I think your article just radicalized the fuck out of me, which is saying something
I’m disabled and can’t drive safely, which means I can’t really go anywhere. I rely on friends to drive me or my local paratransit program (both of which have a lot of problems), or I use my electric wheelchair on the sidewalks… where there are sidewalks. Using the bike lane is fucking terrifying! And somehow it’s never occurred to me that this isn’t a problem with me (ie I need to figure out how to be able to drive safely, or get rich enough to afford Uber) and is actually a problem with my city. Cause yeah, if it wasn’t for the goddamn cars threatening my life, I’d have been able to “walk” all kinds of places for years.
Hell, if not for cars, I’d be able to ride an e-bike to get places, because I wouldn’t have to worry about being hit by a fuckin car. Forget going down the road for groceries, I could go almost anywhere. I could take myself to my own doctor’s appointments. What the fuck.
I have even more thoughts that came into my head as I was reading this but my big question is this - what can we do? What can I do to get rid of cars? I can’t safely ride a bike on the same road as cars thanks to my disability, so that one’s out. How do we do this? I wanna do this!!
Abolish free parking. Free parking is a massive subsidy, usually paid for by poorer people (some who can’t even afford cars) to drivers (especially richer, white folks who rely on parking cause they’re coming from the suburbs).
Parking should fund bike infrastructure and mass transit, if it’s allowed to exist at all. Make parking expensive enough and people will drive less and you’ll be able to fund better options. I’m gonna recommend “The High Cost of Free Parking” (even though I’ve never read it, only listened to interviews with the author).
Other than that, go yell at your representatives if you can. Call them. Go to city council meetings (if you can make it). If you can’t, ask someone to bring a tablet with a video call and tell them exactly why you’re not there. Tell them you know it can be done better. Tell them you want them to throw out their street design manual and replace it with a dutch one (I think this is may help). Be as absolutely loud and annoying as you can about everything that sucks and take every opportunity to tell people how much better it can be.
Get involved with cycling and transit freedom advocacy groups, if you can. If there isn’t anything in your area, consider starting one. Start listening to “The War on Cars” podcast (they did an interview about that book I mentioned), because they also have some advocacy related content. Try to get people in your city or town in contact with the Dutch Cycling Embassy. I’m sure there’s some more and I hope other folks also chip in with ideas.
Something something, welcome to the war on cars. (It’ll make sense when you listen to the podcast.)
Edit: Oh, here’s something a little less aggressive than my ranting if you’re wanting to convince non-anarchists: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/who-else-benefits-from-the-dutch-cycling-infrastructure/
Also, do you mind if I quote you? I’m still updating it and I might try to publish it. This is a great quote and it would be great if I could throw it in that section, if you wouldn’t mind.
Edit: Oh yeah, watch Not Just Bikes and introduce as many other people to the channel as possible. Never underestimate the power of being someone who absolutely will not shut the fuck up about what is wrong and the fact that it can be fixed.
chicaog sold its parking meters which effectively got rid of free municipal parking and upped the price big time. Its still available in private lots but many have some sort of limitation on ingress due to people not wanting to pay. Not really sure its effected driving at all. Granted though the money was not dedicated and it was largely a giveaway to big bussiness.
Oh, there are also “minimum parking requirement” zoning laws that force builders to subsidize parking.
Another strategy can be to try to get gas stations shut down.
I do think there’s a lot of potential to change things through local government, but there’s also direct action like Tactical Urbanism as well.
Thank you so much for your very thorough response! Please quote anything I wrote up there and let me know if there’s anything else I can share that would benefit your writing, cause your article is very well-written and introduced me to a lot of ideas I’ve yet to encounter and that feels very empowering <3
I’ve been meaning to head to city council meetings now that it’s warm where I’m at and my symptoms have lessened. They sometimes offer for people to video call in which would be a great option for me so there’s no reason to not and every reason to go be the metaphorical squeaky bike (or wheelchair) wheel :3
(Or literal squeaky wheelchair wheel if I can go in person because my chair isn’t the quietest XDD)
