It's fascinating how most people perceive "make it possible for people to choose to ride a bike, take public transit, or even walk places" as "#banCars".
People are so threatened by anyone having the opportunity to opt out of driving that they see it as an existential threat to driving altogether, maybe as something that should be banned?
Equally threatening is the idea that other forms of transportation should get anywhere near the same subsidies as driving
People always say things like "your opponents are just like that because you're being rude and unreasonable". Can we say that the "ban cars" slogan is actually the fault of the mandatory-driving people and that if drivers just were nicer and more polite about it people wouldn't want to ban cars?
Yeah I know that argument only applies in the other direction, it's the people in the position of power who get to dictate civility, banning non-cars is even the norm, but it's nice to imagine
@dx well, ultimately we are at most kind of slowly phasing them out, and not really succeeding at that. The slogan is good for online venting but that's about it
Like drivers act as though the handful of people who post about bikes on the Internet are going to become the dictator of the world tomorrow and seize everyone's car if we install a single bike or bus lane, or expand car subsidies to ebikes or to increased transit funding
@sanae I like the framing of “ban cars” because I think that’s the point car advocates should need to argue against. They should have to justify why cars shouldn’t be banned and work backwards from there.
I’m skeptical that messaging matters in this case. I think most people don’t think about cars at all, they’re just a forgone conclusion.
@dx@sanae with many topics, it seems that some people want "balance" (me) and some people want "all or nothing". You see that in the "slippery slope" argument about gun regulation.
@CathyTuttle wrote something that suggested what percentage of car drivers in Portland don't want to drive. It was close to 40%. The argument follows that we ought to spend and build infrastructure accordingly (rather than the ~90% that goes to cars).
In the post-war decades, we spent so much money building a system that forced people to drive (when half of households probably only had one car).
So maybe those "all or nothing" folks have a more realistic perspective!
@footsteps@sanae@CathyTuttle I am a middle path person on most issues, but I’m also increasingly convinced that arguing for the middle path lands you in a compromise between the middle path and the opposing extreme — ie, in “their” territory.
If you want to wind up in the middle, maybe you need to be the yin to their yang.
@dx@footsteps@CathyTuttle I think it's more that instead of arguing for abstract things (should we have cars or not) we should argue for concrete things (literally! Like, we should have a protected bike lane on this specific road) with the intention of putting them in place ASAP
@sanae@dx@footsteps@CathyTuttle if it makes sense overall as a network, yes the next step is a protected bike lane, but #banCars as a philosophy says protected bike lanes are car infrastructure. Where we currently have a 10x redundant carway network, we should be ruthlessly shutting off car throughput to create low-stress bike connectivity & transit priority. In most current US design and construction practice, protected bike lanes are locking in narrow & unsafe designs to coddle moar cars💸
@enobacon@sanae@dx@footsteps The Dutch policy is only to build what can be maintained. Projects clearly enumerate a long term maintenance budget and space requirements as part of their start up. Roads have value. Public spaces have value. The government has to justify how it's going to take care of what they build, not just build it. Turns out a lot of what is cheapest to maintain doesn't include moving and storing cars for free.
@CathyTuttle@enobacon@sanae@dx@footsteps But in the US mult-billion dollar corporations with well connected lobbyists control parking, and the billions in revenue that come from parking. Even a well meaning politician that might agree with less cars will get their mind changed by large cash contributions to their re-election.
@chrisod@CathyTuttle@sanae@dx@footsteps that's only true for cities that sold their rights of way, most manage their own and there's not a lot of money in it. For private parking garages, they're probably undertaxed and I don't doubt the lobby is connected, but car storage is not a high-value use of property or a good investment.
Chicago sold their parking meter revenue for the next 75 years for $1.1 billion. Indianapolis did the same, for less $$$ because Indy ain't Chicago. I'm sure there are more, and more coming. Selling out the citizens for an upfront check is very popular.
@chrisod@CathyTuttle@sanae@dx@footsteps yeah not all cities are Chicago, but we've all seen how stuck they are already, what morons are going to do that now?
@enobacon@CathyTuttle@sanae@dx@footsteps My job is selling to the government. Never underestimate any government's ability to repeat the mistakes already made, over and over again. Somebody will pitch it with some minor tweaks to the contract that "solve" the problem. My state of VA sold toll revenue for I think 100 years - although that included the private company actually building the toll roads.
@chrisod@CathyTuttle@sanae@dx@footsteps you would think we learned from forever right-of-way deals like the railroads, that have carte blanche to stop traffic in downtowns whenever they like and control the only passable terrain through many areas. We'll probably see them just sell out whole states to private companies in the next few years of demolishing democracy.
@dx@sanae This is why I like it as a slogan. It's about being provocative and making people question "Why shouldn't we ban cars?".
It's important for people to understand that not only are building transit and bike lanes good, but cars are actually bad. Just simply advocating for bike lanes and transit isn't enough, we need to advocate against cars in our daily lives.
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