Motonormativity

Jamal

Motonormativity, a term coined in a recent study, describes an unconscious bias in favour of cars and motor transport generally. It is the automatic prioritization of the needs of cars over the needs of pedestrians and cyclists, which results in an inability to make impartial judgments. Curiously, the study found that even non-drivers harbour this bias.

My experience

When I was living in France I bought an old Renault Laguna, even though I couldn't drive; having lived in towns and cities with decent public transport for most of my life, I had not felt the need to learn. Driving duty therefore fell to the best driver among the friends I was sharing a house with, who I'll refer to as Gary. One day I was in the passenger seat as he drove along the winding road from the village of Châteauneuf-Villevieille in the foothills of the Maritime Alps, down towards Nice, passing through other villages on the way. As we passed through one of these villages, two locals were strolling very slowly across the road, from the bakery to the post office, engaged in conversation and making no effort to get out of the way, thus forcing us to slow down.

Such was Gary's motonormativity that he got very frustrated and said (but not so loud that they could hear him), "get off the fucking road!" and proceeded to rant about old French bumpkins, expecting me to take his side. But I sensed deep in my bones that Gary was in the wrong. I pointed out that there had been a road in this village since long before the existence of cars — in particular, fast through-traffic was a very recent thing — and that traditional village life depends on the prioritization of pedestrians, that cars are a recent invasion, that villages should not be divided by dangerous roads, and that the problem is alleviated if drivers slow down or even wait, giving way to chatty sauntering locals.

One might object in this case (as in most others) that the infrastructure, the built environment, and the traffic regulations already embody and enforce the prioritization of motor traffic, and that Gary was merely expecting to drive in a way that he was entitled to and which he had been led to believe was natural for the entirety of his life.

This is true, but it is exactly the problem. The dominance of motor traffic and its associated infrastructure and regulations, even though they result in unsafe, unhealthy, and unpleasant environments, have come to seem natural. Perhaps unlike other places, the older residents of these villages hold on to a certain way of life, refusing to accept their inferiority on the streets when they go to get their baguette in the morning. Why should they accept the dominance and prioritization of cars, which are after all dangerous, polluting, and noisy?

For a few years I have lived on and off in Moscow, which is a safe and pleasant city in many ways, but which is in my opinion also blighted by the dominance of motor traffic. The traffic noise is pervasive and constant, multi-lane highways cut through neighbourhoods right into the city centre, creating an oppressive atmosphere for anyone who is not in a car, and pedestrians and cyclists are forced go out of their way to find underpasses and bridges to get about unless they go underground. And yet, whenever I frame the situation in this way I mostly get blank looks or a dismissive attitude; the basic assumption is that the transport status quo is essential and inviolable — or, even if the changes I advocate would be good, that they would be impossible to implement. This is not just the typical Russian resignation to bad circumstances, but is the special kind of brainwashing identified by the study as motonormativity, common across the world.

Enlightened developments

This brings me to the examples of Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and other European cities. Although now known for their cycling-friendly infrastructure, it might not be widely known that these cities were as car-centric as any others until quite recently, that it has taken political will to see through the radical changes that have made these cities better and safer to live in.

Copenhagen, 1960 and 2016:

wlROFHgRLTpk.jpg?o=1

Amsterdam:

Düsseldorf:

ac901bf4-052f-41e4-a1aa-c86d1e1700e1?t=1685635709019

Also relevant here is the distinction between a road and a street. Famously in the US there are stroads, an extremely pedestrian-unfriendly hybrid of the two. One success story in which the trend has been reversed is Lancaster Boulevard, Lancaster, California, which has gone from a stroad back to a street:

5e332df34b445e19d0695cbb_Lancaster%20Boulevard%20Before-After.jpg

5e332df34b445e19d0695cbb_Lancaster%20Boulevard%20Before-After.jpg

Motonormativity

My first reaction on seeing the term motonormativity was probably to roll my eyes, since it's a fashion-conscious coinage in line with heteronormativity and neuronormativity. But on second thoughts, I think it's good. Sometimes you need to put a name on something to make it real, or rather, to allow people to think about it clearly in familar contemporary terms.

This video is a good introduction:

Decisions about motor transport, by individuals and policy-makers, show unconscious biases due to cultural assumptions about the role of private cars - a phenomenon we term motonormativity. To explore this claim, a national sample of 2157 UK adults rated, at random, a set of statements about driving (“People shouldn't drive in highly populated areas where other people have to breathe in the car fumes”) or a parallel set of statements with key words changed to shift context ("People shouldn't smoke in highly populated areas where other people have to breathe in the cigarette fumes"). Such context changes could radically alter responses (75% agreed with "People shouldn't smoke... " but only 17% agreed with "People shouldn't drive... "). We discuss how these biases systematically distort medical and policy decisions and give recommendations for how public policy and health professionals might begin to recognise and address these unconscious biases in their work. — Abstract, Motornomativity: How Social Norms Hide a Major Public Health Hazard

Summary:
Breaking Down Motornormativity: Uncovering the Bias Behind Car Culture and Driving

The paper:
Walker, I., Tapp, A., & Davis, A. (2022, December 14). Motonomativity: How Social Norms Hide a Major Public Health Hazard

Wiki:
Motonormativity

Lionino

My first reaction on seeing the term motonormativity was probably to roll my eyes, since it's a fashion-conscious coinage in line with heteronormativity and neuronormativity. — Jamal

If my eyes could roll anymore they would return to their original position. None of those words are properly formed — so I comfortably say they are not real words —, and I am sure the people who coined them don't have even their mother tongue mastered. Just a consequence of living in the age where scientists don't need to have language skills.

But the concept that is being captured is important, of course.

Sometimes you need to put a name on something to make it real — Jamal

I remember seeing the casual use of 'car-centric' or variations often.

Count Timothy von Icarus

I grew up in a city in Massachusetts, but the city was also about 400 years old and had peaked in population in the decades after WWII, undergoing to Detroit-like deindustrialization and decline. As a result, it was actually fairly walkable. All the bloated strip mall style developments were out in the suburbs because the downtown and surrounding neighborhoods were too built up to allow for that sort of design (this also makes parking in downtown impossible except for in big expensive garages because the streets are all very narrow).

Of course, you didn't really walk it because the city had one of the worst crime rates of any city in the county, but in theory you could. Biking was a bit more difficult.

But I've also lived in more recently developed communities down in North Carolina and they are virtually impossible to walk across because every building is required to have a huge lawn and a huge parking lot. The US is very bad about this sort of design, especially stuff developed in the 90s-00s.

This kills public transportation because you need a certain level of density to make light rail, etc. economically viable. Places have buses, but they are generally atrocious. I took the bus to my job that was a 15 minute drive away in Massachusetts and it became an hour and a half long odyssey each way for the week my car was broken. And even big city public transportation is hard to keep afloat. Boston and NYC have some of the best density for rail networks, and both the MBTA and the MTA have absolutely horrendous financial positions.

I honestly don't think it is fixable. Once you build strip mall sprawl communities the only way to make them walkable would be the rebuild over them—everything is just too spread out. There is just too much distance to cover, particularly in places where the heat index is routinely 100+ degrees all summer.

It's funny that you mention small villages because I now live in rural Kentucky and here things are truly, completely unwalkable. All the farm land means buildings are extremely far away from one another and then the roads are very narrow with steep drop offs and high weeds on either side of them (because there isn't funding for wide roads because the density is low).

We do have a lot of Amish around here using horse drawn carriages, and people do ride bikes sometimes. You also have tractors and other slow farm equipment being moved around. This just ends up being dangerous though. There isn't room to pass on windy country roads and a single tractor on one of our few major traffic routes makes everyone late for work. Plus, all the roads are 55MPH (so people go 55-70), since it takes a long time to get anywhere, but then you go over a hill going fast and find there is a horse cart in front of you going 15MPH you have to slam on your breaks for.

Kentucky's old town centers actually tend to be very aesthetically pleasing and walkable. I noticed the same thing when I lived in Iowa and upstate New York. Nevada is generally similar too. The problem is that all these store fronts have closed, since Walmart and co. have the economy of scale advantage, so you can walk there but all the commerce is actually out in some strip-mall on the edge of town, with the new commercial being zoned more like the old industrial sectors (which are now empty, business having been moved out to China).

T Clark

↪Jamal

A couple of thoughts.

My daughter and I are reading "The Power Broker" together. It's 1200 pages long, but we only read 100 pages a month and then get together to talk about it. Neither of us would have the perseverance to read the whole thing otherwise. It's about Robert Moses who was in charge of building parks, highways, and public housing in New York City and surrounding areas starting in the late 1920s through 1968. It's fascinating. He was a monomaniacal proponent of cars and an opponent of public transportation. He transformed the City and much of Long Island and the rest of the state into his personal automobile dependent kingdom. He also had a tremendous influence on other cities in the US as well as overseas. I don't know how much of what you call motornormativity you can blame on him, but he certainly was a pioneer.

Here in the US, being able to drive is a cultural rite of passage. When I was 16, I got my license on the day after my birthday. The sense of freedom it gives is powerful. Of course, that is partly because getting around without a car is difficult, but still, it's very compelling.

Joshs

↪Jamal

Here in Chicago it is a constant battle between the forces of motocentrism and those advocating for pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods. Chicago has enough density and a good enough public transportation that one can get by without a car, but some neighborhoods are more pedestrian-friendly than others. Thefirst attempts at taking back the streets from the automobile occurred with the creation of urban malls in the 1970’s. Downtown’s State st was closed off to cars, but this proved disastrous in Chicago as well as many smaller communities who ‘mallified’ their main street. More recent attempts have been on a smaller scale, including the use of speed bumps, the narrowing of streets and the expansion of bike lanes. Also helpful have been multilevel parking structures in place of street level seas of asphalt, and the addition of planters, playgrounds and benches.
Here’s some other innovative ideas:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2024/superblocks-barcelona-cities-congestion/?itid=hp_mv-top-stories_opinions_p003_f001

schopenhauer1

↪Jamal

I find this similar to an OP I had a little while back. You may have commented on it actually:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14936/page/p1

Leontiskos

In the U.S. criteria of efficiency and industriousness cater to "motonormativity," as well as a laissez-faire attitude where the smaller yields to the bigger just as the gazelle yields to the lion. Roads are for cars and sidewalks are for people, and the two are often seen as mutually exclusive. The road and especially the highway are associated with industry and productive labor, whereas the pedestrian and cyclist are associated with recreation, and productivity is believed to take precedence over recreation. This is true in all but the largest cities, such as New York.

I don't think the U.S. necessarily has this right, but as someone living here it is hard to see what possible motives and changes could overcome our status quo. It seems like nothing less than a miracle would be required.

I also suspect that population density is indirectly correlated to motonormativity wherever cars are readily available.

Ludwig V

↪Jamal

Your pictures are powerful arguments. But I do wonder what went into making those changes, in particular, whether the benefits have gone to the people who suffered the costs. There's a tendency for the gentry to move in to areas that are improved in those ways, and for the people who used to live there to be forced to move out.

I now live in rural Kentucky and here things are truly, completely unwalkable. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm glad you brought up the issues about rural communities. I've seen quite a lot about re-designing cities, but practically nothing about rural communities. Your description of Kentucky is very reminiscent of many rural areas of the UK, right down to the problems of equine traffic. (No Amish communities, of course, but many riders for leisure and pleasure. Horses and cars, etc. don't mix very well.) You don't mention heavy lorries on your lanes. But I find them more worrying than anything else.

Here in the US, being able to drive is a cultural rite of passage. When I was 16, I got my license on the day after my birthday. The sense of freedom it gives is powerful. Of course, that is partly because getting around without a car is difficult, but still, it's very compelling. — T Clark

I'm sure it is a cultural rite of passage in many other countries as well. It certainly is in the UK.

People are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to maintain personal transport instantly available on demand 24 hours a day and build their lives around it. I don't blame them. True, people do seem to be better able to manage where there is decent public transport. But public transport can't replace the car parked outside your house. So the politics around these schemes, at least in democracies, is much more complicated than people seem to recognize.

I also suspect that population density is indirectly correlated to motonormativity wherever cars are readily available. — Leontiskos

I'm sure there's a tendency for people to choose to live further apart when they have cars. But, if you look at the schemes in the OP, they are all in cities.

This kills public transportation because you need a certain level of density to make light rail, etc. economically viable. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It's a vicious circle. Lower density, less public transport, more cars. Moving away from cars in those areas is going to be very difficult indeed. Fewer people in a given area have less political clout.
Of course, it depends on what criteria you have for viability. If you are looking for economic viability, you will have it only in city centres and many people will have to do without, so will not be able to move away from cars.

I remember seeing the casual use of 'car-centric' or variations often. — Lionino

I thought that "car-centric" was the standard word for this.

Hanover

↪Jamal

Your post is motivated by the clutter of cars interfering with your favorite past time of bike riding. But that is an aside.

I hate bicycles. They occupy my American roads that are neither quaint nor ancient. The vast spaces I travel over were never filled with little old women chatting about their day, nor are there other options, like rail or buses. Billions are spent annually for cars to dart about for the purposes of commerce above all else, but also for getting to and fro. I get that you want to exercise in your spandex and your backwards hat and I know I've been encouraged to "Share the Road" or whatever those signs might say, but the investment in the roadways was not made for providing exercise and leisure. We are paving the planet for me and my SUV to get where I need to go.

We have parks with miles and miles of paved trails to nowhere for you folks to enjoy, and if that's not enough, we have stationary bikes and treadmills for you to pretend to be in the wild. Use those set asides and stop showing up where motorists belong.

I agree with the Gary's sage advice: Get the fuck out the road!

This post makes you so mad. You're probably even madder than Gary ever was. Gary probably laughed at yelling at the little old ladies a few minutes later. I know Gary well. Gary is Hanover.

frank

I used to live in walking distance of a laundry mat, a grocery store, a public tennis court, a bar, and the university.

jgill

Interesting comments. For me, much stems from density of life. My daughter lives in Brooklyn in an area having roughly 36,000 inhabitants per square mile, while I live on the high prairie of southern Colorado in a ruburban environment of about 400 per square mile. The necessity of private transportation to some extent is a function of this statistic.

Years ago I was on a train going from London to Wales, passing through lovely meadow lands, when I saw a large vertical building rising abruptly in the distance, surrounded by a high wall. An apartment building made to cram many into a relatively small space. All around were fields empty with the exception of a few cows and trees.

High density or low density. A largely political argument. I saw a cartoon recently that showed differences between Democrats and Republicans, and for housing the Dems favored the high rise building, cramming as many as possible together regardless of ethnicity or religion or political persuasion. The Republican model was a cottage in a yard filled with grass and flowers with a cute white fence surrounding it.

Wayfarer

Australian cities are overwhelmingly motonormative. Partially because of the dictates of distance and geography, as it's a vast landscape with long distances between urban centers and suburbs. There's been a big push in Sydney to upgrade public transport, taking the form of a driverless metro train system which has cost billions and involved tunnelling under Sydney harbour.

Parts of the Sydney CBD have been made car-free, but it's ringed by busy roads. And Sydney also now has about the most expensive network of toll roads in the world. In my childhood, the only toll in Sydney was southbound on the Sydney Harbour Bridge (1 shilling, in pre-decimal days.) Now there are electronic tollgates all over the place, it costs me twenty bucks to drive from my home in the greater metro area to my son's place. A lot of people in the outer suburbs pay hundreds of dollars a week in tolls.

But then, there's also been a concerted push, mainly by Green-leaning councillors, to upgrade bikeways in the City of Sydney. But Sydney is not kind of bicyclists, because it's hilly, and because of the traffic. Overall Australia is overwhelming motonormative and I can't see it changing anytime soon.

jgill

The nearby city of Pueblo (111,000) was given a government grant to re designate several two way streets into one way with a bike lane. For the past six weeks I drove these streets to medical appointments each weekday, and saw a total of three bike riders.

apokrisis

Motonormativity, a term coined in a recent study, describes an unconscious bias in favour of cars and motor transport generally. It is the automatic prioritization of the needs of cars over the needs of pedestrians and cyclists, which results in an inability to make impartial judgments. Curiously, the study found that even non-drivers harbour this bias. — Jamal

While I might strongly agree with the general sentiment about cars having taken over and social pushback being required, it also has to be pointed out the perils of this kind of woke framing of the situation.

I've a big interest in green politics and so in transport reforms. And what is plain is how the car lobby simply expresses a thermodynamic preference. Petrol and tarmac lets us all individually rocket at great speed to anywhere we might wish to go. It is a huge liberation of the human spirit. A tremendous adventure. Cruising around in cars and legendary road journeys were the stuff of my youth, when you could get a licence at 15, the roads felt empty, and speed radars were only just being invented.

So it is quite natural that - if it is possible – blatting about irresponsibly is one of life's great joys. Then faced with that, transport planners and urban authorities know that giving free reign to this luxury good is very bad in a world limited in its ecological and social capital. We need a long term plan to get this genie back in its bottle.

And it gets very frustrating that the gap between what seems obvious commonsense and popular preference just grows exponentially. The planners at first though rationality would prevail, then that if they started to build cycleways, pedestrian precincts and walkable neighbourhoods – pushing them through local politics in increasingly sly fashion – that people would suddenly wake up to this new better world and thank them, demanding much more of this kind of thing much faster.

But now the experts have had their sensible plans thrown back in their faces by the market realities so many times that "motonormativity" would be a new way of framing matters. The unwashed public is guilty of the moral sin of not just an irrational preference, but this is a bias – a decision – so socially internalised that their culture must be remade from root. The experts are justified to go even harder in a crusade that doesn't merely seek to persuade or cajole or entice, but socially shames and stigmatises. Any level of action becomes possible once the moral right is clearly on your side and not on theirs.

Again, I completely sympathise with the side that can see the sense of rolling us all back to a more sustainable world. But also the move to this kind of moralistic framing – motonormativity as the code word for a defective mindset – is a problematic political position.

It sets the state against the individual when really the real opponent is the wider political and economic settings that prevail in a society. Someone is building all those fast cars, promoting the notion of open roads and infinite parking. Someone is stopping the true social and environmental costs being factored into the price of participation.

If you build a world where capitalism has no social brakes, then you get the world that deserves. Impatient drivers and frustrated transport planners are a tiny part of that larger story.

And the criticism concerning wokeism is that it is a turning of individuals against individuals by harnessing the amplification of social media. The polarisation of society into competing online mobs obsessing over finer and finer social distinctions. A diversion of political energy away from the larger story of how we all have to cooperate to share the one planet.

Metaphysician Undercover

The sense of freedom it gives is powerful. — T Clark

Far beyond freedom, the car provides a person with power to exercise one's freedom. A car is much more than a private container, it gets one here, there, everywhere, in a very fast way, with much less care required than a horse. When a person is provided with this kind of power it may be best not to interfere, even unintentionally. As road rage demonstrates, good feelings turn to bad feelings. Motonormativity is inevitable because having power naturally makes people happy, and we don't want that happiness to turn to anger.

Outlander

What differentiates this particular specific discussion from the standard run-of-the-mill cultural following of what is popular though? :chin:

Before it was horse and buggies pioneer-style. Before that, chariots. It offered an evolutionary (or societal) advantage and one who had what others admired gained admiration whereas others who did not... did not. Is this not true? It's a common American (and I assume elsewhere) social trope/meme whatever you wish to call it that a teen with a car is "cool" or otherwise desirable to his peers versus someone who does not and has to walk or take a scooter. So it's about being in possession of the greatest item or object desirable to society, mostly for superficial reasons, but also supported by the factual beneficial and general status reasons that come with. Isn't it?

Tom Storm

My first reaction on seeing the term motonormativity was probably to roll my eyes, since it's a fashion-conscious coinage in line with heteronormativity and neuronormativity. But on second thoughts, I think it's good. Sometimes you need to put a name on something to make it real, or rather, to allow people to think about it clearly in familar contemporary terms. — Jamal

Thanks. I've often thought this was the case, didn't know there was even a word for it. When all you have is a car, everything looks like a road...

I have never liked cars or driving. Owned many cars over decades, but never much enjoyed them. So I finally spat the dummy and bought a loft in the middle of the city and got rid of the car. There's nothing I can't get to within 10-15 minutes of walking, or 30 minutes of (excellent) public transport. Good thing is, while we may be a city of 5 million, there's not much crime, so I can walk around safely.

And my city has just banned motorized scooters, so that pleases me too.

AmadeusD

I would suggest the risk of designing your life oblivious to the dangers of lethal moving machines probably influences the over-all attitude toward accommodating cars.

Lionino

↪jgill

From my experience, bikes are used more in small/concentrated cities than big/spread-out ones. That is to say, if your weekly services are in a 2km radius to you, you may bike there, but if you live in the edges of a neighbourhood that cartographically looks like Chile, you will have to use engines. It is a matter of density of services and concentricity of urban planning. If you look at Cancún, the Zona Hotelera neighbourhood is awfully spread-out, but Puerto Juarez is more concentric.

In the Netherland, bikes are everywhere, but that is because you can actually get to places with it, nobody is riding 10km+ with their bike to get somewhere (maybe those three people).

However, I don't see a lot of bikes in many smaller cities in Southern Europe, like Coimbra (which fair enough it is on a hill) or Como. On the other hand, Brussels is a big city with a lot of bikes and scooters.

There is also a cultural side to it.

At the end of the day, without infrastructure, people won't use bikes. But as is the case with companies and services, there must be some "market-research" to see if the product will have customers. Many years ago in São Paulo, they removed car lanes to add bike lanes, the result was more traffic jams and the benefit of bike lanes was not great, the city is way too large and spread out, also crime. The government however doesn't go bankrupt, so they don't care as much.

I thought that "car-centric" was the standard word for this. — Ludwig V

Maybe I was dead-on in saying the researchers haven't mastered their own language.

Joshs

↪Outlander

It's a common American (and I assume elsewhere) social trope/meme whatever you wish to call it that a teen with a car is "cool" or otherwise desirable to his peers versus someone who does not and has to walk or take a scooter. So it's about being in possession of the greatest item or object desirable to society, mostly for superficial reasons, but also supported by the factual beneficial and general status reasons that come with. Isn't it? — Outlander

Apparently times have changed.

https://theweek.com/tech/gen-z-cars-driving-less

https://www.carscoops.com/2024/05/teen-not-interested-in-driving-theyre-not-alone/

https://nypost.com/2024/05/26/lifestyle/gen-z-teens-largely-put-the-brakes-on-driving-signaling-seismic-shift-in-us-car-culture-study/

Ludwig V

From my experience, bikes are used more in small/concentrated cities than big/spread-out ones. — Lionino

I think you've got a point there. But I always thought that the critical factor was the hills. The Netherlands are flat or nearly so. I'm not sure about Brussels. But the availability of cycle lanes - especially where there is heavy traffic, especially where roads are narrow - is also thought to be persuasive. But it takes time for people to change their ways.

I would suggest the risk of designing your life oblivious to the dangers of lethal moving machines probably influences the over-all attitude toward accommodating cars. — AmadeusD

There's been general acceptance that pedestrians and traffic should be separated as much as possible, and that's common sense now - it has not always been so, and it is still not universal in the UK. There should be even more pressure than there is already to separate pedal cycles from cars and other lethal heavy machinery. That's also just common sense.

But it also doesn't make any sense to mix cycles up with pedestrians (as happens all too often in the UK, now that they have legalized cycles using sidewalks); there are nasty accidents from time to time. (I would do the same for horses.)

At the very least, where mixed traffic is unavoidable, cars, etc. should be limited to walking speed. (I have heard that in Norway, if a car hits a pedestrian anywhere on the public roads, the assumption is that it is the driver's fault. That would help.)

So it's about being in possession of the greatest item or object desirable to society, mostly for superficial reasons, but also supported by the factual beneficial and general status reasons that come with. Isn't it? — Outlander

Yes, but it is also about being able to access opportunities, both work and social, that would not be practicable otherwise. And so you end up with the car being essential to your way of life. `

But also the move to this kind of moralistic framing – motonormativity as the code word for a defective mindset – is a problematic political position. — apokrisis

Well, people do like a moral justification. It is so much nobler than self-interest. But you are right that the politics of this are much more complicated than the pictures show and realism is more helpful.

And the criticism concerning wokeism is that it is a turning of individuals against individuals by harnessing the amplification of social media. — apokrisis

That's odd. I thought it took two to make a fight.
But in this case, the division is even more stupid than usual. People are not divided into two groups - drivers and pedestrians. Sometimes, one drives and sometimes one walks. Other people drive through the place I live in, and I drive through the places they live in. It's not a competition for dominance.
Of course, when I'm driving, I get annoyed at the pedestrians and other cars that are in my way. When I'm walking, I get annoyed at the other pedestrians and cars that get in my way. Somehow, we need to understand ourselves as wanting ideal conditions for both and then we can laugh at ourselves and settle for a tolerable compromise.

Lionino

I'm not sure about Brussels — Ludwig V

Generally flat too. I have heavily edited my comment btw.

especially where there is heavy traffic, especially where roads are narrow — Ludwig V

That is something you see in Brussels. Specially Kruidtuinlaan next to Brussels-Nord station and its transversal streets, they are often congested, so one may rent a Uber/Bolt bike for 10 minutes and 3 euros rather than paying 20 euros to stay in a smelly taxi for 25 minutes to get to a hotel — that is possible and made comfortable because, even though there is no separate bike lane, cars and buses mostly respect that bikes may ride on the slow rightmost lane.

Ludwig V

The government however doesn't go bankrupt, so they don't care as much. — Lionino

I wouldn't want to comment on the government is Sao Paolo. But, in principle, because they don't go bankrupt (or not often - it does happen, though they don't call it bankruptcy), they can take a long view and persuade/manipulate people into adopting new ways.

even though there is no separate bike lane, cars and buses mostly respect that bikes may ride on the slow rightmost lane. — Lionino

There's nothing like getting the people on your side. Without a doubt, it is the most effective engine for social change.

BTW, I like the new version of your old post. There's one city I can identify as not likely to support cycles - Hong Kong! I have never seen a single one there.

apokrisis

That's odd. I thought it took two to make a fight. — Ludwig V

That was my point. Left and right used to be about social and economic policy settings. A debate over the right national system. Now it has shifted to identity politics. Are you siding with woke or MAGA? Personal crusades. Should you even be allowed to exist with those views within a shared social system.

Of course, when I'm driving, I get annoyed at the pedestrians and other cars that are in my way. When I'm walking, I get annoyed at the other pedestrians and cars that get in my way. — Ludwig V

So motonormativity is in fact a generalised modern impatience. A reflection of accelerationism in a society addicted to faster/cheaper/more.

AmadeusD

There should be even more pressure than there is already to separate pedal cycles from cars and other lethal heavy machinery. That's also just common sense. — Ludwig V

Here in NZ, cycles are legal on footpaths (we have a massive, shit-headed Green Lobby here that are insufferably stupid) and .......................................................... bus lanes.

apokrisis

Here in NZ, cycles are legal on footpaths — AmadeusD

Erm...

It’s illegal to ride a cycle on footpaths unless you’re delivering mail or the cycle has very small wheels (wheel diameter less than 355 millimetres). As well as people walking, footpaths can be used by people on push scooters, e-scooters, skates, skateboards, and other similar ways of getting around.

https://www.nzta.govt.nz/roadcode/code-for-cycling/paths-cycle-lanes-and-bus-lanes

Ludwig V

Should you even be allowed to exist with those views within a shared social system. — apokrisis

Yes, I'm afraid that when human beings find something they don't like in their environment, they prefer to remake the environment by eradicating the offending items to adjusting themselves to it. This is so pervasive that I'm not at all sure that it can be attributed to solely to social structures.

So motonormativity is in fact a generalised modern impatience. A reflection of accelerationism in a society addicted to faster/cheaper/more. — apokrisis

Yes, but again, I think you'll find that addiction is so pervasive that it seems to go deeper than social structures or cultures.

Here in NZ, cycles are legal on footpaths (we have a massive, shit-headed Green Lobby here that are insufferably stupid) and .......................................................... bus lanes. — AmadeusD

I'm sorry, but I'm not sure exactly what you are saying. Too many dots.
I'm afraid that a massive movement of any kind is liable to include some annoying and idiotic followers. There's nothing sufficiently special about Green lobbies to make them an exception.
In the UK, allowing cycles on footpaths was not connected to the green lobby. It seemed to be more related to recognizing that cycles were too vulnerable to be required to mix with cars etc. The unrecognized downside is that pedestrians are too vulnerable to be required to mix with pedal cycles - especially the athletic and impatient riders.

Ludwig V

That was my point. Left and right used to be about social and economic policy settings. A debate over the right national system. Now it has shifted to identity politics. — apokrisis

OK. Sorry I misunderstood.
I suspect that identity has always been a factor in politics. But it is true that debates these days seem to be mostly single issue, as opposed to more comprehensive approaches that try to see each issue in the context of an overall policy setting. And the debates nowadays do suffer from that narrowness. On the other hand, it makes it easier to decide which side you're on. Perhaps that's why.

AmadeusD

I'm sorry, but I'm not sure exactly what you are saying. Too many dots. — Ludwig V

Incredulousness. It's utterly insane that cyclists are legally allowed in bus lanes. Utterly bewilderingly dangerous - and it encourages cyclists to blame everyone else.

↪apokrisis

Huh. Interesting.

I'm unsure why this is written this way. This is actually encouraged in standardized Police-led cycling classes in Primary schools because children cycling on the road is an utterly deranged thing to push. This was true when I took those classes in 1996 and was true when my son did in 2017. Well see when my step son gets them next year. It may be that the wheel diameter regulation is to capture this.

Both law firms i've worked at are not under the impression this is an illegality LOL. Fair few fines being handed out for this in Wellington though (no surprises).

apokrisis

It's utterly insane that cyclists are legally allowed in bus lanes. — AmadeusD

Why? Bus drivers are at least professional and trained to be attentive. They are not texting or day-dreaming like the average car commuter. What's the problem?

AmadeusD

What's the problem? — apokrisis

You have not been on roads where this is the case, have you?

Or to NZ in general? hehe

Motonormativity

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Categories