How "Swyft" Are Their Ideas?

 Winter Solstice arrives today at 4:47 p.m. local time. The sun will set sixteen minutes earlier, thus beginning our "longest night"  here in New York City.

That is not the reason, though, I have posted the above image.  Yes, dusk and dark will come sooner than on any other day of the year.  And it seems that some former Google employees are doing everything they can, if unwittingly, to further prolong it.

They formed Swyft Cities, an organization that aims to "revolutionize transportation and real estate." (The more likely any group or organization uses any form of the word "revolution," the less likely they are to know what it means--or to have studied any history.) Their Twitter feed claims they "save time, space and costs by reducing parking needs, freeing up land use and providing a superior passenger experience."

I can get on board with "reducing parking needs."  It seems to me that it can be done most efficiently by, well, getting more cars off the road.  But their own promotional materials don't reflect any understanding of that, or what else might make cities truly sustainable or livable--for people from all walks of life.

I mean, an aerial gondola ride at sunset (or sunrise) can be quite lovely. I know:  I've taken such airborne voyages.  But, really, how many cars can they replace.  A bus. let alone a train, can carry many times more passengers per trip and run more frequently.

Swyft Cities is here to revolutionize transportation and real estate! An innovative gondola system combines autonomous pods w/ lightweight, fixed cable infrastructure to move passengers efficiently w/ significantly lower cost-per-mile & less emissions than traditional options.👇 pic.twitter.com/AlZ6yucOML

— swyftcities (@swyftcities) December 20, 2022

What really irks me, though, is that the folks of Swyft seem--as, to be fair, too many other planners--oblivious to bicycles.  As "Hannah" on Road.cc acerbically retorted, "Just build bike lanes!"  I agree, but with this caveat:  that the lanes aren't conceived, planned or built by folks like the ones at Swyft Cities.  I've ridden on too many bike lanes that seem to have been designed by people who haven't been on  bicycles since they got their driver's licenses, if indeed they ever rode for transportation or even recreation.

As for the people at Swyft:  They confirm, to me, that people who are smart enough to bring us "smart" phones and appliances sometimes lack in life experience, or simple common sense.

We Can Use The Jump, And The NY Post Needs To Get A Grip

The other day, I chastised the Mayor of Montreal for his plan to paint lanes that would be shared by bikes and buses on some of his city's main thoroughfares.  An editorial in the Montreal Gazette  lambasted the idea--rightly, in my opinion.

Today the script is flipped, if you will, in my hometown:  a sensible piece of bicycle policy is proposed, but an idiotic newspaper editorial denounces it.

You probably wouldn't be surprised to find out that said editorial is in the New York Post: you know, the rag that became famous for headlines like Headless Body In Topless Bar and has lately become the print media's biggest cheerleader for Donald Trump's candidacy.  They've published a lot of diatribes against cyclists and this city's attempts to be more "bike friendly".  Some of the latter, to be fair, were on the mark, if for the wrong reasons,  such as their early criticisms of bike lanes.

Today their editorial begins thusly:

It seems it's not enough to ease up on anti-social behavior, from urinating on the street to public pot-smoking:  Next, the City Council may let cyclists legally jump red lights.

Here in New York, many intersections have traffic signals with four-way red lights and "walk" signals that precede the green light by 20 seconds.  In principle, I think it's a good idea, because it allows pedestrians to enter the intersection before, and thus be seen by, motorists who might make turns.  If anything, I think the interval should be longer along some of the city's wider streets such as Queens Boulevard, along which many senior citizens and disabled people live.

The City Council proposal would allow cyclists to follow the pedestrian signal in crossing an intersection.  Frankly, I think a 20-second interval for "jumping" red lights makes even more sense for cyclists than it does for pedestrians, especially for cyclists crossing intersections from bike lanes.  Twenty seconds is plenty of time for cyclists to cross just about any intersection, and even the slowest cyclists at the widest boulevards will have enough time to get through the immediate traffic lanes and avoid motorists making right turns.

The Post does have one thing right:  Many cyclists already do that because we know that it's much safer to cross that way than according to motorists' signals.  But I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a paper of their caliber compares legalizing the practice to tolerating public pot-smoking and urination.

If you follow the logic, if it can be called that, of some of the Post's other editorials and articles, allowing public urination unfairly privileges 49 percent of the population (of which I am not a part:  boo hoo).  So, perhaps, it's not surprising that the esteemed editors would follow the passage I italicized above with this:  It's not as bad as it sounds.  Then, they use even more tortured, to put it kindly, logic to dismiss the City Council proposal.

Usually, when folks like Denis Cordierre propose wrongheaded policies about cycling and pundits endorse them (or oppose good ideas), I can attribute it to a lack of knowledge about-- usually because of a lack of experience in-- cycling.  The Post, however, has magnified that lack of knowledge with an apparent inability to construct a cogent argument. Had any of my students submitted anything like it, he or she would see lots of red ink upon getting it back!

I wonder what Alexander Hamilton would think of that editorial--or the Post?

When Hipsters And Hasidim Use The Same Adjective

From Indigo Jo Blogs

When people on opposing sides of the same issue are using "stupid" as a prefix for the same word, the thing they're talking about can't be good.  Right?


I'm thinking now of bike lanes.  Both cyclists and the people who hate us, or merely find us a nuisance, use that same adjective in reference to the lanes.  


I was reminded of this when I stumbled over a site called "Stupid Bike Lanes" and read articles like this, and the comments on them. 


Of course, the velophobes--who include all sorts of (but not all) people whose way of life or business is auto-based--think we're getting in their way of getting to wherever they have to go and believe we're getting "special privileges."


As any number of other bloggers (including yours truly) and commentators have pointed out, the antipathy toward cyclists, particularly in urban areas, is often generational and based on socio-economic or ethnic issues.  Here in New York, non-cyclists hold contradictory views of cyclists: the messenger, the hipster, the Whole Foods customer and the simply rich.  What reinforces these stereotypes is that those who most vociferously oppose the bike lanes tend to come from what remains of the blue-collar class and groups like the Hasidic and Orthodox Jews who have large families that they transport in vans.  So, they are always driving, it seems, from one available parking spot to the next and, as they see it, the bike lanes take away those spots.  


The bike lane-haters who are actual cyclists don't dispute those objections, and in fact cite one basic flaw of most urban bike lanes:  They run alongside parking lanes and, therefore, directly in the path of opening drivers' side doors.  I've been "doored" a few times: on all except one of those occasions, I was riding in a bike lane.


Some bike lanes are badly designed in other ways.  The most obvious flaw, aside from the one I just mentioned, is that many of them go nowhere, end abruptly or in the middle of busy intersections, or are so poorly marked so that only those who already know where they are can find them.  


All of the problems I've mentioned actually make cycling less safe than it is in the traffic lanes of most streets.  And they indicate that those who design them know as little about cycling as transportation, in an urban area, as those who hate cyclists.