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 from the bike community was swift, but it was circumstantial at best.
The only reason SDOT even attempted such a heartless stunt like this in the first place is that liberal bike advocates tend to be largely indifferent to issues of housing justice and class. Sure, they’ll say homelessness is bad, but they’ll also spin bullshit and say the problem is “complicated”.
It isn’t.
The urban bike community of the western world has struggled with its image as male, white, and affluent. Such is often not the case, but nothing reinforces this stereotype like some salaried tech industry bike bro complaining about the homeless camps he had to look at on his commute to work.
