their populations. This is, of course, largely by design. Cities are epicenters of global… Continue reading There Won’t Be Resilient Coastal Cities in the 22nd Century
What’s More Problematic: Bike Helmets, or Arguing About Bike Helmets?
Having written about bicycle rebellion, tactical urbanism, and the Right to the City movement here on Rebel Metropolis for almost a year now, the one issue I’ve shied away from has been bicycle helmets. If you’re a regular reader here, you know I’m not reluctant to question prevailing logic concerning the burgeoning urban cycling movement.… Continue reading What’s More Problematic: Bike Helmets, or Arguing About Bike Helmets?
Bike Photography as Anecdotal Advocacy
Often it feels like talking about why bikes are good and why people should ride them more is either choiring to the preacher or having an argument with a fictional cycle-hater that lives in the back of your head. You know they’re there. We’re all evangelicals knocking on doors asking if our neighbors have found… Continue reading Bike Photography as Anecdotal Advocacy
94 Women, 99 Bicycles
There’ve been healthy volumes of words penned regarding how fewer women ride bicycles in the U.S. than do men. Strive as many might to be gender-inclusive in the perennially male-dominated multiverse of cycling, women comprise a minority fraction of the bicycling public. The theories hypothesized for this disparity are myriad. Regardless, the number of women riding… Continue reading 94 Women, 99 Bicycles
It’s Time to Stop Sharing the Road
You’ve heard it ad nauseam: Share the Road – a mantra adopted much by cyclists and not at all by motorists. It’s become a passive petition: vulnerable bicyclists begging for enough street space to not be run over and killed from drivers largely indifferent due the empathy-crushing confines of the metal machines they drive. Even worse, groups like… Continue reading It’s Time to Stop Sharing the Road
Social Inertia and the Clitoral Mass Movement
A cycling renaissance is taking place throughout North America and across the globe. One need only do a search on Instagram for ‘bikes’ or ‘fixie’ to find limitless images of young urbanites the world over connecting with one another while utilizing cycles as part of their daily social routine. Automobiles are on the decline, as cars… Continue reading Social Inertia and the Clitoral Mass Movement
Capitalism Getting You Down? Then Ride Your Fucking Bike.
This article was originally printed in the Portland Radicle volume #8. The Earth is dying and our societal sense of self along with it. We have an ever growing human population and ever diminishing resources. We don’t need smart growth, we need smart decline. We don’t need the pursuit of wealth, we need an economy… Continue reading Capitalism Getting You Down? Then Ride Your Fucking Bike.