We need something like the Americans with Disabilities Act to mandate car-free accessibility. Being able to go to a store, school, or job - or leave the house at all - should be considered a universal right.
A court system more open to using judicial review for the people instead of for corporations against people might say that in many respects, ADA as currently configured should substantially improve car-free accessibility.. But we also have the state/federal thing to sort out, not least because of the ways in which ADA has been ruled by the conservative majority on the court not to apply to state governments or agencies of state governments (namely, they can't be sued for monetary damages, only for injunctive relief).
I love you man. I actually got directly involved in cycling activism partly due to TH-camrs including yourself, and we are getting wins for our increasingly urbanized suburb of Vancouver The way you make these points and your experience is an inspiration and I hope to be just as articulate.
Wow! That's a huge compliment and so cool to see that folks are out there fighting for community investment with an equity lens. That's exactly what is needed in cities and in the suburbs. Keep up the great work. Metro Vancouver is one of my favorite places in our corner of the world, so glad to know that you're out there fighting to make it better for everyone.
@@devinsilvernail Thanks! We really need it here (in Richmond). We've got some really great infrastructure but it doesn't really form a network spanning the city, and there's really quite a lack of good infrastructure in the city centre area where probably a third of the population lives and everyone wants to bike due to the density. I myself live in the city centre area and historically pretty much walked or took transit everywhere, but I started cycling for everyday needs a few years ago and found it so incredibly convenient. I just want it to be safer and more inviting. It's nice to see positive content like yours. Changing things is difficult when it requires people to think about not just their personal experience, but a system as a whole, and active transportation is no exception to that
Investing in bike infrastructure is beneficial for people who can't bike. It decreases cars on the road, and separated bike routes should be accessible for wheelchairs and other mobility devices too.
tbh there's an attitude of holier-than-thou-ness in a lot of the youtubers who cover these topics (and I think these people would absolutely cop to their own smugness - it's an attitude you grow to counter car culture, myself included) I like that your videos remind us why safety, access, and genuine community-building should be the basis of our attitudes. It's cool that I can choose to live along the BG for easy access to run errands on my bike and choose to ride my bike to work and choose to drive my bike out to the Eastside to check out a local rail trail. But not everyone gets to make these choices I grew up in Vancouver and live in Seattle now - as much as I complain about disjointed infrastructure in both these places, I don't travel outside of BC/WA/OR much. I was in Rochester for a conference last year and it blew my mind. The infrastructure was just not there, the people on bikes did not appear affluent or like they could have chosen to drive instead, they were largely not white, not female, not kiddos. And even bus drivers (!!??) were driving unsafely around cyclists. Who would choose to ride if that's what you're faced with? As a person who rides party-pace I also identify with the problem of cities designing these things for the hard-core recreational cyclist too. I purposely adjust my commute time so I don't have to be riding home on the Burke Gilman while intense skinny men in spandex whiz by me and act like the women pushing strollers walking side-by-side do not deserve to be using a multi-use pathway.
Hey thanks for your kind words and thanks for your comment overall. This is a great perspective. It's so interesting how even in the same city, things can be different and I'll admit that my perspective has changed over the past 10 years. Personally, I used to be obsessed with speed and that may have come from working on my bike or maybe just the thrill of it all. There's definitely a place for recreation and it's a good thing, but I feel like a lot of leaders in Seattle think that's all people use bikes for. However, there's some great safe infrastructure in Seattle. In Fremont, the U District, near Greenlake, or around Lake Union. If we invested everywhere in the city like we do in those areas, we'd be a great biking city. Although, like you point out. It's all about perspective. I'm sure there's folks that look at even the most unsafe parts of Seattle enviously like we do Paris or Nantes or Montréal. Heck, even folks in these places who feel like not enough is being done. Overall, that spirit of always wanting better is probably a great thing and hopefully we can all work together to make spaces for folks to have access to all forms of mobility and recreation too. Thanks again. Really appreciate the conversation!
Great video. I've been biking 12 miles a day in LA in streets relatively bike friendly and am surprised and pleased at how many cyclists and other active mobility users I see out. To me, it's instructive of just how much people want proper bike infrastructure and to move away from car infrastructure. We're gradually getting there in LA, with more bike lanes being added, but in very piecemeal fashion. Edited to add that this is mainly in high income areas. In lower income areas, the streets are abysmal, with virtually no bike infrastructure, making being a pedestrian or cyclist dangerous. If City funds go to these areas, it's overwhelmingly in the form of overly paid, overly armed police. The difference just a few miles from rich and poor areas in LA is chilling.
This sounds familiar however, LA has so much potential for being so synonymous with the car. The LA metro keeps getting better and hopefully a connected safe bike network is to follow. If LA could do that, they could provide the blueprint for a lot of American cities. Thanks as always for your comment and support!
All true. Remember wherever a bike can go tricycles, mobility scooters, (electric) wheelchairs, buggies, etc. etc. etc. can also go. And here in the Netherlands you can see elderly happily cycling along together with 10 year olds...
USA : car is freedom Other country: can travel, work, shop without having to carry 2 tons of plastic and metal (3,5 ton for F-150) all the time. is a freedom that must be maintained.
Great video, I'd love to see some of these changes made in Atlanta! Our beltline is great, but we need more. Also, just a heads up that the thumbnail has a typo.
:( here in Michigan you're more likely to find bike bans and reducing bike infrastrcutre. Where use to be at least places to park and lock a bike to, gone. Places where walkers and bikes shared or cars and bikes share, gone. Yeah there are some ' rails to paths ' garbage, but those are exclusivly useful for sport riders only and a WASTE of train line space.
Ironically sport cyclists (and anybody behaving like one) are the least welcome type of cycling in Dutch and German cities - because their speed is mostly incompatible with everyone else. But as these people don't need cycling infrastructure (often they don't even use it, causing even more dangers), you can find them at places, where everybody else wouldn't dare to cycle.
City planners and bad zoning forced cities to grow into a shape where it is difficult to get around by bike. As bikes are now trendy these same city planners now destroy the roads to build bike infrastructure everywhere. However it seldom goes anywhere useful. There is a brand new miles long cycle lane near where I live that literally just goes through an industrial area and out into the country. There is absolutely no point to it and I have almost never seen a bike on it. But it takes away two lanes worth of space on either side of a very busy road crowded with cars and trucks. So you sit in the traffic and stare at the empty cycle lanes and think bad thoughts about cyclists. As bikes are not all that useful for getting around most of the cyclists you do see are the lycra clad sports types who want to go fast. Those guys usually ignore the bike lanes. So the traffic you are stuck in while staring at the empty bike lanes is sometimes caused by some lycra clad entitled idiot pumping furiously with his bum in the air blocking the traffic. Roads are clogged up with speed bumps, low speed zones, and endless slippery green paint, yet it is still rare to see an actual cyclist. There is plenty of bike infrastructure but hardly anyone uses it. The result is a city of people who hate cyclists.
However, people who advocate for more bicycle-friendly urban areas have to consider 1) the topography of the urban area and 2) the weather extremes of the area year round. Bicycle usage is not ideal when you must deal with over 100° F. summer days and/or 85° summer days with 80% or higher humidity. The Netherlands and Denmark are very ideal for bicycle usage because the relatively flat topography and (mostly) reasonable weather.
Thanks for the comment. This is a justifiable worry - that biking is harder in different climates & different topographies. I will say that I've biked for mobility (not by choice) in SF and Seattle for much of my life. Two of the hilliest cities in the US and though folks go slower up hills, it's entirely doable for the vast majority of people. Especially if they have proper infrastructure that eliminates the stress of tailgating drivers. Combine that with a deep e-bike subsidy and you've got great conditions for cycling mobility. As for persistent heat, that's something that I don't have experience with, but personally, I bike through snow, rain, and our few 100° days a year. When Pacific Northwest smoke season rolls around, which unfortunately is a thing now, I'll take public transit instead though, since exercise in orange smokey skies is terrible for your health. I really believe that there's no place in the US where proper safe bike infrastructure wouldn't improve the lives of everyone. Especially non-drivers with disabilities, but also folks who choose to drive or who take transit. Each city provides its own unique challenges (for Europe, it's road space) but they're not insurmountable.
@@devinsilvernail I wouldn't recommend San Francisco for bicycling unless you know how to really shift the gears quickly and properly and/or own a good-quality e-bike, which (alas) are still quite expensive. A big issue that has come up recently is bicycle lane placement. Note that in the Netherlands, they try to keep bicycles and motor vehicles separated as much as possible for safety reasons even on main thoroughfares. There have been a lot of accidents with clashes between cyclists and motorists here in the USA because of the bicycle lane design.
I bet you deserve a whole bike lane designated to you and only you and all the car should have to squeeze in one small space and give you all the freedom you need I love how in Philadelphia they're making links that used to be for cars strictly for bikes it's great for traffic. So far it's been helping about two bikes per day get around the city
I dunno man. From my experience as a person with disabilities, I truly don't know what it's like to comfortably exist on city streets, but I believe that the 1-in-3 Americans who cannot drive deserve safe places to exist on the roads that they disproportionately pay for. 🤷♂️ In the case of Seattle, there were over 3,000 car collisions last year. We have ~4k miles of road, 25% of which are missing sidewalks & only about 150 miles of which have any bike accomodations that don't even connect. Our roads are not designed for safety & the US is lagging behind nearly all of the rest of the world on equitably allocating publicly subsidized public space for use by all people. A disjointed sidewalk network or a couple of disconnected bike lanes won't do that. I'll reiterate what I said in the video: it's not a case of some weird ideological battle of cars vs bikes. It's about providing the same level of service for people who don't have the privilege of driving. This in turn will also provide incentive for people with the ability to choose to switch to active mobility, which ultimately will make it easier for you to keep driving your car.
Non-drivers in America actually spend more on roads & other public infrastructure proportionate to their use than anyone who drives. The bulk of roads are paid via Federal grants, much of which are paid via national income taxes. Locally in Seattle they're also paid with Real Estate Excise Tax. Very little is paid via gas taxes or license fees, because we actually subsidize driving more than most other places in the world. That road you drive on? I pay for it. That free parking you use? I subsidize it. I don't get to use either due to my disability.
We need something like the Americans with Disabilities Act to mandate car-free accessibility. Being able to go to a store, school, or job - or leave the house at all - should be considered a universal right.
A court system more open to using judicial review for the people instead of for corporations against people might say that in many respects, ADA as currently configured should substantially improve car-free accessibility.. But we also have the state/federal thing to sort out, not least because of the ways in which ADA has been ruled by the conservative majority on the court not to apply to state governments or agencies of state governments (namely, they can't be sued for monetary damages, only for injunctive relief).
such an underrated channel. I hope more people see this video and or your others. I love how you talk about these topics.
I love you man. I actually got directly involved in cycling activism partly due to TH-camrs including yourself, and we are getting wins for our increasingly urbanized suburb of Vancouver
The way you make these points and your experience is an inspiration and I hope to be just as articulate.
Wow! That's a huge compliment and so cool to see that folks are out there fighting for community investment with an equity lens. That's exactly what is needed in cities and in the suburbs. Keep up the great work. Metro Vancouver is one of my favorite places in our corner of the world, so glad to know that you're out there fighting to make it better for everyone.
@@devinsilvernail Thanks! We really need it here (in Richmond). We've got some really great infrastructure but it doesn't really form a network spanning the city, and there's really quite a lack of good infrastructure in the city centre area where probably a third of the population lives and everyone wants to bike due to the density.
I myself live in the city centre area and historically pretty much walked or took transit everywhere, but I started cycling for everyday needs a few years ago and found it so incredibly convenient. I just want it to be safer and more inviting.
It's nice to see positive content like yours. Changing things is difficult when it requires people to think about not just their personal experience, but a system as a whole, and active transportation is no exception to that
Investing in bike infrastructure is beneficial for people who can't bike. It decreases cars on the road, and separated bike routes should be accessible for wheelchairs and other mobility devices too.
tbh there's an attitude of holier-than-thou-ness in a lot of the youtubers who cover these topics (and I think these people would absolutely cop to their own smugness - it's an attitude you grow to counter car culture, myself included)
I like that your videos remind us why safety, access, and genuine community-building should be the basis of our attitudes. It's cool that I can choose to live along the BG for easy access to run errands on my bike and choose to ride my bike to work and choose to drive my bike out to the Eastside to check out a local rail trail. But not everyone gets to make these choices
I grew up in Vancouver and live in Seattle now - as much as I complain about disjointed infrastructure in both these places, I don't travel outside of BC/WA/OR much. I was in Rochester for a conference last year and it blew my mind. The infrastructure was just not there, the people on bikes did not appear affluent or like they could have chosen to drive instead, they were largely not white, not female, not kiddos. And even bus drivers (!!??) were driving unsafely around cyclists. Who would choose to ride if that's what you're faced with?
As a person who rides party-pace I also identify with the problem of cities designing these things for the hard-core recreational cyclist too. I purposely adjust my commute time so I don't have to be riding home on the Burke Gilman while intense skinny men in spandex whiz by me and act like the women pushing strollers walking side-by-side do not deserve to be using a multi-use pathway.
Hey thanks for your kind words and thanks for your comment overall. This is a great perspective. It's so interesting how even in the same city, things can be different and I'll admit that my perspective has changed over the past 10 years. Personally, I used to be obsessed with speed and that may have come from working on my bike or maybe just the thrill of it all. There's definitely a place for recreation and it's a good thing, but I feel like a lot of leaders in Seattle think that's all people use bikes for. However, there's some great safe infrastructure in Seattle. In Fremont, the U District, near Greenlake, or around Lake Union. If we invested everywhere in the city like we do in those areas, we'd be a great biking city. Although, like you point out. It's all about perspective. I'm sure there's folks that look at even the most unsafe parts of Seattle enviously like we do Paris or Nantes or Montréal. Heck, even folks in these places who feel like not enough is being done. Overall, that spirit of always wanting better is probably a great thing and hopefully we can all work together to make spaces for folks to have access to all forms of mobility and recreation too. Thanks again. Really appreciate the conversation!
Great video. I've been biking 12 miles a day in LA in streets relatively bike friendly and am surprised and pleased at how many cyclists and other active mobility users I see out. To me, it's instructive of just how much people want proper bike infrastructure and to move away from car infrastructure. We're gradually getting there in LA, with more bike lanes being added, but in very piecemeal fashion.
Edited to add that this is mainly in high income areas. In lower income areas, the streets are abysmal, with virtually no bike infrastructure, making being a pedestrian or cyclist dangerous. If City funds go to these areas, it's overwhelmingly in the form of overly paid, overly armed police. The difference just a few miles from rich and poor areas in LA is chilling.
This sounds familiar however, LA has so much potential for being so synonymous with the car. The LA metro keeps getting better and hopefully a connected safe bike network is to follow. If LA could do that, they could provide the blueprint for a lot of American cities. Thanks as always for your comment and support!
Thats the problem you live 6 Miles from downtown in rich area, while poor people need to live 3 times further than that......
I'd ride my bike more in LA but I also don't want it getting stolen
Way forward
All true. Remember wherever a bike can go tricycles, mobility scooters, (electric) wheelchairs, buggies, etc. etc. etc. can also go. And here in the Netherlands you can see elderly happily cycling along together with 10 year olds...
Slaying the casual dad look!!
USA : car is freedom
Other country: can travel, work, shop without having to carry 2 tons of plastic and metal (3,5 ton for F-150) all the time. is a freedom that must be maintained.
And when you want or need to drive an F-150 (or here more typically a Ford Ranger): You still can do it.
Nice clips from Nantes! Love this place
Thanks! I've definitely fallen in love with the city over the past couple years too. 😊
Great video, I'd love to see some of these changes made in Atlanta! Our beltline is great, but we need more. Also, just a heads up that the thumbnail has a typo.
Ha omg. Thanks for catching that! Fixed. 🙏😂
Very nicely done.
Be sure to ring your bell when approaching pedestrians though
:( here in Michigan you're more likely to find bike bans and reducing bike infrastrcutre. Where use to be at least places to park and lock a bike to, gone. Places where walkers and bikes shared or cars and bikes share, gone. Yeah there are some ' rails to paths ' garbage, but those are exclusivly useful for sport riders only and a WASTE of train line space.
"rails to path" sounds more like destroying infrastructure than building some.
Bikes should have their own path, not anywhere near motorized vehicles!
Ironically sport cyclists (and anybody behaving like one) are the least welcome type of cycling in Dutch and German cities - because their speed is mostly incompatible with everyone else. But as these people don't need cycling infrastructure (often they don't even use it, causing even more dangers), you can find them at places, where everybody else wouldn't dare to cycle.
City planners and bad zoning forced cities to grow into a shape where it is difficult to get around by bike. As bikes are now trendy these same city planners now destroy the roads to build bike infrastructure everywhere. However it seldom goes anywhere useful. There is a brand new miles long cycle lane near where I live that literally just goes through an industrial area and out into the country. There is absolutely no point to it and I have almost never seen a bike on it. But it takes away two lanes worth of space on either side of a very busy road crowded with cars and trucks. So you sit in the traffic and stare at the empty cycle lanes and think bad thoughts about cyclists.
As bikes are not all that useful for getting around most of the cyclists you do see are the lycra clad sports types who want to go fast. Those guys usually ignore the bike lanes. So the traffic you are stuck in while staring at the empty bike lanes is sometimes caused by some lycra clad entitled idiot pumping furiously with his bum in the air blocking the traffic. Roads are clogged up with speed bumps, low speed zones, and endless slippery green paint, yet it is still rare to see an actual cyclist. There is plenty of bike infrastructure but hardly anyone uses it. The result is a city of people who hate cyclists.
Would you drive on a 6 lane highway that end in Nothing?
However, people who advocate for more bicycle-friendly urban areas have to consider 1) the topography of the urban area and 2) the weather extremes of the area year round. Bicycle usage is not ideal when you must deal with over 100° F. summer days and/or 85° summer days with 80% or higher humidity. The Netherlands and Denmark are very ideal for bicycle usage because the relatively flat topography and (mostly) reasonable weather.
Thanks for the comment. This is a justifiable worry - that biking is harder in different climates & different topographies. I will say that I've biked for mobility (not by choice) in SF and Seattle for much of my life. Two of the hilliest cities in the US and though folks go slower up hills, it's entirely doable for the vast majority of people. Especially if they have proper infrastructure that eliminates the stress of tailgating drivers. Combine that with a deep e-bike subsidy and you've got great conditions for cycling mobility. As for persistent heat, that's something that I don't have experience with, but personally, I bike through snow, rain, and our few 100° days a year. When Pacific Northwest smoke season rolls around, which unfortunately is a thing now, I'll take public transit instead though, since exercise in orange smokey skies is terrible for your health. I really believe that there's no place in the US where proper safe bike infrastructure wouldn't improve the lives of everyone. Especially non-drivers with disabilities, but also folks who choose to drive or who take transit. Each city provides its own unique challenges (for Europe, it's road space) but they're not insurmountable.
@@devinsilvernail I wouldn't recommend San Francisco for bicycling unless you know how to really shift the gears quickly and properly and/or own a good-quality e-bike, which (alas) are still quite expensive.
A big issue that has come up recently is bicycle lane placement. Note that in the Netherlands, they try to keep bicycles and motor vehicles separated as much as possible for safety reasons even on main thoroughfares. There have been a lot of accidents with clashes between cyclists and motorists here in the USA because of the bicycle lane design.
I bet you deserve a whole bike lane designated to you and only you and all the car should have to squeeze in one small space and give you all the freedom you need I love how in Philadelphia they're making links that used to be for cars strictly for bikes it's great for traffic. So far it's been helping about two bikes per day get around the city
I dunno man. From my experience as a person with disabilities, I truly don't know what it's like to comfortably exist on city streets, but I believe that the 1-in-3 Americans who cannot drive deserve safe places to exist on the roads that they disproportionately pay for. 🤷♂️ In the case of Seattle, there were over 3,000 car collisions last year. We have ~4k miles of road, 25% of which are missing sidewalks & only about 150 miles of which have any bike accomodations that don't even connect. Our roads are not designed for safety & the US is lagging behind nearly all of the rest of the world on equitably allocating publicly subsidized public space for use by all people. A disjointed sidewalk network or a couple of disconnected bike lanes won't do that. I'll reiterate what I said in the video: it's not a case of some weird ideological battle of cars vs bikes. It's about providing the same level of service for people who don't have the privilege of driving. This in turn will also provide incentive for people with the ability to choose to switch to active mobility, which ultimately will make it easier for you to keep driving your car.
"unhoused people" what a joke
1:47 what a surprises the bikers want more money spent on them. Why don't you pay for license and then we'll talk
Non-drivers in America actually spend more on roads & other public infrastructure proportionate to their use than anyone who drives. The bulk of roads are paid via Federal grants, much of which are paid via national income taxes. Locally in Seattle they're also paid with Real Estate Excise Tax. Very little is paid via gas taxes or license fees, because we actually subsidize driving more than most other places in the world. That road you drive on? I pay for it. That free parking you use? I subsidize it. I don't get to use either due to my disability.