There’s nothing like a journey to place issues in perspective:
Although I can’t assist including some further perspective, which is that, whereas it’s true that no one has taken away our freedom to journey in New York to this point, they’ve gotten fairly shut:
I additionally appear to recollect the advocates being on board with all that stuff on the time.
Simply one thing to remember.
Talking of 2020, some of the profound methods during which the cityscape has modified since then is the proliferation of meals supply riders. Advocates have allied themselves with meals supply riders, and so they have typically dismissed any criticism of them by deploying the basic “…However Vehicles!” counter-argument–which is truthful sufficient, since supply riders don’t trigger almost as a lot carnage as drivers.
However, supply riders have made getting across the metropolis extra fraught for pedestrians, customers of the bike lane (it’s not likely a motorcycle lane anymore, it’s now a motor scooter lane), and sure, even drivers, and I used to be stunned to see that advocates are lastly acknowledging this–or one is, anyway:
Not solely that, however he’s calling them “a drag” on biking and even citing them as the explanation persons are giving up on using bikes, all whereas suggesting they’re worse than vehicles and vehicles!
Heady stuff certainly. Till just lately this may have been positively unthinkable, like Grant Petersen saying friction shifters are a ache within the ass.
Charles Komanoff, the creator of the piece, is the town’s preeminent congestion pricing pundit. Nevertheless, congestion pricing has been “paused” indefinitely. So within the meantime it seems he’s tinkering with the supply rider drawback, like a hairstylist training on the canine whereas his salon is being renovated. The issue, as Komanoff sees it, is that meals supply journeys are too lengthy, and he thinks in the event that they’re shorter issues can be much less chaotic:
However lengthy journeys are the one motive this complete trade exists. Earlier than supply apps you simply ordered meals domestically. However now if you happen to get a hankering for some out-of-the-way restaurant all you must do is faucet in your telephone and a man on an e-bike or motor scooter will go get it for you:
To deal with this, Komanoff, who thinks taxes repair the whole lot, says that we want…a tax, go determine:
I’m unsure why that may work. For one factor, who cares if the journeys are shorter if everybody’s nonetheless whizzing round to deliver you the meals? Brief journeys are presupposed to be the issue with driving, however now they’re going to repair the meals supply shitshow? Additionally, no one ordering out-of-the-way Viking meals is doing it out of necessity, the town’s vibrant Viking neighborhood however:
No, ordering in is a luxurious and a comfort–some would possibly go as far as to name it an extravagance–and even Komanoff admits he has no thought if a further tax would work. However he does say that even when it doesn’t we might use the cash to construct “deliverista hubs:”
That’s all tremendous, but it surely’s price noting that till 2020 we had common eating places. Then we began constructing eating places outdoors the eating places:
Now we have to begin constructing much more infrastructure in order that eating places can serve diners who can’t even be bothered to go away their houses.
Urbanists speak a superb sport, however when you begin digging you understand it’s actually nearly turning the town into one big restaurant.
However the greatest drawback with this plan appears to be that it reduces meals supply riders, who’re human beings, to knowledge factors you’ll be able to plug right into a mannequin and whose conduct you’ll be able to manipulate just by rising or lowering a greenback determine. Whether or not supply riders are making quick journeys or lengthy journeys they need and have to make cash. They’re additionally most likely touring lengthy distances to take action; dwelling near the town line myself I see supply riders streaming out and in of the town from factors north. The identical contraptions that facilitate journeys to and from the Viking meals restaurant additionally make it attainable for them to commute to and from locations outdoors of the town the place the price of dwelling is less expensive. So whether or not their Viking meals runs are .5 miles or 1.5 miles they’re nonetheless creating what Komanoff calls “a drag” on biking by turning the paths into motorscooter superhighways.
In an ideal world these shitty supply apps would take a few of their enterprise capital cash, construct their very own services, present their very own automobiles, and rent their very own supply riders as precise workers. As an alternative they simply construct fancy workplaces for themselves and make the remainder of it everybody else’s drawback:
Will somebody working a DoorDash supply be allowed to a lot as take a leak there? I admit I’m speculating, however my guess could be no.
By the best way, Komanoff additionally hyperlinks to the New York Metropolis comptroller’s Avenue Security within the Period of Micromobility report, which incorporates this desk:
If you happen to ignore the e-bike and moped deaths, and also you take into account that ridership has elevated significantly since 2010, you would possibly conclude that the streets are literally getting safer for folks on common bikes.
Both that or we’re disappearing altogether, which might be extra probably.