Tactical urbanism, bicycle rebellion, Right to the City.

Slow Rolling In the Motor City: PHOTO ESSAY

On a recent visit to my home state of Michigan, I was lucky enough to be able to check out Detroit’s ‘Slow Roll‘ mass ride. Started five years ago by two friends, Slow Roll has turned into a thousands-strong spectacle that takes over Motown streets for 30 weeks out of the year, with the city’s blessing.

Apparently this year organizers were asking folks to fork over ten dollars for an annual membership, though it was made clear nobody would be turned away for lack of funds. Speculation was that the opening day ride would draw around 2,000 riders, though top end estimates were likely between three and four thousand, the procession stretched for at least a mile.

No corkers were used, as Detroit police did the job of controlling major intersections. Riders thanked the officers as they rolled by, slowly, of course.

A dedicated ‘Squad’ of yellow-shirted volunteers did their best to keep the ride as far to the right of whatever multilane surface streets they occupied. I don’t think anyone felt like arguing with them that all traffic lanes are open to bicycles by state law.

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Scenes From the Cycling City

Depending on where you live, you’re either in the depths of winter’s maelstrom, or you’ve been enjoying a mild, temperate permanent fall with spring right around the corner. Few images inspire the urge to end hibernation like those of people on their bikes. Even for all-weather, year-round riders, spring is that magical time where ridership increases, rain pants disappear, and the bike life takes on a normalcy many yearn for year round.

The Pacific Northwest has enjoyed one of the mildest winters many here can recall. Only a few days dipped below freezing, along with some pretty wicked windstorms. There’s been little overcast, much fog, and a wealth of sunshine. Perfect riding weather.

It’s been ages since Rebel Metropolis put together a collection of bikey images from Tumblr, likely proof of this great weather failing to induce the usual hermiting instinct most winters do. Like previous photo sets displayed here, all images link to their source. Hopefully browsing the city cycling scenes below inspires you to ride just a tiny bit more, or begin this year a wee bit earlier than usual.

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couriercunt: DSC03217 by Ellen.B Chang...

fixietime: by Forward Set

CICLOVIA*RECONQUISTA

CICLOVIA*RECONQUISTA

CICLOVIA*RECONQUISTA

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A New Way to Measure Cycling’s Success

While bikes are on the rise in many cities across the US and Europe, there’s a bit of alarming news lately. Thought of as the most bike-loving city in the country, Portland, OR has stagnated at only a 6% mode share for years. Even worse, a new quasi-scientific poll found that students at Portland State University, the city’s largest academic institution, were actually ditching their bikes in favor of driving more.

Such news typically sends the educated cycling masses into fits of over-analysis and explanation: either the data is inaccurate, the change is temporary, the numbers will improve once projects XYZ are finished, or they simply accept the cause is lost due to lack of political will or failure to frame the cause sufficiently. It’s a little like watching the 5 stages of accepting death, but all at the same time.

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How Can You Blog About Bikes at a Time Like This?

How anyone can blog about bikes these days astounds me. Obviously, bikes consume my life, as they should yours. If you live in the city, this city, then you know why. All bikes, all funs, at all times. The multiple cultures and avenues of the urban cycling multiverse know almost no bounds.

While this blog has focused on three main themes, there are occasional topical events that more loosely fall within the scope of Rebel Metropolis that make normal content seem esoteric by contrast. Yes, the safety and welfare of active transit users, especially cyclists, should be viewed a social justice issue. But in comparison to colonial massacres in Gaza or racist state violence against black communities in Ferguson, the issues facing people on bikes become largely irrelevant. In such times of crisis, how people can continue blogging such trivialities is frankly disturbing.

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Kids These Days: Climate Conscious & Car-Free

While observing the reporting on America’s decline of car use for many years now, what stands out is the market-based viewpoint, often claiming GenX/Y/Millenials are simply cogs in a system temporarily unable to afford the responsibilities of adulthood and car ownership. Rarely, if ever, does such coverage ever ask youngish people about their conscious decisions for fear of revealing a greater truth: kids just are done with driving.

Ironically, my hometown newspaper the Lansing State Journal recently ran an in-depth piece regarding the decline of car culture. Bear in mind, Lansing was as much an automobile manufacturing power haus as Flint was for a great many decades. Only Detroit tops them, historically. For my state capital’s paper of record to cover the issue with such honestly and nuance struck me as a sign that change is hella blowin’ in the wind.

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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 our Lord and Savior, Bicycle Christ. We’ve amassed an arsenal of talking points designed to work on each other that confound and infuriate real life bike haters when fired on social media. Failing there, we retreat, scratching our heads wondering how to better tweek our language to convert the unfaithful, or worse – we ponder whether to stop using the word ‘bicycle’ at all.

If bikes are a social movement, and they are, there’s going to be infighting, difference of opinions, diversity of tactics. That’s fine. That’s normal. That’s necessary. As it’s often been said, strength lies in this diversity. Beyond talking points and facts and charts and diagrams, we need true visual evidence. Charts don’t mean zip to most. People can’t emotionally bond with a chart. They crave stirring, anecdotal evidence. They need to see somebody who looks like them riding a bike that looks fun while wearing clothes that look comfortable. The technology of photography fulfills this craving.

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Cycling In A Violent World

Words matter. Nowhere is that more evident than in the trench warfare currently being waged over the term ‘accident’ in reference to motorists killing and maiming people walking and riding their bikes. Most law enforcement agencies have begun to appreciate why this term is unacceptable, how it perpetuates a lack of accountability and a culture of victim-blaming. Unfortunately, major media outlets like the New York Times still cling to this intellectually dishonest word, continuing to use us it in the face of transit advocate backlash. It is encouraging, though, that a far more correct term is coming into common speak: ‘traffic violence’.

It’s been said that cycling advocates should adopt the branding methods of the auto industry: Never talk about the dangers of your product. Never harm the positive imagery you’re painting to sell the bike experience. With so many potential riders afraid to put foot to pedal – it’s important not to perpetuate the myth of these harms. Truthfully, the harm is not in cycling, it is in driving, the harm drivers impose on human beings around them. We tend to overstate these risks in our discourse due the vast imbalance of danger between one mode over the other. While promoting cycling on the merits of fun and not scaring away the novices, it’s important to be honest in our dialog – motorists do kill thousands of people every year in lethal acts of violence.

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Unmerciful Insanity: the Columbia River Crossing

This article was originally published on Mismanaging Perception.

In the last two years I’ve written over 20 articles breaking down why the Columbia River Crossing freeway mega-expansion isn’t just failed transportation policy, but why it’s an outright nightmare totally out of line with the values our community champions.  From historical precedent, to strange-bedfellow political opposition, to austerity, to the growing climate crisis, to Charlie Hales, to tax policy, to livable streets, to the devastation to the built environment around freeways, to meme wars, to community events against the freeway, there’s few CRC angles I haven’t covered on Blue Oregon, Mismanaging Perception, or Rebel Metropolis.

Truthfully, just the thought of writing yet another article about this boondoggle “bridge” to nowhere depresses me. There are many others who’ve fought this ultra-mistake who feel equally worn down. They’re fatigued. They want to live their lives working on projects that improve our community, instead of playing defense against wasteful projects that will destroy it. Perhaps that’s part of the CRC supporters’ strategy: beat down the majority by repeating the same lies ad nauseum.

For those unfamiliar, or for those who believed this train-wreck had finally ended, it’s worth reviewing a few more of the facts. The CRC can not honestly be called a ‘bridge’. It is a 10-12 lane, 5 mile long freeway expansion and light rail extension over the Columbia River from Portland to Vancouver, WA. While doing nothing to reduce vehicle trips times or congestion, the CRC’s design and tolling appears entirely dependent on actually encouraging more trips to be taken by automobile, in total disregard for the climate crisis we now face.

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Would Space Aliens Think Cars Are the Dominant Species?

A colleague of mine recently asked me who came up with the line, “If aliens came to Earth, they’d probably think cars were the dominant life form.” I’d heard this line before, but had no clue who coined it. After about ten seconds of digging, I found this little  gem of a remastered film from the National Film Board of Canada directed and animated by Les Drew and Kaj Pindal in 1966 entitled ‘What On Earth!‘

The film takes an albeit dated yet satirical look at car culture, including the destruction of urban structures to allocate more room for space-hogging cars. It even casts humans as parasites that get in the way of automobiles, preventing them from fulfilling their dreams of going absolutely everywhere, terrain be damned.

oehttp://www.nfb.ca/film/what_on_earth/

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Cops Search and Destroy in the Streets of Istanbul

This weekend, the ongoing street battle between the people of Istanbul, Turkey and their shockingly violent police force flared up again. Once more, tear gas, water canons, batons, and rubber bullets were used to injure peaceful protesters as a new wave of dissent has gripped the city.

It’s been over a month since the debut article of Rebel Metropolis. In that piece, I covered a bit of the emerging Right to the City movement, with an specific focus on the turmoil in Istanbul that sprung from a fight to save the last public green space in the heart of the city. Since then, a mass revolt has spread across Turkey. Thousands of citizens have been beaten by police, five were killed, and dozens of journalists have been arrested or fired for coverage empathetic with the people in the streets.

There has been some good news. Under mass pressure, judges have seemingly blocked the destruction of Gezi Park from a plan to replace the common space with yet another auto-centric shopping mall. It is unknown how long this judicial decision will hold, as the the president’s ruling AK party is already looking for ways to override the court order.

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