The racial divide of the perception of cyclists
May 18, 2016 8:19 AM Subscribe
In re bike shares: as the first article mentions, bike shares are disproportionately used by well-off people. But I don't think this is only because of the location of docking stations - it's because you need a credit card and the bikes are designed for pleasure trips. If you don't have a credit card or you try to restrict what you put on it, or if you need to go somewhere (like work) that doesn't have a docking station or that may not have enough bikes in the docking station for you to be guaranteed a ride home, you won't use it.
I've often thought that actual bikes given to people below a certain income level (along with helmets, lights and locks) would be the way to go.
Not that I would be against more bike docks, though.
In my social circle, we're sort of between categories. I ride a bike because affording a car would be really hard - not literally impossible, but I would be totally poor. People looking at me probably think I'm riding because I'm solidly middle class and have a car at home. My friends are pretty much in the same boat - we have pink collar or low-ranking career nonprofit jobs and we bike because it's cheap. We're better off than poorer people because we can afford bike repairs and because our commutes tend not to be horrible and unsafe.
posted by Frowner at 8:39 AM on May 18, 2016 [16 favorites]
I've often thought that actual bikes given to people below a certain income level (along with helmets, lights and locks) would be the way to go.
Not that I would be against more bike docks, though.
In my social circle, we're sort of between categories. I ride a bike because affording a car would be really hard - not literally impossible, but I would be totally poor. People looking at me probably think I'm riding because I'm solidly middle class and have a car at home. My friends are pretty much in the same boat - we have pink collar or low-ranking career nonprofit jobs and we bike because it's cheap. We're better off than poorer people because we can afford bike repairs and because our commutes tend not to be horrible and unsafe.
posted by Frowner at 8:39 AM on May 18, 2016 [16 favorites]
This has been my perception of cycling for a while now. I live in a fairly socioeconomically diverse neighborhood of Cincinnati, OH; For every white stockbroker-looking dude (it's always dudes) I see kitted up in high-end cycling gear and riding an expensive bike solely for exercise purposes, I see at least a half-dozen Latin American or West Indian men (still, always men) pedaling low-end Wal-Mart bikes as an actual means of transportation. But I've ever seen anybody I'd describe as a "hipster" riding one.
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:45 AM on May 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:45 AM on May 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
In the United States low-income people use bicycles because they have to. It's not like Europe where the amenities in cities may make utility cycling attractive for a wide swath of the populace. Here they are using bicycles despite the dangerous roads, and because of the inadequate public transit, but mainly because they have no other choice.
These people aren't 'cyclists' in the way that people in the U.S. think of the term, they just have to get to their job and can't afford a car, but you can bet that they'd rather be driving. Utility cycling in most places in the States is a fucking terrible experience.
posted by selfnoise at 8:47 AM on May 18, 2016 [8 favorites]
These people aren't 'cyclists' in the way that people in the U.S. think of the term, they just have to get to their job and can't afford a car, but you can bet that they'd rather be driving. Utility cycling in most places in the States is a fucking terrible experience.
posted by selfnoise at 8:47 AM on May 18, 2016 [8 favorites]
yet, from How low income commuters view cycling:
from the first article:
posted by ennui.bz at 8:48 AM on May 18, 2016 [8 favorites]
Take Washington, D.C., for example. American Community Survey data show that D.C. bicycle commuting increased an astounding 208 percent between 2000 and 2012. Yet biking to work is far less common in the lower-income areas east of the Anacostia River. Despite the recent additions of substantial cycling infrastructure, many mobility challenges remain.In the quasi-rural area I live in, where you drive ten miles to the grocery store,, people riding bikes are either unemployed because of DWI/DUI or riding multi-thousand dollar road bikes. Especially on a lazy Friday morning. It was a thing of beauty and wonder to watch the bicycling signs put up by the local tourism board get defaced. The perspective is always from people either have a car, but commute by bike, or choose not to have a car even though they can afford it.
from the first article:
Her evidence is anecdotal yet revealing. Sixty percent of the 77 cyclists she interviewed said they bike because they don’t have a car. Seventy percent said bicycling is more reliable than public transportation alone.But the lesson they take here is that you should spend more on bicycle infrastructure rather than reversing the continuing failure of US public transportation. You work washing dishes until 2am, no way you would choose to bike home if there was safe, cheap, efficient public transportation. Bike lanes are nice, but it's very much a part of a "let them eat cake" approach to urban transport.
posted by ennui.bz at 8:48 AM on May 18, 2016 [8 favorites]
An interesting subsidiary line of research would be "how many people who look like hipsters/affluent people are riding bikes because they can't really afford cars?" Among my friends, not a few look like "hipsters" - youngish fashionable-ish people with alternative lifestyles haircuts - but they're really just working class younger people. They work restaurant gigs and coffee house gigs and clerical gigs, and they may rise to restaurant manager or junior accountant, etc, as they build career experience, but they aren't the "I'm taking a couple of years between college and grad school, after which I will be a nonprofit director making $75,000" people.
posted by Frowner at 8:50 AM on May 18, 2016 [23 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 8:50 AM on May 18, 2016 [23 favorites]
Are hipsters generally associated with riding geared bikes? I thought the stereotype was that they rode fixies.
posted by I-baLL at 8:53 AM on May 18, 2016
posted by I-baLL at 8:53 AM on May 18, 2016
kind of previously ... not part of the original thread, so the thread should stay, but the comments delved into this phenomenon and support the notion that the vast majority of bike commuters are not white collar.
posted by bl1nk at 8:57 AM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by bl1nk at 8:57 AM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
For every white stockbroker-looking dude (it's always dudes) I see kitted up in high-end cycling gear and riding an expensive bike solely for exercise purposes, I see at least a half-dozen Latin American or West Indian men (still, always men) pedaling low-end Wal-Mart bikes as an actual means of transportation.
This mirrors my experience in Fairfax County, Va., except without the West Indians. They're pretty much entirely Latin American men, using the W&OD trail to get back and forth from the Hispanic-heavy working class neighborhoods of Herndon to restaurant jobs in Reston.
posted by Naberius at 8:59 AM on May 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
This mirrors my experience in Fairfax County, Va., except without the West Indians. They're pretty much entirely Latin American men, using the W&OD trail to get back and forth from the Hispanic-heavy working class neighborhoods of Herndon to restaurant jobs in Reston.
posted by Naberius at 8:59 AM on May 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
Inconvenient truths for cyclist haters who otherwise like to think of themselves as progressive.
posted by entropicamericana at 9:01 AM on May 18, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by entropicamericana at 9:01 AM on May 18, 2016 [9 favorites]
I thought the stereotype of "hipsters" (God, that word) was that they all crowded and bought property or rented in walkable areas of town and therefore didn't use bikes or any other transport to get around or if they did they used Uber. In Davidson County, TN, the only bicyclists I see are (very rarely) young affluent white male athletes or fitness enthusiasts (not the same thing as "hipsters") or just plain working-class folks trying to get from point A to point Z without getting run over and killed by all the damn cars here. And yes, they ride on the sidewalk and sometimes annoy me too. But they are trying not to get killed. Literally.
posted by blucevalo at 9:04 AM on May 18, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by blucevalo at 9:04 AM on May 18, 2016 [2 favorites]
Same around here, lots of homeless people on bikes too. And kids/ teens, although longboard skateboarding is making headway with the teens.
posted by fshgrl at 9:05 AM on May 18, 2016
posted by fshgrl at 9:05 AM on May 18, 2016
It's not like Europe where the amenities in cities may make utility cycling attractive for a wide swath of the populace.
Be careful with generalisation. Some European countries, yes - but in other countries, that is very far from the truth.
posted by kariebookish at 9:06 AM on May 18, 2016 [8 favorites]
Be careful with generalisation. Some European countries, yes - but in other countries, that is very far from the truth.
posted by kariebookish at 9:06 AM on May 18, 2016 [8 favorites]
In Mississippi, most cyclists you see on the road are African-American men who are Doing It Wrong by the strict safety perception -- not wearing a helmet, riding on a kids' bike or one that's obviously too small, traveling laden without a basket, sometimes carrying another, smaller person on the front. From my white companions, I sometimes hear snide jokes about how they must have stolen the bike, presumably from a deserving white teenager who only rides in it in parks with a helmet on. I don't judge anymore. The roads in Mississippi are bad enough without more cruelty.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:08 AM on May 18, 2016 [16 favorites]
posted by Countess Elena at 9:08 AM on May 18, 2016 [16 favorites]
Yeah I think you can almost replace "Europe" there with "The Netherlands and Denmark" most other countries in Europe are still rather antagonistic to everyday utility cycling.
posted by mary8nne at 9:09 AM on May 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by mary8nne at 9:09 AM on May 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
Anywhere I've lived, cyclists tended to be of three categories: the likely wealthier guys who congregate in their bike shorts and park their racing bikes at the coffee shop after a ride, twentysomethings & I guess thirtysomethings now who bike on a pretty decent commuter bikes but often they have a car too, and poor people because if you have a DUI or a suspended license or cannot afford a car, you have a bike.
It wasn't until I moved to Atlanta in 1999 that I noticed more white people on bikes. I'd always seen black or Latino folks using them. (Suburban children still being the exception to the rule as I was growing up.) But it always seems that bike lanes are being put in nicer or gentrifying neighbourhoods.
posted by Kitteh at 9:12 AM on May 18, 2016
It wasn't until I moved to Atlanta in 1999 that I noticed more white people on bikes. I'd always seen black or Latino folks using them. (Suburban children still being the exception to the rule as I was growing up.) But it always seems that bike lanes are being put in nicer or gentrifying neighbourhoods.
posted by Kitteh at 9:12 AM on May 18, 2016
Among my friends, not a few look like "hipsters" - youngish fashionable-ish people with alternative lifestyles haircuts - but they're really just working class younger people.
I know plenty of people like this too. Same deal with people living in vans: I know folks who have done it "by choice," but they are choosing it as a practical response to serious economic pressures, not simply because they think it's cool. The word "hipster" is practically useless in these discussions -- it may accurately reflect the stereotype, but people who get labeled that way can be from a really wide income range.
I haven't particularly noticed a large population of working class PoC cyclists here in Vancouver. I'm not sure if that's because public transit is actually decent here, or if I just haven't been paying enough attention. Cycling has been pretty politicized at the municipal level, so I think the stereotype is less "hipsters" and more "affluent West Coast yuppies who do yoga, shop at MEC, and support the current mayor."
posted by Gerald Bostock at 9:13 AM on May 18, 2016 [2 favorites]
I know plenty of people like this too. Same deal with people living in vans: I know folks who have done it "by choice," but they are choosing it as a practical response to serious economic pressures, not simply because they think it's cool. The word "hipster" is practically useless in these discussions -- it may accurately reflect the stereotype, but people who get labeled that way can be from a really wide income range.
I haven't particularly noticed a large population of working class PoC cyclists here in Vancouver. I'm not sure if that's because public transit is actually decent here, or if I just haven't been paying enough attention. Cycling has been pretty politicized at the municipal level, so I think the stereotype is less "hipsters" and more "affluent West Coast yuppies who do yoga, shop at MEC, and support the current mayor."
posted by Gerald Bostock at 9:13 AM on May 18, 2016 [2 favorites]
Is there an implication in this that "hipsters" are wealthy? I never made that association in my city, but I'm also not in the USA. Here the "hipster" sort of areas are typically more affordable than other parts of town (at least at first), and "hipster" people congregate there because of that. They certainly aren't all working presitgious high-paying jobs, in my experience anyway.
I haven't particularly noticed a large population of working class PoC cyclists here in Vancouver
Me either, but we may differ significantly from cities in the USA and even within Canada in a lot of ways in terms of demographics and cycling. I live on a designated bike route street and see dozens of cyclists go by every day, too. But then my commute is towards and into downtown and the West End, which are wealthier areas so that may skew things.
posted by Hoopo at 9:21 AM on May 18, 2016
I haven't particularly noticed a large population of working class PoC cyclists here in Vancouver
Me either, but we may differ significantly from cities in the USA and even within Canada in a lot of ways in terms of demographics and cycling. I live on a designated bike route street and see dozens of cyclists go by every day, too. But then my commute is towards and into downtown and the West End, which are wealthier areas so that may skew things.
posted by Hoopo at 9:21 AM on May 18, 2016
Mefi's own soulbarn wrote about this in 2006 as well: How low income cyclists go unnoticed.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 9:22 AM on May 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 9:22 AM on May 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
as the first article mentions, bike shares are disproportionately used by well-off people.
Yes, but if cities invest in bike infrastructure to support a bike share program, everyone gets to use the infrastructure.
Of course, I live in Seattle, where we've made the headsmacking mistake of doubling down on bike share expansion without building the infrastructure that people need to get around on those bikes.
posted by gurple at 9:25 AM on May 18, 2016
Yes, but if cities invest in bike infrastructure to support a bike share program, everyone gets to use the infrastructure.
Of course, I live in Seattle, where we've made the headsmacking mistake of doubling down on bike share expansion without building the infrastructure that people need to get around on those bikes.
posted by gurple at 9:25 AM on May 18, 2016
Why do cyclists have to be qualified by their character?
The comparisons of race, economic, and situational stratification of cyclists is really important and I hope it can lead to some opened eyes among cycling advocacy groups and positive change generally. This can all be done without having to sort people into "deserving" and "hipster".
posted by ardgedee at 9:28 AM on May 18, 2016 [11 favorites]
The comparisons of race, economic, and situational stratification of cyclists is really important and I hope it can lead to some opened eyes among cycling advocacy groups and positive change generally. This can all be done without having to sort people into "deserving" and "hipster".
posted by ardgedee at 9:28 AM on May 18, 2016 [11 favorites]
Frowner, our bike share started a program where they just give out bikes to low income people as well. If you see those orange Nice Ride bikes, that's what that's all about.
posted by advicepig at 9:40 AM on May 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by advicepig at 9:40 AM on May 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
In re bike shares: as the first article mentions, bike shares are disproportionately used by well-off people. But I don't think this is only because of the location of docking stations - it's because you need a credit card and the bikes are designed for pleasure trips. If you don't have a credit card or you try to restrict what you put on it, or if you need to go somewhere (like work) that doesn't have a docking station or that may not have enough bikes in the docking station for you to be guaranteed a ride home, you won't use it.
Also working class people are much smarter about their money and unlikely to see ride share as a solution.
Bike Share programs are wickedly punitive. In Chicago your bike share is for a 30 minute ride EVEN IF YOU HAVE A DAY PASS. Tourists are routinely fucked over by this because a day pass and 30 minutes limits seem ridiculous to people who are not used to their civic institutions trying to rip them off.
So you want to go for a bike ride along Chicago's lakefront? You better ride fast and not stop to enjoy the views too much. No picnics! Be sure and dock your bike at every stop so you don't get overage charges. Hope there are open slots for docking or be ready to sprint for the next closest station. (HAHA tourists you get no vote so FU!)
Need your bike to get to work? Hope there is one at your station when you need it. Need to park it when you get to work? Hope there is a slot for it at your near work station! (If you work at or near a university there is about zero chance of this). Otherwise scramble time to get to the nearest station - which may not be very near. Oh the app says it has a bike! Oh crap that bike is broken.
So it is probably far smarter to buy an undesirable junker used bike for $30 and a lock and ride that instead with no time, docking or availability worries .
posted by srboisvert at 9:41 AM on May 18, 2016 [11 favorites]
Also working class people are much smarter about their money and unlikely to see ride share as a solution.
Bike Share programs are wickedly punitive. In Chicago your bike share is for a 30 minute ride EVEN IF YOU HAVE A DAY PASS. Tourists are routinely fucked over by this because a day pass and 30 minutes limits seem ridiculous to people who are not used to their civic institutions trying to rip them off.
So you want to go for a bike ride along Chicago's lakefront? You better ride fast and not stop to enjoy the views too much. No picnics! Be sure and dock your bike at every stop so you don't get overage charges. Hope there are open slots for docking or be ready to sprint for the next closest station. (HAHA tourists you get no vote so FU!)
Need your bike to get to work? Hope there is one at your station when you need it. Need to park it when you get to work? Hope there is a slot for it at your near work station! (If you work at or near a university there is about zero chance of this). Otherwise scramble time to get to the nearest station - which may not be very near. Oh the app says it has a bike! Oh crap that bike is broken.
So it is probably far smarter to buy an undesirable junker used bike for $30 and a lock and ride that instead with no time, docking or availability worries .
posted by srboisvert at 9:41 AM on May 18, 2016 [11 favorites]
How to ensure bicyclists are counted better, thanks to a link just now in my inbox: a petition to the Dept of Transportation to measure traffic congestion differently. (I follow boring transportation news, so you don't have to!)
posted by gusandrews at 9:42 AM on May 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by gusandrews at 9:42 AM on May 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
Where I work in Scarborough (a suburb of Toronto) there are middle-aged-to-old Chinese people riding their bikes year-round. I'm guessing it is a combination of economics, habit and geography for them but its nice to see and motivation to ride myself in less-than-perfect weather. The only cycling infrastructure we have here is a paved recreational path through a hydro corridor that isn't maintained over the winter and takes you through a hydro corridor (ie from nowhere to nowhere) and so is fairly useless for getting around, especially as the sidewalks are always empty. But it is easy km for the city to add to their cycling network and feel like they are doing something without actually confronting car culture.
We have bike sharing in Toronto but it is only available downtown. I think it makes more sense to have a bike share station at each subway station because outside of downtown the stops are fairly spread out. People would jump at the chance to hop on a bike and get to their destination between stops.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 9:45 AM on May 18, 2016
We have bike sharing in Toronto but it is only available downtown. I think it makes more sense to have a bike share station at each subway station because outside of downtown the stops are fairly spread out. People would jump at the chance to hop on a bike and get to their destination between stops.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 9:45 AM on May 18, 2016
Among my friends, not a few look like "hipsters" - youngish fashionable-ish people with alternative lifestyles haircuts - but they're really just working class younger people. They work restaurant gigs and coffee house gigs and clerical gigs...
Your friends sound like dictionary definition hipsters (not that there's anything wrong with that, or that it's necessarily relevant to this discussion).
posted by sparklemotion at 9:50 AM on May 18, 2016 [2 favorites]
Your friends sound like dictionary definition hipsters (not that there's anything wrong with that, or that it's necessarily relevant to this discussion).
posted by sparklemotion at 9:50 AM on May 18, 2016 [2 favorites]
Frowner, our bike share started a program where they just give out bikes to low income people as well. If you see those orange Nice Ride bikes, that's what that's all about.
But those are just loaner bikes, it looks like? Not that I'm against loaner bikes, but I wish we could just have a system of bike grants where people get an actual keeper personal bike. I notice that people earn a credit toward their own bike if they bike enough during the four month loaner program, but I would really want to see how that plays out - $200 does get you a decent used bike around here, so as long as the amount of riding needed to earn the credit isn't unreasonable, that's not so bad.
But I am still in favor of just, like, giving people stuff, not creating elaborate charity systems.
posted by Frowner at 9:52 AM on May 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
But those are just loaner bikes, it looks like? Not that I'm against loaner bikes, but I wish we could just have a system of bike grants where people get an actual keeper personal bike. I notice that people earn a credit toward their own bike if they bike enough during the four month loaner program, but I would really want to see how that plays out - $200 does get you a decent used bike around here, so as long as the amount of riding needed to earn the credit isn't unreasonable, that's not so bad.
But I am still in favor of just, like, giving people stuff, not creating elaborate charity systems.
posted by Frowner at 9:52 AM on May 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
Your friends sound like dictionary definition hipsters (not that there's anything wrong with that, or that it's necessarily relevant to this discussion).
No, sorry. The whole point of "hipster" is to indicate someone who has economic options - someone who is a barista until grad school, etc. Being a forty-year-old restaurant worker after you've been a twenty-year-old restaurant worker and a thirty-year old restaurant worker doesn't count.
"Ha ha you're a young working class person who isn't totally unfashionable, you are a textbook hipster because real working class people wear [random thing] and have no interest in culture" is one of the narratives that obscures class distinctions and invisibilizes the working class.
posted by Frowner at 9:55 AM on May 18, 2016 [15 favorites]
No, sorry. The whole point of "hipster" is to indicate someone who has economic options - someone who is a barista until grad school, etc. Being a forty-year-old restaurant worker after you've been a twenty-year-old restaurant worker and a thirty-year old restaurant worker doesn't count.
"Ha ha you're a young working class person who isn't totally unfashionable, you are a textbook hipster because real working class people wear [random thing] and have no interest in culture" is one of the narratives that obscures class distinctions and invisibilizes the working class.
posted by Frowner at 9:55 AM on May 18, 2016 [15 favorites]
I thought "hipsters" were people who were trying to do "cool" things before they become "cool". That's why there's that joke about a hipster burning his mouth while eating pizza because he ate it before it was cool. To me, they seem to be from all manner of socio-economic backgrounds.
posted by I-baLL at 9:58 AM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by I-baLL at 9:58 AM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
I think the most apt definition of a hipster today is: Someone (usually younger and/or more attractive) who appears to be having more fun than me.
posted by entropicamericana at 10:00 AM on May 18, 2016 [12 favorites]
posted by entropicamericana at 10:00 AM on May 18, 2016 [12 favorites]
which dictionary?
posted by griphus at 10:01 AM on May 18, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by griphus at 10:01 AM on May 18, 2016 [4 favorites]
entropicamericana's modern english dictionary of sick burns
posted by entropicamericana at 10:03 AM on May 18, 2016 [13 favorites]
posted by entropicamericana at 10:03 AM on May 18, 2016 [13 favorites]
Which is why the term itself is so useless - it mashes up economic and cultural signifiers.
When people talk about "hipsters" gentrifying neighborhoods, they're talking about people who are not working class, because those are the people who can afford to buy houses and spend money regularly on e.g., nice coffee. When people talk about "hipster" businesses, they are talking about businesses run by people who can afford to spend a few years building up their artisanal pickle empire, or people who can afford to buy a $10 jar of pickles.
But this gets all mashed in with "people who like [bikes, obscure music, weird fashion, cooking weird stuff]", and particularly in the age of the internet and fast fashion, those are not exclusively middle class interests.
So you get all this stuff where someone who is a forty-year-old bartender with Zero Money gets told that they are gentrifying a neighborhood because they are, like, living in a cheap rental but they have a trendy haircut, because the real proletariat works at the factory, drinks at the American Legion Hall and has crewcuts, etc etc.
(And, incidentally, you get the recurring situation where working class people are driven out of cultural projects because it's run on the assumption that everyone has middle class money and background. This is something I've seen lots of times.)
Anyway, "hipster" is a bad term, and a bad term about bicycling.
posted by Frowner at 10:05 AM on May 18, 2016 [26 favorites]
When people talk about "hipsters" gentrifying neighborhoods, they're talking about people who are not working class, because those are the people who can afford to buy houses and spend money regularly on e.g., nice coffee. When people talk about "hipster" businesses, they are talking about businesses run by people who can afford to spend a few years building up their artisanal pickle empire, or people who can afford to buy a $10 jar of pickles.
But this gets all mashed in with "people who like [bikes, obscure music, weird fashion, cooking weird stuff]", and particularly in the age of the internet and fast fashion, those are not exclusively middle class interests.
So you get all this stuff where someone who is a forty-year-old bartender with Zero Money gets told that they are gentrifying a neighborhood because they are, like, living in a cheap rental but they have a trendy haircut, because the real proletariat works at the factory, drinks at the American Legion Hall and has crewcuts, etc etc.
(And, incidentally, you get the recurring situation where working class people are driven out of cultural projects because it's run on the assumption that everyone has middle class money and background. This is something I've seen lots of times.)
Anyway, "hipster" is a bad term, and a bad term about bicycling.
posted by Frowner at 10:05 AM on May 18, 2016 [26 favorites]
People who commute to working class jobs with no lights and no helmet tend to keep to the back streets (very sensibly) which makes them invisible to car commuters. But if you are on one of those streets you see them every day.
posted by Bee'sWing at 10:11 AM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Bee'sWing at 10:11 AM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
To return to the original topic, one thing I found interesting in the first linked article was the one activist's emphasis on making hobby riding available to poor communities. I feel like there may be lots of low income cyclists, but probably lots of people who do take the bus, etc, would like to have bikes for fun and errands and can't afford them. When I was growing up, having a bike was the default state - I had a fairly cheap bike, and I only got another when I was substantially too big for the first - but I don't think all the kids in my neighborhood have bikes. At least, I don't see nearly the number of kid riders that I would expect.
Bread and roses!
I should add that I think everyone should - by reform or revolution - be able to access nice coffee, tasty pickles, decent living spaces, etc. I don't think "hipster" desire for these things is weird or inexplicable or grossly immoral or whatever.
posted by Frowner at 10:32 AM on May 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
Bread and roses!
I should add that I think everyone should - by reform or revolution - be able to access nice coffee, tasty pickles, decent living spaces, etc. I don't think "hipster" desire for these things is weird or inexplicable or grossly immoral or whatever.
posted by Frowner at 10:32 AM on May 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
A hipster is a person who gets het up on mentions of the word, "hipster."
posted by rhizome at 10:51 AM on May 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by rhizome at 10:51 AM on May 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
"Take Washington, D.C., for example. American Community Survey data show that D.C. bicycle commuting increased an astounding 208 percent between 2000 and 2012. Yet biking to work is far less common in the lower-income areas east of the Anacostia River. Despite the recent additions of substantial cycling infrastructure, many mobility challenges remain."Missing here is decades of racist harassment from DC Police. I don't know if its still on the books, but at least when I was growing up in the city, if you got caught without a helmet or just the right arrangement of lights the police would ticket you a ridiculous fine, steal your bike, and at best leave you stranded. As a white kid who didn't always wear a helmet but did often cycle past cops, I was certainly under no illusions about what purpose these laws were meant to serve.
DC Police grabbed mountains of bicycles off the streets this way and crashed ridership, making the streets much more dangerous.
posted by Blasdelb at 10:53 AM on May 18, 2016 [4 favorites]
bike shares are disproportionately used by well-off people
in America, right? I remember seeing huge racks of bike-shares in Nanjing, China being used by everyday people for commuting. so I feel like this is a function less of class than it is of just having dedicated bike/moped lanes everywhere you go. feeling that you're as safe biking as you are driving, at least contextually given China's insane driving patterns compared to how it is stateside, has to be a huge factor for a lot of people
in terms of simple class analysis, I think it's more popular with higher-income people because of design, too. newer, gentrified neighborhoods tend to have well-maintained sidewalks and roads, speedbumps and etc, all things that require disposable income, high property taxes, and an ability to navigate the bureaucracy that is submitting requests to your city planner/state DoT for building and maintaining such things. there's probably a lot to be said about where and to whom traffic/cyclist accidents happen and how much that rate is adjusted by lower-income folks riding by necessity on dangerous streets with poor lighting and no shoulder
posted by runt at 10:53 AM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
in America, right? I remember seeing huge racks of bike-shares in Nanjing, China being used by everyday people for commuting. so I feel like this is a function less of class than it is of just having dedicated bike/moped lanes everywhere you go. feeling that you're as safe biking as you are driving, at least contextually given China's insane driving patterns compared to how it is stateside, has to be a huge factor for a lot of people
in terms of simple class analysis, I think it's more popular with higher-income people because of design, too. newer, gentrified neighborhoods tend to have well-maintained sidewalks and roads, speedbumps and etc, all things that require disposable income, high property taxes, and an ability to navigate the bureaucracy that is submitting requests to your city planner/state DoT for building and maintaining such things. there's probably a lot to be said about where and to whom traffic/cyclist accidents happen and how much that rate is adjusted by lower-income folks riding by necessity on dangerous streets with poor lighting and no shoulder
posted by runt at 10:53 AM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
In the SF Bay Area you have to have a nightmarish membership. I have to think that a lot of people who see that user agreement at the end would assume they're exposing themselves to more collection agencies.
posted by rhizome at 10:59 AM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by rhizome at 10:59 AM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
Why do cyclists have to be qualified by their character?
The comparisons of race, economic, and situational stratification of cyclists is really important and I hope it can lead to some opened eyes among cycling advocacy groups and positive change generally. This can all be done without having to sort people into "deserving" and "hipster".
Yes, this. The idea that cyclists are less deserving of roads because they're just in it for exercise or recreation is one we should fight, but not by buying into the idea that we're rationing access by need, because we're not. A lot of car drivers are just driving for fun, too (or to get somewhere to have fun, which is equally "frivolous"). Nobody questions RVs or vacationers.
posted by Mitrovarr at 11:24 AM on May 18, 2016 [7 favorites]
The comparisons of race, economic, and situational stratification of cyclists is really important and I hope it can lead to some opened eyes among cycling advocacy groups and positive change generally. This can all be done without having to sort people into "deserving" and "hipster".
Yes, this. The idea that cyclists are less deserving of roads because they're just in it for exercise or recreation is one we should fight, but not by buying into the idea that we're rationing access by need, because we're not. A lot of car drivers are just driving for fun, too (or to get somewhere to have fun, which is equally "frivolous"). Nobody questions RVs or vacationers.
posted by Mitrovarr at 11:24 AM on May 18, 2016 [7 favorites]
The great bike divide: why miniorites bike less
Anecdata, but I live in South Berkeley (not many college students) in the neighborhood, and the majority of the bicycle riders are black in an area that is probably 50% white, 25% black.
I think, in general, the reason minorities bike less is that they are generally underprivileged (less money) and don't want to be seen as underprivileged. Riding a bike instead of driving a car (no matter what car) is seen as underprivileged. In Berkeley, however, maybe not so much.
I agree that hipster is bad term because it is apparently quite confusing. It used to mean one thing, then another, and then still another, and it means something different to everyone. To me, it means "trendy young folks and trendy old folks trying to look young," regardless of social class. I see plenty of poor hipsters.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:33 AM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
Anecdata, but I live in South Berkeley (not many college students) in the neighborhood, and the majority of the bicycle riders are black in an area that is probably 50% white, 25% black.
I think, in general, the reason minorities bike less is that they are generally underprivileged (less money) and don't want to be seen as underprivileged. Riding a bike instead of driving a car (no matter what car) is seen as underprivileged. In Berkeley, however, maybe not so much.
I agree that hipster is bad term because it is apparently quite confusing. It used to mean one thing, then another, and then still another, and it means something different to everyone. To me, it means "trendy young folks and trendy old folks trying to look young," regardless of social class. I see plenty of poor hipsters.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:33 AM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
Missing here is decades of racist harassment from DC Police. I don't know if its still on the books, but at least when I was growing up in the city, if you got caught without a helmet or just the right arrangement of lights the police would ticket you a ridiculous fine, steal your bike, and at best leave you stranded.
This was MPLS too - we had this (thankfully short-lived) bike registration program that was basically an excuse for the cops to seize Black people's bikes and hassle them. Very few people actually registered their bikes, but the only white person I knew who ever had their bike seized was a very stroppy activist guy who got in the cops' faces when they were seizing some other guy's bike.
posted by Frowner at 11:38 AM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
This was MPLS too - we had this (thankfully short-lived) bike registration program that was basically an excuse for the cops to seize Black people's bikes and hassle them. Very few people actually registered their bikes, but the only white person I knew who ever had their bike seized was a very stroppy activist guy who got in the cops' faces when they were seizing some other guy's bike.
posted by Frowner at 11:38 AM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
pretty much entirely Latin American men, using the W&OD trail to get back and forth from the Hispanic-heavy working class neighborhoods of Herndon to restaurant jobs in Reston.
Naberius, you solved a mystery for me! I'm white, I live by the W&OD trail in Reston, and for years I have been baffled by reports that the W&OD is OMG SO DANGEROUS. It's not. But the neighbor who told me this definitely is the type who would see a single Hispanic man on a bike ignoring her, and consider it a brush with death.
posted by selfmedicating at 11:59 AM on May 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
Naberius, you solved a mystery for me! I'm white, I live by the W&OD trail in Reston, and for years I have been baffled by reports that the W&OD is OMG SO DANGEROUS. It's not. But the neighbor who told me this definitely is the type who would see a single Hispanic man on a bike ignoring her, and consider it a brush with death.
posted by selfmedicating at 11:59 AM on May 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
That's an unfair disparagement of Chicago's bikeshare system. There are rental bikes for spending all day cruising along the Lake . Bikehare is not bike rental and the kiosks even tell you to go to the rental shops if you're looking for a bike for the day instead of a bike for a specific point A to point B.
If you get to a dock with no empty spaces, you push the button on the kiosk, which waives your overage charges and directs you to the next closest dock, usually less than 1/4 of a mile. Although, frankly, the overage fee of $1.50 for the first hour is cheaper than a bus ride, if you have to go to the next nearest bikeshare station. It's not until you have not bothered to read the clear terms of the rental and hang out at the cafe for 90 minutes with your bike share bike next to you that you start running into the $6/half hour charges.
But bike share is not the issue with the misperception of who bikes and why they bike and whether or not there is value in investing in appropriate infrastructure for transportation cycling. Bike share as part of a multi-modal transportation system has to overcome the problems of the unbanked, first, before it needs to worry about people mistaking bikeshare for leisure rentals.
posted by crush-onastick at 12:36 PM on May 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
If you get to a dock with no empty spaces, you push the button on the kiosk, which waives your overage charges and directs you to the next closest dock, usually less than 1/4 of a mile. Although, frankly, the overage fee of $1.50 for the first hour is cheaper than a bus ride, if you have to go to the next nearest bikeshare station. It's not until you have not bothered to read the clear terms of the rental and hang out at the cafe for 90 minutes with your bike share bike next to you that you start running into the $6/half hour charges.
But bike share is not the issue with the misperception of who bikes and why they bike and whether or not there is value in investing in appropriate infrastructure for transportation cycling. Bike share as part of a multi-modal transportation system has to overcome the problems of the unbanked, first, before it needs to worry about people mistaking bikeshare for leisure rentals.
posted by crush-onastick at 12:36 PM on May 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
I haven't read every link, but one thing i notice that is generally absent in these sort of pieces is any mention of bikes being the ultimate mode of transportation for the able bodied homeless.
I don't know how much of a thing this is other places, but in seattle a huge portion of the homeless population has bikes. I see them working on their own and eachothers bikes, or even having makeshift workshops set up near campouts or RVs/trucks they're living out of to work on bikes. I see them riding bikes with all their gear makeshift-panier'd on to them everywhere.
It really seems like a super great solution for a large swath of the homeless population who can ride a bike. And it strikes me as ridiculous that there isn't a bigger push to give out free locks, tubes/tires, and maybe even have some community bike shop/repair station to work on them(i'm aware of places like this, but it should really be more centrally located and a public project, not a private one).
And you know what i see from the community? The belief that every homeless person riding a bike stole it, and that any group of homeless people on or near bikes anywhere is a chop shop/theft ring and fuck all of 'em. I mean, if we're talking about holes in supposedly progressive peoples vision... Because yea, seriously, someone totally wants to steal that 90s bottom of the line like trek or giant MTB to strip.
A cheap old bike, especially a department store or mountain bike is borderline worthless monetarily. It's a $20-50 item. They're thrown out or abandoned all the time. If i could start and/or work at any non profit or city services office, it would be one that collected old bikes and gave them out for free, no strings attached to homeless people and it would be right in the core of downtown next to all the services and shelters.
Worth noting, i spent over a year of my life homeless with a bike and the occasional bus ticket/pocket change as my only form of transportation. It was a fucking lifesaver and not only got me to where i needed to go(like my underemployment bullshit hours job), but got me where i wanted to go and was even just... an activity to do, when you had nothing better to do. It wasn't nice, but it might as well have been a fucking lamborghini.
An interesting subsidiary line of research would be "how many people who look like hipsters/affluent people are riding bikes because they can't really afford cars?"
And an interesting follow on to that would be how many people do i know who used to be like this and have been basically strongarmed in to car ownership by rising rents causing them to have to move out of the main part of town in the semi-suburbs and the resulting shitty commutes?
Basically everyone i know who was like this has "graduated" to owning a beater car they drive most of the time. I know a surprising number of people, including myself, who got their license in their 20s and just had no opportunity or real ongoing reason to even need to drive until then.
And to directly address the title and concept of this post, i had noticed a similar trend. I've sold a LOT of bikes on craigslist over the years. I used to co-run the yellow bike program at my high school, and afterwards i got the majority of my friends bikes if they didn't have them. I'd also rescue bikes abandoned in my own or friends apartment building basements, clean them up/repair them, and sell them as income when i was unemployed.
$100-200 bikes were bought by yea, immigrants. I would always try and throw in an extra tube or some stuff i had laying around with them and they were always fucking thankful to get something decent that wasn't some awful walmart bike. A couple times, a friend or two of theirs came along also poking around to see what i had and asking/getting my number, etc.
$250-500 bikes were always either hipsters or college kids with pocket money who wanted "cool" bikes. I did relatively few of these sales, since these were usually my own my friends johnny-cash-cadillac'd together actually sort of nice bikes when we were upgrading or that never were quite sized right, etc. And above that price, it was always dads. ALWAYS dads.
To close out that though, i see almost no "hipsters" on pimped out fixies or even just generally "cool" bikes anymore. Younger people are riding either semi cool or beat up but cheap(like $400, or even $250 and under craigslist value) bikes and the only people riding "fancy" bikes are 30+ year old men in lycra. Everybody else is either riding semi nice lock up bikes, obvious gets-the-job-done commuters like the aforementioned $1-200 jobbies, or are homeless with their gear tied on.
I have no idea where the fancy fixies and wacky 80s colnago/cinelli/etc road bikes went around here, but i don't see them on the street. Even if i go to a bike-drinking-club group ride it's all like, medium priced steel road bikes, touring bikes with paniers full of beer, and wacky cargo bikes. All the messengers/delivery/polo guys who would ride cool fixies just ride rattle canned black cheap road bikes or parts bin semi-nice beaters now.
Honestly i'd say the entire concept of a "bike hipster" that everyone thinks of to hate on doesn't really exist anymore. And i'm saying this as someone who was that bike hipster, starting at like age 16 right before the whole omg fixie thing took off and straight through it.
But heh.
posted by emptythought at 1:20 PM on May 18, 2016 [8 favorites]
I don't know how much of a thing this is other places, but in seattle a huge portion of the homeless population has bikes. I see them working on their own and eachothers bikes, or even having makeshift workshops set up near campouts or RVs/trucks they're living out of to work on bikes. I see them riding bikes with all their gear makeshift-panier'd on to them everywhere.
It really seems like a super great solution for a large swath of the homeless population who can ride a bike. And it strikes me as ridiculous that there isn't a bigger push to give out free locks, tubes/tires, and maybe even have some community bike shop/repair station to work on them(i'm aware of places like this, but it should really be more centrally located and a public project, not a private one).
And you know what i see from the community? The belief that every homeless person riding a bike stole it, and that any group of homeless people on or near bikes anywhere is a chop shop/theft ring and fuck all of 'em. I mean, if we're talking about holes in supposedly progressive peoples vision... Because yea, seriously, someone totally wants to steal that 90s bottom of the line like trek or giant MTB to strip.
A cheap old bike, especially a department store or mountain bike is borderline worthless monetarily. It's a $20-50 item. They're thrown out or abandoned all the time. If i could start and/or work at any non profit or city services office, it would be one that collected old bikes and gave them out for free, no strings attached to homeless people and it would be right in the core of downtown next to all the services and shelters.
Worth noting, i spent over a year of my life homeless with a bike and the occasional bus ticket/pocket change as my only form of transportation. It was a fucking lifesaver and not only got me to where i needed to go(like my underemployment bullshit hours job), but got me where i wanted to go and was even just... an activity to do, when you had nothing better to do. It wasn't nice, but it might as well have been a fucking lamborghini.
An interesting subsidiary line of research would be "how many people who look like hipsters/affluent people are riding bikes because they can't really afford cars?"
And an interesting follow on to that would be how many people do i know who used to be like this and have been basically strongarmed in to car ownership by rising rents causing them to have to move out of the main part of town in the semi-suburbs and the resulting shitty commutes?
Basically everyone i know who was like this has "graduated" to owning a beater car they drive most of the time. I know a surprising number of people, including myself, who got their license in their 20s and just had no opportunity or real ongoing reason to even need to drive until then.
And to directly address the title and concept of this post, i had noticed a similar trend. I've sold a LOT of bikes on craigslist over the years. I used to co-run the yellow bike program at my high school, and afterwards i got the majority of my friends bikes if they didn't have them. I'd also rescue bikes abandoned in my own or friends apartment building basements, clean them up/repair them, and sell them as income when i was unemployed.
$100-200 bikes were bought by yea, immigrants. I would always try and throw in an extra tube or some stuff i had laying around with them and they were always fucking thankful to get something decent that wasn't some awful walmart bike. A couple times, a friend or two of theirs came along also poking around to see what i had and asking/getting my number, etc.
$250-500 bikes were always either hipsters or college kids with pocket money who wanted "cool" bikes. I did relatively few of these sales, since these were usually my own my friends johnny-cash-cadillac'd together actually sort of nice bikes when we were upgrading or that never were quite sized right, etc. And above that price, it was always dads. ALWAYS dads.
To close out that though, i see almost no "hipsters" on pimped out fixies or even just generally "cool" bikes anymore. Younger people are riding either semi cool or beat up but cheap(like $400, or even $250 and under craigslist value) bikes and the only people riding "fancy" bikes are 30+ year old men in lycra. Everybody else is either riding semi nice lock up bikes, obvious gets-the-job-done commuters like the aforementioned $1-200 jobbies, or are homeless with their gear tied on.
I have no idea where the fancy fixies and wacky 80s colnago/cinelli/etc road bikes went around here, but i don't see them on the street. Even if i go to a bike-drinking-club group ride it's all like, medium priced steel road bikes, touring bikes with paniers full of beer, and wacky cargo bikes. All the messengers/delivery/polo guys who would ride cool fixies just ride rattle canned black cheap road bikes or parts bin semi-nice beaters now.
Honestly i'd say the entire concept of a "bike hipster" that everyone thinks of to hate on doesn't really exist anymore. And i'm saying this as someone who was that bike hipster, starting at like age 16 right before the whole omg fixie thing took off and straight through it.
But heh.
posted by emptythought at 1:20 PM on May 18, 2016 [8 favorites]
Well, a lot of them got stolen. I have a Trek hybrid here in Chicago that I'd love to commute with, but there's nowhere in my office to keep a bike and leaving a decently nice bike unattended on a Chicago street for any length of time, no matter how well you lock it, is tempting fate. The options are cheap beaters that people won't bother to steal or Divvys.
posted by protocoach at 1:27 PM on May 18, 2016
posted by protocoach at 1:27 PM on May 18, 2016
A couple of years ago, here in downtown Providence, RI, a small mall was being overhauled. A bike shop was a tenant, and word was that they would be renting out secure spots for people to store their bike.
I think they were intended for commuters, but I thought it sounded cool as a means to go riding on my lunch break (I commute in from the suburbs in a car; I know., I know). Sadly, it never really go off the ground, and the bike shop moved out after a few months.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:41 PM on May 18, 2016
I think they were intended for commuters, but I thought it sounded cool as a means to go riding on my lunch break (I commute in from the suburbs in a car; I know., I know). Sadly, it never really go off the ground, and the bike shop moved out after a few months.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:41 PM on May 18, 2016
Bike Share programs are wickedly punitive.
Bike share is supposed to be for transportation, not recreation, generally speaking. The kiosks for Divvy clearly state how the program works, and tourists have plenty of all-day or hours-long bike rental options if they are looking to tool around the lakefront.
The reason the single-ride limit is 30 minutes (I think it should be 45 in a city as geographically spread as Chicago, though maybe that's just because my commute clocks in at about 37 minutes) is because letting people hold on to the bikes for hours fundamentally breaks bike share. You want to encourage people to dock the bike when they stop, not hold on to it, because the point is to share the bike. If the overage charges don't exist, people will hold on to the bike "just in case" for the next part of their trip; you almost have to force users to trust the system. There will be a bike for you, when you are ready to leave, within about a 1/4-1/2 mile walk.
A properly run bike share program will do a pretty good job of balancing the system as needed (including moving bikes via van from docks that are full to those that need bikes) but if you ever run into a full dock you just call or push a button and they give you extra free time to head to the next one.
I also think a bike share program works best and is most likely to appeal to low-income commuters when it complements a public transit system. So if it's raining at the end of the day you can just take a bus. Or you can bike that last mile of your commute rather than waiting for a transfer. Last Friday I planned to take the bus home, but I got to my bus stop and looked at the tracker and the next bus wasn't coming for 20 minutes. So instead I walked a block west and hopped on a Divvy and was home in just over a half hour.
I just got a Divvy membership despite owning several of my own bikes. I started because I'm recovering from ACL surgery and lugging my personal bike up and down 3 flights of stairs is a bit more than I can handle. I have to say, it's been a much more pleasurable experience than I expected. Once you get accustomed to the idea and let go of the ingrained "mine mine MINE" mentality, it is so freeing and convenient to not have to worry about locks or theft or maintenance or "my friends are doing last minute happy hour but I don't want to bike home drunk in the dark; what do I do with my bike that I rode in this morning?"
Divvy is trying to address the issue of low-income and unbanked users, too.
posted by misskaz at 2:23 PM on May 18, 2016 [7 favorites]
Bike share is supposed to be for transportation, not recreation, generally speaking. The kiosks for Divvy clearly state how the program works, and tourists have plenty of all-day or hours-long bike rental options if they are looking to tool around the lakefront.
The reason the single-ride limit is 30 minutes (I think it should be 45 in a city as geographically spread as Chicago, though maybe that's just because my commute clocks in at about 37 minutes) is because letting people hold on to the bikes for hours fundamentally breaks bike share. You want to encourage people to dock the bike when they stop, not hold on to it, because the point is to share the bike. If the overage charges don't exist, people will hold on to the bike "just in case" for the next part of their trip; you almost have to force users to trust the system. There will be a bike for you, when you are ready to leave, within about a 1/4-1/2 mile walk.
A properly run bike share program will do a pretty good job of balancing the system as needed (including moving bikes via van from docks that are full to those that need bikes) but if you ever run into a full dock you just call or push a button and they give you extra free time to head to the next one.
I also think a bike share program works best and is most likely to appeal to low-income commuters when it complements a public transit system. So if it's raining at the end of the day you can just take a bus. Or you can bike that last mile of your commute rather than waiting for a transfer. Last Friday I planned to take the bus home, but I got to my bus stop and looked at the tracker and the next bus wasn't coming for 20 minutes. So instead I walked a block west and hopped on a Divvy and was home in just over a half hour.
I just got a Divvy membership despite owning several of my own bikes. I started because I'm recovering from ACL surgery and lugging my personal bike up and down 3 flights of stairs is a bit more than I can handle. I have to say, it's been a much more pleasurable experience than I expected. Once you get accustomed to the idea and let go of the ingrained "mine mine MINE" mentality, it is so freeing and convenient to not have to worry about locks or theft or maintenance or "my friends are doing last minute happy hour but I don't want to bike home drunk in the dark; what do I do with my bike that I rode in this morning?"
Divvy is trying to address the issue of low-income and unbanked users, too.
posted by misskaz at 2:23 PM on May 18, 2016 [7 favorites]
Related, elsewhere in the world:
Elite and ethical: The defensive distinctions of middle-class bicycling in Bangalore, India
Abstract:
Elite and ethical: The defensive distinctions of middle-class bicycling in Bangalore, India
Abstract:
This article applies social practice theory to study the emergence of sustainable consumption practices like bicycling among the new middle classes of Bangalore, India. I argue that expansions of bicycling practices are dependent on the construction of defensive distinctions, which I define as distinctions that draw equally on lifestyle-based and ethics-based discourses to normalize bicycling among Bangalore’s middle classes. With their environmental discourses and signage, middle-class cyclists make claims to being ethical actors and ecological citizens concerned about global environments. Their high-end bicycles and special gear enable them to maintain their social status in personal and professional circles, despite adopting what is an essentialized and stigmatized mobility practice in a social context where personal automobiles are a dominant symbol of respectability and propertied citizenship. These defensive distinctions are anchored in communities that facilitate social learning, skill-building, and the creation of collective identities. I highlight the importance of considering the role of ethical discourses in consolidating “low-status” social practices among “high-status” class fractions and discuss the implications of promoting sustainable consumption through the othering of the poor. By applying a social practice analytic to study middle-class bicycling practices, this article makes a significant contribution to the growing literature that investigates the applicability of practice-based approaches to environmental behaviors and sustainable consumption in a novel context.posted by clew at 2:33 PM on May 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
As a cyclist who is the stereotypical lycra-wearing-roadie-fred I pay attention to every local news story involving cycling fatalities and 99% of cyclists killed in collisions with cars are poor folks commuting to work. Nearly every one of them was riding without a helmet and many ride at night with no lights. What's worse is many times they're also riding against traffic. Yet all of the local outreach I see from law enforcement and cycling organizations is geared towards folks who are more affluent and ride bikes for enjoyment. It makes me crazy that these "invisible" cyclists aren't made a priority because it might actually save a few lives.
posted by photoslob at 2:45 PM on May 18, 2016 [14 favorites]
posted by photoslob at 2:45 PM on May 18, 2016 [14 favorites]
Thanks for posting this. I'm involved in a decently sized cycling club and these articles are just the sort of thing I want to share with our board. The club was founded in the early 60s mainly to support a racing team, but now most successfully supports health/fitness, recreational/social riding, mostly MAMILs (disclaimer: occassionally I'm one of them). I'm trying to broaden the support we can provide to our community (30% White, 60% African-American, 5% Hispanic, ...) ($22K per capita income)
We don't have much of a hipster bike culture here (though I'm thinking of picking up a fixie - am I evil for wanting to have fun on a different kind of bike?). We have a fair number of students who ride and a number of folks who rely on them as transportation ('invisible cyclists') especially as our local public transportation is less than ideal, though cheap farm land has allowed the city to sprawl, making commuting to some job areas more difficult.
A lot of club members are road bike folks who ride for fun, and it's funny and occasionally difficult to have conversations with them and get some to even recognize there are 'other' kinds of bikers. I hope these articles can spur more conversation and action.
posted by grimjeer at 6:07 PM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
We don't have much of a hipster bike culture here (though I'm thinking of picking up a fixie - am I evil for wanting to have fun on a different kind of bike?). We have a fair number of students who ride and a number of folks who rely on them as transportation ('invisible cyclists') especially as our local public transportation is less than ideal, though cheap farm land has allowed the city to sprawl, making commuting to some job areas more difficult.
A lot of club members are road bike folks who ride for fun, and it's funny and occasionally difficult to have conversations with them and get some to even recognize there are 'other' kinds of bikers. I hope these articles can spur more conversation and action.
posted by grimjeer at 6:07 PM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
But the lesson they take here is that you should spend more on bicycle infrastructure rather than reversing the continuing failure of US public transportation. You work washing dishes until 2am, no way you would choose to bike home if there was safe, cheap, efficient public transportation. Bike lanes are nice, but it's very much a part of a "let them eat cake" approach to urban transport.
Why not both? The cost of cycling infrastructure is at least an order of magnitude less than effective public transportation. They are more likely to complement each other than conflict, and their users probably overlap more than they do with drivers. I see no reason to believe that refusing to build any cycling infrastructure will in any way lead to improved public transportation.
posted by alexei at 6:56 PM on May 18, 2016 [7 favorites]
Why not both? The cost of cycling infrastructure is at least an order of magnitude less than effective public transportation. They are more likely to complement each other than conflict, and their users probably overlap more than they do with drivers. I see no reason to believe that refusing to build any cycling infrastructure will in any way lead to improved public transportation.
posted by alexei at 6:56 PM on May 18, 2016 [7 favorites]
Cities need to turn on-street parking into bike lanes to enable bicycling, discourage driving, and encourage drivers to switch to bicycling and public transportation (maybe both in the same trip).
posted by pracowity at 12:43 AM on May 19, 2016
posted by pracowity at 12:43 AM on May 19, 2016
Why not both? The cost of cycling infrastructure is at least an order of magnitude less than effective public transportation. They are more likely to complement each other than conflict, and their users probably overlap more than they do with drivers. I see no reason to believe that refusing to build any cycling infrastructure will in any way lead to improved public transportation.
The real enemy in the fight for public dollars is the money spent on highways.
posted by Alluring Mouthbreather at 10:05 AM on May 19, 2016
The real enemy in the fight for public dollars is the money spent on highways.
posted by Alluring Mouthbreather at 10:05 AM on May 19, 2016
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posted by rocketman at 8:34 AM on May 18, 2016 [2 favorites]