Motonormativity
Motonormativity, a term coined in a recent study, describes an unconscious bias in favour of cars and motor transport generally. It is the automatic prioritization of the needs of cars over the needs of pedestrians and cyclists, which results in an inability to make impartial judgments. Curiously, the study found that even non-drivers harbour this bias.
My experience
When I was living in France I bought an old Renault Laguna, even though I couldn't drive; having lived in towns and cities with decent public transport for most of my life, I had not felt the need to learn. Driving duty therefore fell to the best driver among the friends I was sharing a house with, who I'll refer to as Gary. One day I was in the passenger seat as he drove along the winding road from the village of Châteauneuf-Villevieille in the foothills of the Maritime Alps, down towards Nice, passing through other villages on the way. As we passed through one of these villages, two locals were strolling very slowly across the road, from the bakery to the post office, engaged in conversation and making no effort to get out of the way, thus forcing us to slow down.
Such was Gary's motonormativity that he got very frustrated and said (but not so loud that they could hear him), "get off the fucking road!" and proceeded to rant about old French bumpkins, expecting me to take his side. But I sensed deep in my bones that Gary was in the wrong. I pointed out that there had been a road in this village since long before the existence of cars in particular, fast through-traffic was a very recent thing and that traditional village life depends on the prioritization of pedestrians, that cars are a recent invasion, that villages should not be divided by dangerous roads, and that the problem is alleviated if drivers slow down or even wait, giving way to chatty sauntering locals.
One might object in this case (as in most others) that the infrastructure, the built environment, and the traffic regulations already embody and enforce the prioritization of motor traffic, and that Gary was merely expecting to drive in a way that he was entitled to and which he had been led to believe was natural for the entirety of his life.
This is true, but it is exactly the problem. The dominance of motor traffic and its associated infrastructure and regulations, even though they result in unsafe, unhealthy, and unpleasant environments, have come to seem natural. Perhaps unlike other places, the older residents of these villages hold on to a certain way of life, refusing to accept their inferiority on the streets when they go to get their baguette in the morning. Why should they accept the dominance and prioritization of cars, which are after all dangerous, polluting, and noisy?
For a few years I have lived on and off in Moscow, which is a safe and pleasant city in many ways, but which is in my opinion also blighted by the dominance of motor traffic. The traffic noise is pervasive and constant, multi-lane highways cut through neighbourhoods right into the city centre, creating an oppressive atmosphere for anyone who is not in a car, and pedestrians and cyclists are forced go out of their way to find underpasses and bridges to get about unless they go underground. And yet, whenever I frame the situation in this way I mostly get blank looks or a dismissive attitude; the basic assumption is that the transport status quo is essential and inviolable or, even if the changes I advocate would be good, that they would be impossible to implement. This is not just the typical Russian resignation to bad circumstances, but is the special kind of brainwashing identified by the study as motonormativity, common across the world.
Enlightened developments
This brings me to the examples of Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and other European cities. Although now known for their cycling-friendly infrastructure, it might not be widely known that these cities were as car-centric as any others until quite recently, that it has taken political will to see through the radical changes that have made these cities better and safer to live in.
Copenhagen, 1960 and 2016:
Amsterdam:
Düsseldorf:
Also relevant here is the distinction between a road and a street. Famously in the US there are stroads, an extremely pedestrian-unfriendly hybrid of the two. One success story in which the trend has been reversed is Lancaster Boulevard, Lancaster, California, which has gone from a stroad back to a street:
Motonormativity
My first reaction on seeing the term motonormativity was probably to roll my eyes, since it's a fashion-conscious coinage in line with heteronormativity and neuronormativity. But on second thoughts, I think it's good. Sometimes you need to put a name on something to make it real, or rather, to allow people to think about it clearly in familar contemporary terms.
This video is a good introduction:
[quote=Abstract, "Motornomativity: How Social Norms Hide a Major Public Health Hazard"]Decisions about motor transport, by individuals and policy-makers, show unconscious biases due to cultural assumptions about the role of private cars - a phenomenon we term motonormativity. To explore this claim, a national sample of 2157 UK adults rated, at random, a set of statements about driving (People shouldn't drive in highly populated areas where other people have to breathe in the car fumes) or a parallel set of statements with key words changed to shift context ("People shouldn't smoke in highly populated areas where other people have to breathe in the cigarette fumes"). Such context changes could radically alter responses (75% agreed with "People shouldn't smoke... " but only 17% agreed with "People shouldn't drive... "). We discuss how these biases systematically distort medical and policy decisions and give recommendations for how public policy and health professionals might begin to recognise and address these unconscious biases in their work.[/quote]
Summary:
Breaking Down Motornormativity: Uncovering the Bias Behind Car Culture and Driving
The paper:
Walker, I., Tapp, A., & Davis, A. (2022, December 14). Motonomativity: How Social Norms Hide a Major Public Health Hazard
Wiki:
Motonormativity
My experience
When I was living in France I bought an old Renault Laguna, even though I couldn't drive; having lived in towns and cities with decent public transport for most of my life, I had not felt the need to learn. Driving duty therefore fell to the best driver among the friends I was sharing a house with, who I'll refer to as Gary. One day I was in the passenger seat as he drove along the winding road from the village of Châteauneuf-Villevieille in the foothills of the Maritime Alps, down towards Nice, passing through other villages on the way. As we passed through one of these villages, two locals were strolling very slowly across the road, from the bakery to the post office, engaged in conversation and making no effort to get out of the way, thus forcing us to slow down.
Such was Gary's motonormativity that he got very frustrated and said (but not so loud that they could hear him), "get off the fucking road!" and proceeded to rant about old French bumpkins, expecting me to take his side. But I sensed deep in my bones that Gary was in the wrong. I pointed out that there had been a road in this village since long before the existence of cars in particular, fast through-traffic was a very recent thing and that traditional village life depends on the prioritization of pedestrians, that cars are a recent invasion, that villages should not be divided by dangerous roads, and that the problem is alleviated if drivers slow down or even wait, giving way to chatty sauntering locals.
One might object in this case (as in most others) that the infrastructure, the built environment, and the traffic regulations already embody and enforce the prioritization of motor traffic, and that Gary was merely expecting to drive in a way that he was entitled to and which he had been led to believe was natural for the entirety of his life.
This is true, but it is exactly the problem. The dominance of motor traffic and its associated infrastructure and regulations, even though they result in unsafe, unhealthy, and unpleasant environments, have come to seem natural. Perhaps unlike other places, the older residents of these villages hold on to a certain way of life, refusing to accept their inferiority on the streets when they go to get their baguette in the morning. Why should they accept the dominance and prioritization of cars, which are after all dangerous, polluting, and noisy?
For a few years I have lived on and off in Moscow, which is a safe and pleasant city in many ways, but which is in my opinion also blighted by the dominance of motor traffic. The traffic noise is pervasive and constant, multi-lane highways cut through neighbourhoods right into the city centre, creating an oppressive atmosphere for anyone who is not in a car, and pedestrians and cyclists are forced go out of their way to find underpasses and bridges to get about unless they go underground. And yet, whenever I frame the situation in this way I mostly get blank looks or a dismissive attitude; the basic assumption is that the transport status quo is essential and inviolable or, even if the changes I advocate would be good, that they would be impossible to implement. This is not just the typical Russian resignation to bad circumstances, but is the special kind of brainwashing identified by the study as motonormativity, common across the world.
Enlightened developments
This brings me to the examples of Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and other European cities. Although now known for their cycling-friendly infrastructure, it might not be widely known that these cities were as car-centric as any others until quite recently, that it has taken political will to see through the radical changes that have made these cities better and safer to live in.
Copenhagen, 1960 and 2016:
Amsterdam:
Düsseldorf:
Also relevant here is the distinction between a road and a street. Famously in the US there are stroads, an extremely pedestrian-unfriendly hybrid of the two. One success story in which the trend has been reversed is Lancaster Boulevard, Lancaster, California, which has gone from a stroad back to a street:
Motonormativity
My first reaction on seeing the term motonormativity was probably to roll my eyes, since it's a fashion-conscious coinage in line with heteronormativity and neuronormativity. But on second thoughts, I think it's good. Sometimes you need to put a name on something to make it real, or rather, to allow people to think about it clearly in familar contemporary terms.
This video is a good introduction:
[quote=Abstract, "Motornomativity: How Social Norms Hide a Major Public Health Hazard"]Decisions about motor transport, by individuals and policy-makers, show unconscious biases due to cultural assumptions about the role of private cars - a phenomenon we term motonormativity. To explore this claim, a national sample of 2157 UK adults rated, at random, a set of statements about driving (People shouldn't drive in highly populated areas where other people have to breathe in the car fumes) or a parallel set of statements with key words changed to shift context ("People shouldn't smoke in highly populated areas where other people have to breathe in the cigarette fumes"). Such context changes could radically alter responses (75% agreed with "People shouldn't smoke... " but only 17% agreed with "People shouldn't drive... "). We discuss how these biases systematically distort medical and policy decisions and give recommendations for how public policy and health professionals might begin to recognise and address these unconscious biases in their work.[/quote]
Summary:
Breaking Down Motornormativity: Uncovering the Bias Behind Car Culture and Driving
The paper:
Walker, I., Tapp, A., & Davis, A. (2022, December 14). Motonomativity: How Social Norms Hide a Major Public Health Hazard
Wiki:
Motonormativity
Comments (76)
If my eyes could roll anymore they would return to their original position. None of those words are properly formed so I comfortably say they are not real words , and I am sure the people who coined them don't have even their mother tongue mastered. Just a consequence of living in the age where scientists don't need to have language skills.
But the concept that is being captured is important, of course.
Quoting Jamal
I remember seeing the casual use of 'car-centric' or variations often.
Of course, you didn't really walk it because the city had one of the worst crime rates of any city in the county, but in theory you could. Biking was a bit more difficult.
But I've also lived in more recently developed communities down in North Carolina and they are virtually impossible to walk across because every building is required to have a huge lawn and a huge parking lot. The US is very bad about this sort of design, especially stuff developed in the 90s-00s.
This kills public transportation because you need a certain level of density to make light rail, etc. economically viable. Places have buses, but they are generally atrocious. I took the bus to my job that was a 15 minute drive away in Massachusetts and it became an hour and a half long odyssey each way for the week my car was broken. And even big city public transportation is hard to keep afloat. Boston and NYC have some of the best density for rail networks, and both the MBTA and the MTA have absolutely horrendous financial positions.
I honestly don't think it is fixable. Once you build strip mall sprawl communities the only way to make them walkable would be the rebuild over themeverything is just too spread out. There is just too much distance to cover, particularly in places where the heat index is routinely 100+ degrees all summer.
It's funny that you mention small villages because I now live in rural Kentucky and here things are truly, completely unwalkable. All the farm land means buildings are extremely far away from one another and then the roads are very narrow with steep drop offs and high weeds on either side of them (because there isn't funding for wide roads because the density is low).
We do have a lot of Amish around here using horse drawn carriages, and people do ride bikes sometimes. You also have tractors and other slow farm equipment being moved around. This just ends up being dangerous though. There isn't room to pass on windy country roads and a single tractor on one of our few major traffic routes makes everyone late for work. Plus, all the roads are 55MPH (so people go 55-70), since it takes a long time to get anywhere, but then you go over a hill going fast and find there is a horse cart in front of you going 15MPH you have to slam on your breaks for.
Kentucky's old town centers actually tend to be very aesthetically pleasing and walkable. I noticed the same thing when I lived in Iowa and upstate New York. Nevada is generally similar too. The problem is that all these store fronts have closed, since Walmart and co. have the economy of scale advantage, so you can walk there but all the commerce is actually out in some strip-mall on the edge of town, with the new commercial being zoned more like the old industrial sectors (which are now empty, business having been moved out to China).
A couple of thoughts.
My daughter and I are reading "The Power Broker" together. It's 1200 pages long, but we only read 100 pages a month and then get together to talk about it. Neither of us would have the perseverance to read the whole thing otherwise. It's about Robert Moses who was in charge of building parks, highways, and public housing in New York City and surrounding areas starting in the late 1920s through 1968. It's fascinating. He was a monomaniacal proponent of cars and an opponent of public transportation. He transformed the City and much of Long Island and the rest of the state into his personal automobile dependent kingdom. He also had a tremendous influence on other cities in the US as well as overseas. I don't know how much of what you call motornormativity you can blame on him, but he certainly was a pioneer.
Here in the US, being able to drive is a cultural rite of passage. When I was 16, I got my license on the day after my birthday. The sense of freedom it gives is powerful. Of course, that is partly because getting around without a car is difficult, but still, it's very compelling.
Here in Chicago it is a constant battle between the forces of motocentrism and those advocating for pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods. Chicago has enough density and a good enough public transportation that one can get by without a car, but some neighborhoods are more pedestrian-friendly than others. Thefirst attempts at taking back the streets from the automobile occurred with the creation of urban malls in the 1970s. Downtowns State st was closed off to cars, but this proved disastrous in Chicago as well as many smaller communities who mallified their main street. More recent attempts have been on a smaller scale, including the use of speed bumps, the narrowing of streets and the expansion of bike lanes. Also helpful have been multilevel parking structures in place of street level seas of asphalt, and the addition of planters, playgrounds and benches.
Heres some other innovative ideas:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14936/page/p1
I don't think the U.S. necessarily has this right, but as someone living here it is hard to see what possible motives and changes could overcome our status quo. It seems like nothing less than a miracle would be required.
I also suspect that population density is indirectly correlated to motonormativity wherever cars are readily available.
Your pictures are powerful arguments. But I do wonder what went into making those changes, in particular, whether the benefits have gone to the people who suffered the costs. There's a tendency for the gentry to move in to areas that are improved in those ways, and for the people who used to live there to be forced to move out.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I'm glad you brought up the issues about rural communities. I've seen quite a lot about re-designing cities, but practically nothing about rural communities. Your description of Kentucky is very reminiscent of many rural areas of the UK, right down to the problems of equine traffic. (No Amish communities, of course, but many riders for leisure and pleasure. Horses and cars, etc. don't mix very well.) You don't mention heavy lorries on your lanes. But I find them more worrying than anything else.
Quoting T Clark
I'm sure it is a cultural rite of passage in many other countries as well. It certainly is in the UK.
People are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to maintain personal transport instantly available on demand 24 hours a day and build their lives around it. I don't blame them. True, people do seem to be better able to manage where there is decent public transport. But public transport can't replace the car parked outside your house. So the politics around these schemes, at least in democracies, is much more complicated than people seem to recognize.
Quoting Leontiskos
I'm sure there's a tendency for people to choose to live further apart when they have cars. But, if you look at the schemes in the OP, they are all in cities.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
It's a vicious circle. Lower density, less public transport, more cars. Moving away from cars in those areas is going to be very difficult indeed. Fewer people in a given area have less political clout.
Of course, it depends on what criteria you have for viability. If you are looking for economic viability, you will have it only in city centres and many people will have to do without, so will not be able to move away from cars.
Quoting Lionino
I thought that "car-centric" was the standard word for this.
I hate bicycles. They occupy my American roads that are neither quaint nor ancient. The vast spaces I travel over were never filled with little old women chatting about their day, nor are there other options, like rail or buses. Billions are spent annually for cars to dart about for the purposes of commerce above all else, but also for getting to and fro. I get that you want to exercise in your spandex and your backwards hat and I know I've been encouraged to "Share the Road" or whatever those signs might say, but the investment in the roadways was not made for providing exercise and leisure. We are paving the planet for me and my SUV to get where I need to go.
We have parks with miles and miles of paved trails to nowhere for you folks to enjoy, and if that's not enough, we have stationary bikes and treadmills for you to pretend to be in the wild. Use those set asides and stop showing up where motorists belong.
I agree with the Gary's sage advice: Get the fuck out the road!
This post makes you so mad. You're probably even madder than Gary ever was. Gary probably laughed at yelling at the little old ladies a few minutes later. I know Gary well. Gary is Hanover.
Years ago I was on a train going from London to Wales, passing through lovely meadow lands, when I saw a large vertical building rising abruptly in the distance, surrounded by a high wall. An apartment building made to cram many into a relatively small space. All around were fields empty with the exception of a few cows and trees.
High density or low density. A largely political argument. I saw a cartoon recently that showed differences between Democrats and Republicans, and for housing the Dems favored the high rise building, cramming as many as possible together regardless of ethnicity or religion or political persuasion. The Republican model was a cottage in a yard filled with grass and flowers with a cute white fence surrounding it.
Parts of the Sydney CBD have been made car-free, but it's ringed by busy roads. And Sydney also now has about the most expensive network of toll roads in the world. In my childhood, the only toll in Sydney was southbound on the Sydney Harbour Bridge (1 shilling, in pre-decimal days.) Now there are electronic tollgates all over the place, it costs me twenty bucks to drive from my home in the greater metro area to my son's place. A lot of people in the outer suburbs pay hundreds of dollars a week in tolls.
But then, there's also been a concerted push, mainly by Green-leaning councillors, to upgrade bikeways in the City of Sydney. But Sydney is not kind of bicyclists, because it's hilly, and because of the traffic. Overall Australia is overwhelming motonormative and I can't see it changing anytime soon.
While I might strongly agree with the general sentiment about cars having taken over and social pushback being required, it also has to be pointed out the perils of this kind of woke framing of the situation.
I've a big interest in green politics and so in transport reforms. And what is plain is how the car lobby simply expresses a thermodynamic preference. Petrol and tarmac lets us all individually rocket at great speed to anywhere we might wish to go. It is a huge liberation of the human spirit. A tremendous adventure. Cruising around in cars and legendary road journeys were the stuff of my youth, when you could get a licence at 15, the roads felt empty, and speed radars were only just being invented.
So it is quite natural that - if it is possible blatting about irresponsibly is one of life's great joys. Then faced with that, transport planners and urban authorities know that giving free reign to this luxury good is very bad in a world limited in its ecological and social capital. We need a long term plan to get this genie back in its bottle.
And it gets very frustrating that the gap between what seems obvious commonsense and popular preference just grows exponentially. The planners at first though rationality would prevail, then that if they started to build cycleways, pedestrian precincts and walkable neighbourhoods pushing them through local politics in increasingly sly fashion that people would suddenly wake up to this new better world and thank them, demanding much more of this kind of thing much faster.
But now the experts have had their sensible plans thrown back in their faces by the market realities so many times that "motonormativity" would be a new way of framing matters. The unwashed public is guilty of the moral sin of not just an irrational preference, but this is a bias a decision so socially internalised that their culture must be remade from root. The experts are justified to go even harder in a crusade that doesn't merely seek to persuade or cajole or entice, but socially shames and stigmatises. Any level of action becomes possible once the moral right is clearly on your side and not on theirs.
Again, I completely sympathise with the side that can see the sense of rolling us all back to a more sustainable world. But also the move to this kind of moralistic framing motonormativity as the code word for a defective mindset is a problematic political position.
It sets the state against the individual when really the real opponent is the wider political and economic settings that prevail in a society. Someone is building all those fast cars, promoting the notion of open roads and infinite parking. Someone is stopping the true social and environmental costs being factored into the price of participation.
If you build a world where capitalism has no social brakes, then you get the world that deserves. Impatient drivers and frustrated transport planners are a tiny part of that larger story.
And the criticism concerning wokeism is that it is a turning of individuals against individuals by harnessing the amplification of social media. The polarisation of society into competing online mobs obsessing over finer and finer social distinctions. A diversion of political energy away from the larger story of how we all have to cooperate to share the one planet.
Far beyond freedom, the car provides a person with power to exercise one's freedom. A car is much more than a private container, it gets one here, there, everywhere, in a very fast way, with much less care required than a horse. When a person is provided with this kind of power it may be best not to interfere, even unintentionally. As road rage demonstrates, good feelings turn to bad feelings. Motonormativity is inevitable because having power naturally makes people happy, and we don't want that happiness to turn to anger.
Before it was horse and buggies pioneer-style. Before that, chariots. It offered an evolutionary (or societal) advantage and one who had what others admired gained admiration whereas others who did not... did not. Is this not true? It's a common American (and I assume elsewhere) social trope/meme whatever you wish to call it that a teen with a car is "cool" or otherwise desirable to his peers versus someone who does not and has to walk or take a scooter. So it's about being in possession of the greatest item or object desirable to society, mostly for superficial reasons, but also supported by the factual beneficial and general status reasons that come with. Isn't it?
Thanks. I've often thought this was the case, didn't know there was even a word for it. When all you have is a car, everything looks like a road...
I have never liked cars or driving. Owned many cars over decades, but never much enjoyed them. So I finally spat the dummy and bought a loft in the middle of the city and got rid of the car. There's nothing I can't get to within 10-15 minutes of walking, or 30 minutes of (excellent) public transport. Good thing is, while we may be a city of 5 million, there's not much crime, so I can walk around safely.
And my city has just banned motorized scooters, so that pleases me too.
In the Netherland, bikes are everywhere, but that is because you can actually get to places with it, nobody is riding 10km+ with their bike to get somewhere (maybe those three people).
However, I don't see a lot of bikes in many smaller cities in Southern Europe, like Coimbra (which fair enough it is on a hill) or Como. On the other hand, Brussels is a big city with a lot of bikes and scooters.
There is also a cultural side to it.
At the end of the day, without infrastructure, people won't use bikes. But as is the case with companies and services, there must be some "market-research" to see if the product will have customers. Many years ago in São Paulo, they removed car lanes to add bike lanes, the result was more traffic jams and the benefit of bike lanes was not great, the city is way too large and spread out, also crime. The government however doesn't go bankrupt, so they don't care as much.
Quoting Ludwig V
Maybe I was dead-on in saying the researchers haven't mastered their own language.
Quoting Outlander
Apparently times have changed.
https://www.carscoops.com/2024/05/teen-not-interested-in-driving-theyre-not-alone/
https://nypost.com/2024/05/26/lifestyle/gen-z-teens-largely-put-the-brakes-on-driving-signaling-seismic-shift-in-us-car-culture-study/
I think you've got a point there. But I always thought that the critical factor was the hills. The Netherlands are flat or nearly so. I'm not sure about Brussels. But the availability of cycle lanes - especially where there is heavy traffic, especially where roads are narrow - is also thought to be persuasive. But it takes time for people to change their ways.
Quoting AmadeusD
There's been general acceptance that pedestrians and traffic should be separated as much as possible, and that's common sense now - it has not always been so, and it is still not universal in the UK. There should be even more pressure than there is already to separate pedal cycles from cars and other lethal heavy machinery. That's also just common sense.
But it also doesn't make any sense to mix cycles up with pedestrians (as happens all too often in the UK, now that they have legalized cycles using sidewalks); there are nasty accidents from time to time. (I would do the same for horses.)
At the very least, where mixed traffic is unavoidable, cars, etc. should be limited to walking speed. (I have heard that in Norway, if a car hits a pedestrian anywhere on the public roads, the assumption is that it is the driver's fault. That would help.)
Quoting Outlander
Yes, but it is also about being able to access opportunities, both work and social, that would not be practicable otherwise. And so you end up with the car being essential to your way of life. `
Quoting apokrisis
Well, people do like a moral justification. It is so much nobler than self-interest. But you are right that the politics of this are much more complicated than the pictures show and realism is more helpful.
Quoting apokrisis
That's odd. I thought it took two to make a fight.
But in this case, the division is even more stupid than usual. People are not divided into two groups - drivers and pedestrians. Sometimes, one drives and sometimes one walks. Other people drive through the place I live in, and I drive through the places they live in. It's not a competition for dominance.
Of course, when I'm driving, I get annoyed at the pedestrians and other cars that are in my way. When I'm walking, I get annoyed at the other pedestrians and cars that get in my way. Somehow, we need to understand ourselves as wanting ideal conditions for both and then we can laugh at ourselves and settle for a tolerable compromise.
Generally flat too. I have heavily edited my comment btw.
Quoting Ludwig V
That is something you see in Brussels. Specially Kruidtuinlaan next to Brussels-Nord station and its transversal streets, they are often congested, so one may rent a Uber/Bolt bike for 10 minutes and 3 euros rather than paying 20 euros to stay in a smelly taxi for 25 minutes to get to a hotel that is possible and made comfortable because, even though there is no separate bike lane, cars and buses mostly respect that bikes may ride on the slow rightmost lane.
I wouldn't want to comment on the government is Sao Paolo. But, in principle, because they don't go bankrupt (or not often - it does happen, though they don't call it bankruptcy), they can take a long view and persuade/manipulate people into adopting new ways.
Quoting Lionino
There's nothing like getting the people on your side. Without a doubt, it is the most effective engine for social change.
BTW, I like the new version of your old post. There's one city I can identify as not likely to support cycles - Hong Kong! I have never seen a single one there.
That was my point. Left and right used to be about social and economic policy settings. A debate over the right national system. Now it has shifted to identity politics. Are you siding with woke or MAGA? Personal crusades. Should you even be allowed to exist with those views within a shared social system.
Quoting Ludwig V
So motonormativity is in fact a generalised modern impatience. A reflection of accelerationism in a society addicted to faster/cheaper/more.
Here in NZ, cycles are legal on footpaths (we have a massive, shit-headed Green Lobby here that are insufferably stupid) and .......................................................... bus lanes.
Erm...
Yes, I'm afraid that when human beings find something they don't like in their environment, they prefer to remake the environment by eradicating the offending items to adjusting themselves to it. This is so pervasive that I'm not at all sure that it can be attributed to solely to social structures.
Quoting apokrisis
Yes, but again, I think you'll find that addiction is so pervasive that it seems to go deeper than social structures or cultures.
Quoting AmadeusD
I'm sorry, but I'm not sure exactly what you are saying. Too many dots.
I'm afraid that a massive movement of any kind is liable to include some annoying and idiotic followers. There's nothing sufficiently special about Green lobbies to make them an exception.
In the UK, allowing cycles on footpaths was not connected to the green lobby. It seemed to be more related to recognizing that cycles were too vulnerable to be required to mix with cars etc. The unrecognized downside is that pedestrians are too vulnerable to be required to mix with pedal cycles - especially the athletic and impatient riders.
OK. Sorry I misunderstood.
I suspect that identity has always been a factor in politics. But it is true that debates these days seem to be mostly single issue, as opposed to more comprehensive approaches that try to see each issue in the context of an overall policy setting. And the debates nowadays do suffer from that narrowness. On the other hand, it makes it easier to decide which side you're on. Perhaps that's why.
Incredulousness. It's utterly insane that cyclists are legally allowed in bus lanes. Utterly bewilderingly dangerous - and it encourages cyclists to blame everyone else.
Huh. Interesting.
I'm unsure why this is written this way. This is actually encouraged in standardized Police-led cycling classes in Primary schools because children cycling on the road is an utterly deranged thing to push. This was true when I took those classes in 1996 and was true when my son did in 2017. Well see when my step son gets them next year. It may be that the wheel diameter regulation is to capture this.
Both law firms i've worked at are not under the impression this is an illegality LOL. Fair few fines being handed out for this in Wellington though (no surprises).
Why? Bus drivers are at least professional and trained to be attentive. They are not texting or day-dreaming like the average car commuter. What's the problem?
You have not been on roads where this is the case, have you?
Or to NZ in general? hehe
Why not let them ride the train tracks as well?
In the meantime, anything that encourages more cyclists and bus passengers, less motorists in SUVs, is a step in the right direction so far as urban planning is concerned.
So it is all part of the plan to reinstall the rails and cycles that were the dominant transport mode just a century ago. But the car lobby will be the reason governments get nervous and keep pulling the plug.
Although now even a light-rail and cycleway cancelling government is having to resort to congestion charging. Small cities like Christchurch, Queenstown and Tauranga are starting to get commute times to match the legendary traffic snafus that already 20 years ago had spoilt Auckland as a place worth living.
These are the same delusional takes of the Greens. Sanguine to the point of stupidity.
Quoting apokrisis
It is not at all a step in the right directly for a city as spread-out as Auckland. This also ignores the blatant risks shared cycleways present. Cyclists are some of the least respectful people I have ever had the displeasure of interacting with on the political front. No one gives a flying fuck if you get good feelies from cycling to work and snorting at drivers. No. One. Cares. Sit down.
You think roads and carparks are cheap national investments? Do you think that countries get rich by not being focused on the long term economics of their infrastructure investments?
Where would NZ be economically if it hadn't made its big push with dams and electricity grids in the 30s. Or the earlier very rapid moves into rail systems, tram systems and coastal shipping?
Do you know anything about NZ's actual past or present, let alone how badly it is handling its future?
You want public infrastructure as good as it used to be? A proper three waters upgrade for instance? Wellington might want that you think. Not the current story of both centralising the decision and then pushing the cost and delivery back onto local government. The ratepayers who won't understand why suddenly they are getting charged for water when so little is being done to fix their own network.
NZ could have just got on with its big infrastructure investments like Auckland light rail, Lake Onslow pumped hydro, the new Cook Strait ferries it had already ordered. But instead short-termism rules. Voters are encouraged to think that public finance should indeed be run like a house-hold budget. Money can only be printed by banks to inflate house prices.
Quoting AmadeusD
You seem spectacularly uninformed about the country you live in. Talkback radio level. Why would your views deserve respect when they are so lacking in content?
Quoting apokrisis
I think this comes down to the statistics. How many cyclists use the lanes? How many accidents are there?
My prediction is that cyclists in bus lanes will work until there are too many of them. Then there will be accidents and delays to public transport. The latter, in particular, is the primary reason why they are brought into existence, at least in the UK. You can't run a bus system unless journey times are reasonably predictable; unpredictable traffic jams make it impossible to schedule the buses. Plus, it gives public transport an edge over cars in terms of journey times.
Of course, that will only work if there are not too many buses. If they get too many, they will cause their own traffic jams and delays.
It's also the story of Venice, Madeira, Barcelona in recent news. One cruise ship is excellent business. Ten or twenty cruise ships are a public disaster. Some AirBNB flats are not a problem. Too many AirBNB flats means local people go homeless or have to move out.
You may notice a theme here. Things can work perfectly well until too many people want to take them up. Then they don't work any more. That's the story of cars. It's really quite simple. But the political implications are - tricky.
So from a cyclist point of view, they are being asked to share with buses rather than the other way around.
National multimodal transport policy 10 years back was anticipating a transition to the building of separated cycleways and a lot of that was being built under previous governments, helped by the fact the Green Party was part of the coalition.
Ouch! I didn't think of that. It certainly puts the project in a different perspective. And I suppose the idea of the cyclists pedalling along outside the bus lane in the car/lorry lane is even worse.
When you have a nice broad roadway, you can separate, pedestrians, cyclists, buses, cars. (Where do horses belong?) But in inner cities, it is much harder. (though the lower traffic speeds do help).
In the end, I guess, it will come down to restricting cars; after all, one person one car is hopelessly (luxuriously) inefficient. In ancient Rome, they forbade commercial vehicles during day-light hours; we could do the same. But the price is noise during night hours. But then, there's not many people living in the inner city. No solution, just balances and compromises.
It is the vulnerability of organic life to damage in accidental contact with machinery that results in the domination of the machine unless regulation protects the rights of life. When cars were first introduced to the road in the UK, a law was instituted that such devices could only operate on the public road if a man with a red flag preceded them on foot to warn other road users. Unfortunately, as it was only the rich and powerful who could afford these monstrosities, this law was repealed, and thus the myth of the freedom of the road was transferred from the human being to the machine.
This reached its apotheosis with the building of the motorway system from which everything as natural as a horse, a pedestrian or a blade of grass was rigorously forbidden and excluded rocks only, eggs forbidden.
By the sixties it became apparent that the freedom for all to travel anywhere resulted in everywhere being a carpark and nowhere worth visiting except those few corners inaccessible to the machine. "They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot." (not us of course - them).
Yet still machine rights still trump the rights of human and animal, because folk cannot think straight, and "the economy" demands that we all have more and faster and shinier, and spend more of our lives roasting alone in our mechanical tin boxes between 'the machine for living' we call home, and mechanical serving life we call 'work'.
Thus the luddite view of progress as something to be resisted.
It is utterly insane that humans have voluntarily, by consensus, given up their own freedom of movement in favour of that of machines they have created.
I can't grasp what you're saying. This is plainly not true.
Our public transport is a laughing stock and large for this reason - I've been stuck behind cyclists and been alte for work many, many times on a bus, but we're not allowed to blame cyclists because there's an utterly bewildering number of uneducated weirdos who think that regulating anything is genocidal.
That siad, our trains fucking suck too.
I take it you're an asshole cyclist then? Hehehe. Showing your hand rather obviously here, given what I said was an anecdote, not a political essay.
Quoting apokrisis
No it couldn't. Obviously. Quoting apokrisis
Yes, but it appears perhaps you dont? FTR, I hate New Zealand. It's an awful country in almost all ways except landscape. You wont get me to care.
Quoting apokrisis
This makes no sense in response to what I've said.
Quoting apokrisis
I said nothing of hte kid. WTF?
Quoting apokrisis
This is the only efficient way to get large projects done in a country so devoid of intelligence and sense-making leadership.
And I take it you're an asshole, full stop.
Quoting AmadeusD
So why live there?
Nothing you have said makes any sense.
Ah, you're one of those. Possibly this isn't the site for you if this is how you respond to people you don't know about htings you've got no understanding of (i.e my experience). Maybe just re-read these exchanges, cringe a little, and review how quickly you descending into emotional whittering.
Quoting apokrisis
I am legally obliged from two angles (my son and step-son). I am Irish, and born in England.
Quoting apokrisis
You've seemed to respond adequately to most of it. Maybe just don't purposefully be a dick lmao.
But it is not a joke, it is actually not my fault. Everybody in this city is an idiot, except me. So I have to tell grown adults not to park their queer little scooters in front of garage doors. It doesn't matter whether the garage is mine or not.
Quoting AmadeusD
So a cat born in a barn is not a cow? Curious. Food for thought.
Yeah, that's changing in some cities. When they start appropriating bike lanes on a busy street lined with commercial establishments, it removes the heavy, heavy street parked cars that have become a nuisance to safety and comfort. Developers keep attracting restaurants without enough parking, and restaurants rely on street parking for patrons.
I find this a very, very weird take. Why would it oppressive to not be in a car? I didn't drive until I was about 26 and have never in my life felt that being in a metropolitan city was oppressive. Do you not think this is more to do with your disposition than anything about the infrastructure?
I blame your utter insanity.
Also, I'll remove any more posts that include personal abuse.
Don't be ungrateful to the country that allows you to reside there. I dislike this kind of behaviour and attitude. It is OK to assume that every country has pros and cons, but mate, you cannot have that animosity with New Zealand. Fine, I have never been there. But I guess it is a developed nation in every sense. Do your kids feel insecure when they come back from school, for example? Is the system so corrupt that it is impossible to manage things with public administration?
You say that the public transport of NZ is a 'laughing stock'. Well, I invite you to come here and go to Extremadura or Jaén where there are no trains. The bus service is good but slow, and the trips to Madrid take more than they should.
Every rich and developed nation should have an acceptable train and bus system. Cars are a trap to make people feel the fallacy of 'freedom' because they are not sharing space with others. This is very stupid. I am not forced to buy a car, but it is clear that my country is forced to make public transport possible. Do you get it?
So, don't be ungrateful to NZ. I am sure this wonderful country provides you with all of the public services you and your family require.
The city Amadeus complains about in fact took inspiration from Sevilles tactical urbanism approach to start rolling out a rough and ready cycleway network in 2015. It was never going to get funded for a properly engineered separation of traffic modes - such as getting cyclists out of bus lanes. So it decided to just plunge in and get it done how it could.
This budget approach finally got funded in Wellingtons long term plan in 2021. A goal of 166km new cycleways in 10 years. But already a change in shade of government has seen that funding trimmed.
Yes, Seville has done a great job over the past few years. Madrid also funded a project to switch the city into a more walkable and cycling mode. It was not easy in the beginning, because both cities were designed to hold public buildings and neighbours near them. Our city planners didn't even consider the fact of using bikes, but at least Madrid always had done a good effort regarding trains.
Aside from major cities and Basque country, there are many places that lack access to basic, quality transport. It's a shame. Amadeus complained about New Zealand public transport, but how many people in Teruel or Jaén would give for some of it!
They cost too much money. They break a lot, which costs more money. And they waste fuel which is a resource we ought use more carefully.
I also hate that I pretty much have to have one because it feels like another form of rent: just an endless money pit that depreciates and yet you have to maintain it in order to get to work.
I wondered what the problem might be in Spain and found out that Jaén is a weird story of building a whole new tram network in 2010 and then mothballing it apparently because of some competition dispute with the local bus company, then a change in regional government who felt the subsidies were too expensive.
This seems another illustration of the general problem for sane transport planning. The world is torn between the individual solution and the state solution.
Everyone would prefer to be driving SUVs on empty highways, leaving their steeds in a free parking space, and then enjoy ambling about in some quaint walkable neighbourhood whose street map was laid out in medieval times.
Meanwhile traffic planners are trying to push through highly engineered mass transit and multimodal retrofits that give some hope of a greener approach to a more liveable urban future.
The first dream is literally insane. The second demands societies willing to make 20 to 30 year financial commitments in a world that is changing at a faster rate than even that.
Cool thread.
I have long been fascinated by the ideas of the linear city as conceived by Soria and the Arterial arcology of Paulo Soleri. They present a perspective to urban design that tries to imagine a more human space between technical structures. Maybe not immediately practical but a space for thinking.
One is very mechanical in conception - although repetitive segmentation works well for worms and other creatures of the simplest design. The other is the organic or ecological form that nature would seek to impose on any complexly organised structure. Like our mammalian bodies or actual cities that are functionally organised into organ systems.
As a system grows large, it must have a large brain at the centre of its distributed nervous system, a large pair of lungs at the centre of its gaseous exchange system, a large heart at the centre of its blood circulation system, etc.
A worm has small and simple versions of all these things. A tube just needs its entrance and exit. The centre of a worms various organ systems take up very little more room than their periphery and so a segmented design is good enough. The same as a strip mall along a highway or straggle of houses making the initial settlement along a new rail stop.
But to become complex and well integrated requires a more messy looking break up into functional geographies. Cities with universities, malls and abattoirs. Cities that have many large functional centres as well as the finer mesh as each of these functional centres spreads its own regulatory flow network across the wider collective body.
London for example had a problem that its supermarkets were getting ever larger and so spaced out, and yet road congestion was getting ever worse. This was literally the issue when I thought enough was enough. My routine had become driving to the supermarket before it opened on a Saturday morning or just not go at all.
But go back now and tiny supermarkets are run by the same chains on every corner. A hierarchy of supermarket size fixed at least that one problem.
So arterial arcology may sound linear, but that is different from segmented and speaks to the fractal principles of hierarchical design. Which is standard wisdom in urban planning - if only voters and politicians would allow them get on and implement it.
In NZ, there is another illustrative example. The case to retrofit a light rail network was financially justified as it would immediately make the housing along the path a more attractive corridor. An easy way to revitalise now aging inner suburbs. But it didnt fly as no one likes change and good ideas can always be delayed to some other year.
Some 20 years later has come the crisis response. Central government has slyly slipped through laws to just tear up local council urban planning. Carefully organised building regulations - those with a hierarchy of protections that were eagerly voted for because of NIMBY self-interest - have just been vapourised. Now the elegant villa in the tree lined street can suddenly find two three storey apartment blocks - made of shit panelling and with a concrete pad for half a dozen cars - looming over it within a year.
One way or another, the hierarchical imperative of nature is going to impose itself on our architectural forms. The only question is how much in control of the pace and the consequences do we want to be.
Ditto. I blame marketing and television for their brainwashing techniques to force people to buy cars, even if they are very young. There is the risk of them dying in a car crash because they are immature to use a car, but automobile manufacturers don't seem to really care. I even heard once that 'public transport is for poor people, but owning a car represents wealth.' If ever someone believes such a stupid spot, there is a real problem with society.
I can't recall seeing any Metro advertisements, for example. It's safer, better, electric, and compact. Television has had a negative impact on public transport perception. The level of interest shown by the motor industry in all of this is scary!
Good points. :up:
Indeed. We call them trams and they run all over my city. There are 10 routes within 50 meters of my home. In my city, there are around 1,700 tram stops across 24 routes with 250 kilometres of urban tracks and a patronage of well over 200 million individual journeys a year. I do most of my reading going to and from places in trams.
LMAO, nice.
Quoting unenlightened
unenlightened it is :P
Quoting javi2541997
Are you joking, or just being weird again? This country doesn't "allow" me to reside here. It is legally obligated to accept me here.
Quoting javi2541997
Yes. Yes I can.
Quoting javi2541997
I don't know why, or what exactly you're asking. It has nothing to do with me disliking, very strongly, living in New Zealand. It is not, in any way, relevant, to you find other faults with a different place. Dislike my attitude all you want mate.
Quoting javi2541997
Right-o mate. Can't get on board with this type of attitude :P
Quoting javi2541997
This is inappropriate. This entire exchange is bizarre. It is not on others to influence or inform how i feel about the country in which i've lived in for 28 years.
Quoting apokrisis
Which is not the worst thing in the world. (not that you've suggested this..) I've not intimated NZ is the worst country in the world. I just hate it here. That's all. Various reason, largely biases and personal disposition. Not sure what's controversial getting you lot up in arms.
Quoting apokrisis
This seems to illustrate you're operating from the same place as i am. That's fine. You like NZ and see hopeful ways forward. I would prefer to let this country stew in its predictable small-pondedness and go elsewhere for better pasture (in many ways - public transport is low on the list - its just the subject of the thread).
Quoting javi2541997
This is exactly whataboutism.
So are there countries where you would be sure that you would hate them less?
What do their transport habits look like exactly? Remembering that was the OP. Is there a city where the cyclists are never rude, allowed on pavements and yet not in bus lanes. Expand on this Shangri-La.
I can't be sure, obviously (i'm sure from without, i'd think this about NZ! My family certainly did). But, on best-estimations: Ireland, Italy, USA(parts thereof), Canada (parts thereof), Japan (parts thereof), Hong Kong, and many others.
Again, public transport is not a particularly large factor. You seem to be thinking that it is, and then assuming I have some utopia in mind. I don't. I just hate living in NZ. The rest can be ignored, it seems. Their travel habits don't matter to me, other than noting things like getting around NYC was infinitely easier, more fun and fulfilling than is getting around AKL (or WGT when im there). My opinions on public travel (which, in this case was specifically about the bad attitudes of cyclists who think they are paragons of morally-informed social justice or something to the point of being routinely abusive) aren't all that relevant to my hating NZ, or preferring elsewhere. Clearly, this is no longer apt for this thread. If you care, feel free to PM with any questions, but I assume its uninteresting in the extreme to you. FAir enough too.
Just amusing but not related to the thread. On the other hand, it did point to the real world issue of why transport planning is in a bind.
Im not claiming NZ is paradise. But in the end, I had the choice. That makes a big difference.
I see this as an intractable problem. I think 'your' side, as it were takes the "just get on board already" take. If not, fair enough - it feels as if your solution would be to (legislate?) regulate against either single-user or less-than-five-user motor transport, so that cycling and hte like can flourish. I think this is misguided and a bit of a reversion, in terms of historical development (note: that does not make it bad).
Quoting apokrisis
This is likely relevant, but when i did have the choice I had actually saved a fund to leave (unexpected child as spanner, in this story).
NZTAs multimodal approach was to create safe separation to allow everyone pick the transport choice they best preferred. If you can whiz to work on a bus lane or cycle lane rather than get stuck in a car, then you would be free to do so.
Of course that serve all options carrot was going to require a bit of sly stick. Such as fuel taxes rather than fuel subsidies, a limit on inner city parking, 20 kph speed limits, and any other such measure that made motorists pay the actual environmental and social costs of their preference.
So the plan was an effort to be cunning. But the car drivers still caught on. The politicians caved accordingly.
Quoting AmadeusD
It isn't. You complained about the public transport in NZ. I agree the public services of every country have pros and cons, and no one is perfect. But I stated that you have public transport, at least. There are citizens who don't know what it is like to take a bus and go to another city. You are complaining about stuff from developed and rich countries. "Ohhhh, the train of Auckland is horrendous," but you have malls, shops, streets, water, etc. Again, don't be ungrateful, mate. NZ is providing you with everything you need. Just because it is a country that cares for people and doesn't allow you to use excessively the car, doesn't mean it is the "worst" country in the world.
Quoting AmadeusD
Only developed and rich nations. :lol: I will not see the crank trying to live in Andalucía, Cuba, Venezuela, or Morocco. Nah, everything is messed up in NZ but no way I would raise my kids in Seville.
Quoting AmadeusD
No, no. You can't. Hating the country where you live is dumb.
Can we leave the guy alone now? It seems like he was just trying to be honest.
No, no. Keep it coming. It's entertaining seeing other people wishing I had a different opinion about my own experiences. Its bizarre and interesting that there are minds that twisted back on themselves.
Quoting javi2541997
I have no idea what you even think you're saying, but I don't post with, or carry any anger. If that's your interpretation of me, I'd just suggest you grow up and realise youre on an internet forum dedicated to argumentation.
Quoting javi2541997
That is whataboutism. Sorry bud.
Quoting javi2541997
I am sorry Javi, but you have precisely zero standing, perspective, or right to make proclamations about my experiences and reactions to my own country. This is just risible on your part.
Quoting javi2541997
Didn't say it was - what are you on about?
Quoting javi2541997
So, either you're making absolutely no sense or you want me to buy into whataboutism again. No thanks. I'll maintain my actual stance on my actual country instead of making shit up.
Quoting javi2541997
No, no it isn't. It is the case. Clearly, you are not apt to understand that my position on my own country has precisely zero to do with you. It doesn't, and you'd do well to stop pretending it does.