It's not. It's a symbol of what is wrong with its opponents in SF, who are committed to opposing any change that doesn't benefit them directly.
Mario, a San Francisco user of the bike-share program, who has a discounted membership because he qualifies for food stamps, said he was perplexed by the backlash. “It’s the cheapest transportation option we have,” said the 29-year-old, who works as an administrative assistant and asked not to use his full name, because he feared backlash from anti-gentrification activists.
Gentrification isn't that. Gentrification is other people's gain impinging on a community. However, healthy forms of transit are valued by the out class, and new forms of business are associated with them.
Protesting a low-cost, low-impact community transit option is as transparent an announcement of prejudice as you can expect.
What's unfortunate is that bike sharing directly benefits many communities with lower income in many ways, as is noted in the article (and if you live in the area, you'll almost certainly encounter the discussion).
I think it's entirely reasonable to be mad about a lack of community consult, but I think that this is ultimately the City's fault and not the bikeshare programs. It's unlikely that the outcome of the share point placement would have been much different, but the reduction of vandalization would have easily covered the initial cost.
Sadly, San Francisco has a history of not treating certain communities fairly. They're obligated to do more to undo this bad work, in the event of a program that can be genuinely shown to help everyone.
> I think it's entirely reasonable to be mad about a lack of community consult
There were many, many, many community meetings about the bike share program expansion and ample time for anyone to give feedback. People always cry crocodile tears no matter how much public input is put into the process. Source: I'm an advocate for these things, see it at ALL of the meetings I go to.
> They're obligated to do more to undo this bad work, in the event of a program that can be genuinely shown to help everyone.
The program doesn't need to help _everone_ it needs to do more good than harm. There will be a ton of people who don't benefit directly by this but that is not a reason to remove or roll them back.
I think the "lack of community consult" is fictitious to be honest. It is easy to say someone should have reached out to the community more with no facts.
“We really want this to be seen as an asset to all communities around the city,” said Simon.
But Arguello said that his group will not negotiate. “We told them no, and there will be opposition,” he said.
Simon said that the company has done rigorous community outreach, including more than 30 town hall meetings with residents, to gauge approval and need in the city’s neighborhoods.
Good to see this then. Some folks I know who live around there told me they weren't part of the process. I suppose that's wrong, given this.
What Arguello is saying there is pretty... pretty strange. Certainly Japantown's leadership has been working to make their district less of a theatrical tourist show and more livable for the actual community of folks around there, and has been investing more time in outreach via local cultural outlets (which is why the temple festivals have been getting bigger and more public, I guess?).
IDK though, I only pass by these communities periodically now since I moved out of the city.
Yeah (better) advertising for the community meetings could have gotten a larger group of people involved. I personally don't come across much info about meetings happening for this or other issues so this might be a problem worth tackling in a more general sense.
And yeah, Arguello seems to be way out there with his ideas and he has really turned me off from the Calle 24 group. Unfortunately they are a major influence in 24th street politics because they have big megaphones even if they don't seem to represent the views of the people in the neighborhood sometimes.
Glad to hear Japantown appears to be headed in a good direction. I actually think a lot of SF's planning is improving the city.
> It's not. It's a symbol of what is wrong with its opponents in SF, who are committed to opposing any change that doesn't benefit them directly.
Which makes them distinct from exactly no one? This is a conflict of culture not of benefits. This is a result of city planners who do not talk to the communities they plan for/in, and who arbitrarily make changes to public services and facilities without input from the people who actually live in the places they're in.
I'm willing to bet money that nobody who decided where these bike stations went ever even spoke to the poor in the areas where they went. I'm also willing to bet that the people in those areas, even if it isn't true, believed that the extra parking spaces and extra traffic lanes benefitted them more than the bikes. If they didn't, they wouldn't be destroying them.
I'm not saying vandalizing is the solution here, but with the wealthy tech sector utterly dictating the price of housing and consequently shoving out literally everyone else all over the Bay Area, is it really such a reach of logic to think that a shiny rack of new bicycles, no doubt transacted via some kind of app or spiffy web service, is not going to be a lightning rod for communities that are getting the shit beat out of them by a tech obsessed elite?
I'm also willing to bet that the people in those areas, even if it isn't true, believed that the extra parking spaces and extra traffic lanes benefitted them more than the bikes. If they didn't, they wouldn't be destroying them.
Hah, classic engineering mistake: assuming people are rational.
People hate change.
People really hate change they didn't choose (irrespective of whether that change is good or bad), because people want to feel in control.
On top of that, given the sheer, mindless hostility that cyclists receive from non-cyclists (some deserved, most not at all), when you mix that with rage over gentrification, these bike share programs should've been seen as a target before they ever got rolled out.
So I agree with you that I'll bet the roll out of this program was botched.
But I very much disagree that the subsequent reaction was rational or thought out based on a cost-benefit analysis.
I bet that Mission residents would complain if they didn't get any bicycle stations. "Why are these only in rich neighborhoods? Why are the poor excluded? Poor people need these!"
It's a classic Bay Area story. Any kind of change is met with backlash from somewhere. No place does self-righteous entitlement quite like the Bay Area.
My part of the Mission didn't get a bike station because of NIMBYs who complained it would gentrify the neighborhood and remove parking. In other words, they specifically blocked it from being an option for the poor people while the rich neighborhoods were like sure put some bikes in.
Normally the way traffic works is small yields to big. Pedestrians yield to bikes who yield to light powered equipment (e.g. Forklift) who yield to cars/motorcycles/trucks who yield to heavier equipment who yield to trains who yield to ships.
This system where lighter classes of traffic yield to heavier classes of traffic is mostly compatible with typical road rules. There are specific exceptions such as crosswalks and implied exceptions like (like university campuses). Bike suck from a consistancy standpoint because they need to be treated like part of the cars/motorcycles/trucks class of traffic at some times and treated like pedestrians at other times. How they should be treated depends on a bunch of different details of the situation and the interpretation of those details depends on the driver/cyclist.
Drivers are hostile toward cyclists for the same reason drivers are hostile toward tourists who are traveling too slow, in the wrong lane for their turn, slam on the brakes to make the turn, etc. Both groups do not act in ways that are easily predictable to those around them and make those around them spend more effort keeping tabs on them making using the road more stressful.
Segregating different classes of traffic is how the problem is solved in any other case (Pedestrians get sidewalks or the shoulder, cars get the road, trains get rails, ships get water, forklifts and heavy haul trucks are restricted to areas where their interaction with the other classes of traffic is more controllable (when was the last time you saw someone driving a scissor lift down the road?).
Bike lanes solve the problem somewhat but what we really need are rules that better define who does what in what situation so that road users can better predict each other's behavior and not be nuisances to each other.
> Normally the way traffic works is small yields to big. Pedestrians yield to bikes who yield to light powered equipment (e.g. Forklift) who yield to cars/motorcycles/trucks who yield to heavier equipment who yield to trains who yield to ships.
Huh! This is exactly the opposite of my perception:
In general the way traffic works is "big has a responsibility to not hit small."
If you want to drive an 18-wheeler, you better get a special class of driver's license and special training, and you will certainly lose that special license if you expect "smaller" entities on the road to yield to you because you are larger.
When you drive a car, you again will need to get licensed and registered, though it's less difficult than if you want to drive a truck. You must drive safely around pedestrians--and should drive like you expect them to behave in unexpected ways, in a way where you won't kill them if they do. You yield to pedestrians when turning, or in a crosswalk, or parking lots. You must give bicyclists enough room when passing them and in general treat them like another vehicle, even though they are physically smaller.
When you're on a bike, you should absolutely yield to pedestrians, not the other way around.
In fact, I can't think of a single case in these most common classes of vehicles (trucks, cars, bikes, and pedestrians) where the law gives right-of-way to the larger entity, in a way it wouldn't if the entity were smaller. Can you?
>I can't think of a single case in these most common classes of vehicles (trucks, cars, bikes, and pedestrians) where the law gives right-of-way to the larger entity, in a way it wouldn't if the entity were smaller. Can you?
It's not about size it's about traffic class. In the absence of specific instruction smaller classes do not have the right of way. Flagmen direct traffic around construction. The flagman tells the cars to yield so (e.g.) a skid steer can cross the road. Crosswalks tell pedestrians where they have the right of way but sometimes other instructions supersede that right of way. Crossing at a crosswalk at an intersection with a "don't walk" light and you don't have the right of way.
There's a reason most places have a law on the books that lets them fine people for jaywalking. People stop or slow for jaywalkers not because the pedestrian has the right of way but because hitting them is less preferable.
Yes, people who drive wheeled vehicles are trained to expect the smaller classes of traffic to be idiots. The rules that people using the roads are supposed to abide by have many layers of redundancy to make up for stupid. Slowing for pedestrians who are crossing the street where/when they shouldn't be or other vehicles taking turns they shouldn't be is still preferable to just hitting them.
Stop thinking of trucks as separate. Road vehicle with a license plate are the same class of traffic and follow the same rules. Big trucks just optimize their behavior for their size.
The rules of the rod work on paper. The problem is that people don't follow them and there's a bunch of situational details that dictate whether or not the rules can/should be broken.
It's everyone's responsibility not to crash into other stuff. You will have to yield to people not following the on paper rules to do that. Whether having to do so is reasonable is dependent on the situation.
It's depressing that you point to the animosity of communities that have been traditionally on the sour end of many transit projects and claim their reaction is irrational.
Given that total knowledge is costly and time-consuming to acquire and often the window for action is shorter than the time it would take to acquire a total understanding of the situation, it's only natural people take cognitive shortcuts.
It's depressing that you point to the animosity of communities that have been traditionally on the sour end of many transit projects and claim their reaction is irrational.
All you've done is eloquently explained why their irrationality might be understandable.
Humans are, by and large, inherently irrational. That fact isn't depressing. It's simply true.
> Humans are, by and large, inherently irrational. That fact isn't depressing. It's simply true.
That's not the subject. You've suggested that this specific reaction is irrational. As I've pointed out, it's ENTIRELY rational to use available data to make a decision if the stakes are high and the duration of opportunity to counter it may be short.
It may be sub-optimal and even self-harming in the total balance of accounting, but that is a distinct condition from rationality. You seem to be confusing these different concepts.
As I've pointed out, it' ENTIRELY rational to use available data to make a decision if the stakes are high and the duration of opportunity to counter it may be short.
Sure. And you're assuming that's what happened here.
Based on how I've seen people behave, I'm assuming it's not.
We can both have our opinions. Hell, we're probably both right to some degree.
I will say, though, that when it comes to collective human behaviour, politics has taught me to be incredibly cynical... I've consistently been amazed by how willing people are to work against their own best interests in order to reinforce their personal and group identities.
But the vandals in particular? I seriously doubt they put any real thought into the benefits of this bike network. They saw change, introduced from outside, that they see as a symbol of white gentrification (and even worse, it's those damned cyclists that everyone hates... Probably with man buns and bottles of IPA in their backpacks), and reacted.
> Based on how I've seen people behave, I'm assuming it's not.
It's interesting to me that you agree with my previous statements about using approximations to be rational, then engage in that exact process to judge these people, and then refuse to offer them the opportunity to do the same.
I understand emotional tension around these issues tends to run hot. I can be so detached because I recently moved out of the city.
It's interesting to me that you agree with my previous statements about using approximations to be rational, then engage in that exact process to judge these people, and then refuse to offer them the opportunity to do the same.
Uhh, I'm not judging them at all. Where did you get that idea?
As you say, I'm irrational. Everyone is irrational.
Heck, your assumption that I'm somehow judging these people is irrational. :)
All I'm saying is I believe these people are reacting emotionally. That's it. There's no judgement in that. Again, it's simply my view of the facts. And given bikes are being hung in trees, I think not an unreasonable one.
And that fact changes how you solve the problem. Reasoning with someone who isn't thinking in terms of costs and benefits is pointless. You have to engage differently. So acknowledging that this is what is happening is the first step to moving ahead.
> It may be sub-optimal and even self-harming in the total balance of accounting, but that is a distinct condition from rationality. You seem to be confusing these different concepts.
I agree. The initial reaction to getting a pipe jammed into your chest is to remove the pipe, even though I'm pretty sure every medical professional would tell you to leave it there, you don't in the heat of the moment understand why: you have a foreign entity in your body, and your instincts are telling you to remove it. It is an irrational and detrimental reaction but I'm willing to bet the vast majority of people would do it, or at least attempt to do it until someone who was not in fight or flight mode stopped them.
Just because emotions are messy and not easily solved with logic and code does not make them irrelevant. We are not the fucking Borg and we likely won't be for an extremely long time, so discarding the emotional end of any argument just because you don't want to deal with the messy irrational reactions of human beings is stupid.
Do you have data to back this up? Given how quickly the internet took over the world, Facebook, iPhone and smartphones, mass move from IE to Chrome, Uber...
I really don't think there's much truth in this banal platitude.
Given how quickly many people reacted negatively to women's suffrage, the Voting Rights Act and removal of Jim Crow laws, the legalization of gay marriage, the removal of confederate statues and symbols...
I'd say history is at least partially on my side.
Wouldn't you?
As an aside: You might disagree with this "banal platitude", but you can be civil about it.
> People really hate change they didn't choose (irrespective of whether that change is good or bad), because people want to feel in control.
Which is why doing what was done here, i.e. rolling in overnight and changing shit, especially when the direct benefits of that have not even been attempted to be explained to, let alone explained well to the affected community, was probably a shitty idea. And the backlash was utterly predictable.
Considering that these people are paying taxes (even if they get it all back at the end of the year, optically, they are "paying taxes" because they lose a good chunk of their paycheck that they could probably really use) I don't think having a say as to what and how public services are created and executed in their community is such a terrible thing. I'd say that is a fairly rational desire.
> But I very much disagree that the subsequent reaction was rational or thought out based on a cost-benefit analysis.
I have a hard time recollecting any situation where vandalism is a rational, thought out reaction to anything. Nor did I say it was.
The locations for these stations and the second wave of them that will be installed have been known for a long time and numerous community meetings were conducted.
People are probably still just mad they're losing two parking spots near their business.
Agreed. It's really important to understand that the core of the frustration for those affected by the gentrification is the lack of control and the lack of influence they have over where they live. This piles up fast and even with beneficial changes that likely everyone can participate in, doing it without the input of the people actually living there just adds to the idea that they have no control over their lives.
I mean, look at upset people on HN get over user tracking (see recent Firefox analytics uproar) or any other change in software that is forced on users - with software there's a choice to not use and often a choice for another. With Urban development, typically once done it's hard to change or revert changes.
The residents want more control and input over their neighborhoods and lives, not corporations deciding for them. I would think this position is not unreasonable, even if it results in unreasonable actions. Understanding where these reactions come from helps move the discussion to a more amicable place. Does that mean scaling back gentrification efforts while trust is built up? Yes, but that's how relationships work; you have to build a trust foundation.
Well you'd lose the bet. Ford had multiple community meetings near my house and faced strong opposition from the crazy Calle 24 people. The head of Calle 24 literally said they "would not negotiate" like Ford is some kind of terrorist or something.
> Bike lanes have often become proxies in urban conflicts over gentrification, seen as a street design geared to young professionals, techies and hipsters and a pathway to trendy coffee shops, high-end retail and luxury apartments.
Strong disagree. Bike lanes are a necessary part of any city's infrastructure, providing a safe way for all cyclists to move from one point, to another. To anchor bike lanes to groups of people like techies and hipsters is absurd.
I think another way it could have been put: no one cared enough about bike riders to put in bike lanes until wealthier riders moved in.
Like, yeah, totally agree that bike lanes are an important part of any city's street planning. The more absurd thing is that there have been people riding bikes through the streets of SF for decades, and it wasn't until parts of the city began to gentrify, and bike shares became popular amongst the wealthier residents, that anyone cared enough to fix the problem.
I think it's not quite like that. More like what happened at Howard U. When no one as moving in and gentrifying people accused them of not doing enough for the community. It begins gentrifying and they get accused of contributing to the gentrification by upkeeping their environs too much and attracting gentrifiers.
As a former Howard student, I think the school's just hella cheap, but also doesn't like getting negative attention from the outside. Students (myself included) have been complaining for years about the quality of the buildings, and asking for renovations. But it wasn't until the neighborhood started gentrifying, and the new neighbors started to complain, that Howard did anything about it.
Which is why people get upset. Its not that the changes aren't good, its the fact that the change doesn't happen until someone else asks for them.
I don't know about Howard but seems like lots of colleges are spending on fancy new buildings (etc) to attract students and that's driving up the cost of education? Do you think that has anything to do with it?
Howard specifically tries to brand itself as a school that has a large amount of economic diversity, and a high percentage of students who are first generation college grads (around 38% for the class of 2014 [1]). Its a pretty well-known/prestigious HBCU, and doesn't have a problem attracting applicants.
But, unlike a lot of other schools in its position, its alumni network generally doesn't give back all that often (probably in part because first-gen college students are more-likely to have financial responsibilities to their families, and less-likely to be able to afford to give/prioritize giving back to their universities).
But I do specifically remember having to move off campus because my dorm had a mouse/mold problem (woke up multiple nights in a row to mice in my bed, and started having breathing problems because of the mold. Some students even had mushrooms growing out of their carpet). And when I brought it up to the director of residence life, he responded by saying that it wasn't a big enough deal to address, and that students always complain about these things and eventually stop pushing....So....
Is that an indictment of the old residents (who didn't / couldn't push through the legislation) or the new residents (who use their power and influence to get it done)?
Its probably more complicated than that. In areas that don't have bike lanes, people tend to just bike on the sidewalks, and pedestrians just put up with having to move out of the way. The reason is likely a mix between being historically ignored by the city, not bothering to really try, and also just knowing that sidewalks are safer to bike on (even if inconvenient).
When wealthier people move into a neighborhood, expecting bike lanes, they push for them. They probably have more power/influence, but they also have a higher since of entitlement that causes them to not give up, even if the city pushes back.
People who agitate for change are more likely to get change. Wealthy residents advocated for bike lanes. The previous residents didn't. How else could the world possibly work?
Are you sure the previous residents didn't advocate for change?
You don't think there's a small chance the previous residents _did_ advocate for change, but their advocacy wasn't effective because it wasn't backed by wealth?
For many poor and middle class people bikes were a sign you were poor and could not afford a car. So some people in the middle would avoid biking so as not to look poor.
Upper middle class, having some security and wealth didn't care about "looking poor". They could ride $5000 bikes to display wealth or could ride $50 used bikes, interchangeably. They already had status so bikes were neutral or even positive (I'm active, I'm pro environment, etc.)
Anecdote: I come from a working-class neighborhood. Adults on bikes were roundly ridiculed when I was growing up. There is absolutely no chance (or evidence) that the adults of my childhood had any interest in bike lanes (for exactly the reasons you describe).
Yes. I am extremely confident that newcomer wealthy residents were asking for bike lanes in a way that previous less wealthy residents weren't. You might ask yourself why so many people have an interest in avoiding this explanation. It's just politics.
> To anchor bike lanes to groups of people like techies and hipsters is absurd.
Completely agree. The phrase "this is why we can't have nice things" comes to mind. I can sort of understand the backlash against corporate shuttles or even Uber, since these roll in and only benefit a certain layer of society. However, that decidedly does not seem to be the case with these bikes. From the article:
> “When you look at the transportation privileges that have been provided for these techies, and when you now look at these bikes, it’s not for Juan. It ain’t for Pablo ... The feeling of people in this community is like we don’t exist.”
But then:
> Supporters [...] claimed it is one of the most accessible in the country, with a $5 annual membership for low-income people and options to sign up without a credit or debit card.
This just sounds like complaining about change for the sake of it. Then again, maybe this whole anti-gentrification story is overblown. It could just be bored kids with no larger agenda. After all, the article even mentions it's common for vandals to target bike sharing systems when they first appear.
Well they managed to block a bike share location near my house after crying about how it would gentrify the neighborhood and harm the businesses on 24th st. More important for them to have a parking spot for the Tesla out front I guess.
Another thing it looks like is appealing to the disenfranchised the way it's done in a place like Venezuela.
You blame all maladies and shortcomings on the professionals, the middle class, the merchants, etc., who are taking your entitlements at every chance. It has the typical characteristics of incited class struggle.
Yep. Stuff like this gets twisted and distorted and then whipped up by politicians, pundits and "journalists" in order to get votes, viewers and clicks. It's disgusting.
edit: downvote? what's to downvote? seriously? don't be a coward, explain yourself!
What something is, and what something is seen as, are rarely the same thing. Even something shared across class boundaries.
Visiting a coffee shop (no matter what you buy) will always be seen as a luxury activity, even though people have been going to diners for coffee (or making their own) for years.
Probably because coffee shops tend to charge two to four times more for a cup than a diner would. Like, you could buy a bag of coffee grounds for the amount some people pay
If you just get a cup of coffee, the price is usually about the same, modulo free refills. The quality from the coffee shop is also usually better.
Diners (at least those where I live) have started offering more options (including cappuccino style concoctions) in response to the coffee house trend, and now tend to match the prices of those coffee houses.
what something is seen as is largely shaped by politicians jockeying for power and muckraking journalists whoring their principals for clicks.
edit: again with the downvotes? is this not largely true? I think you give most people too much credit if you disagree with this. please back up your down votes with some kind of argument.
Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN and (more importantly) stop using the site for ideological battle? That's destructive of what HN is for.
The bigger difference is between single people and families. If you have an infant or disabled family member, transportation through biking isn't practical. If you have two kids at different schools who both need to arrive between 8am and 8:15 while you need to be at work before 9, then biking isn't going to cut it. If you coach your son's baseball team and need to carry a ton of gear, you need a car. However, if you're only responsibility to is to get yourself to work before 10am, then biking is great!
I can understand the frustration from people who need to drive when new infrastructure geared towards biking seemingly comes at the expense of drivers. Ex. Market St, the main street in downtown SF, is scheduled to be closed to private vehicles and only used by bikes, taxis and buses.
If your children are old enough to ride a bike but too young or too poor to have a car, then they can actually bike to school themselves which could make the commute nicer for everyone. They could bike alone, with friends, with a sibling, or with a parent depending on their age and how far they have to go. In the Mission there are a ton of schools so a lot of students probably don't have to travel far especially when they're young.
Definitely. Anchoring bike lines or bike infrastructure to any one sub-set of people is asinine. Hell, linking bike riding with any one sub-set of people is problematic.Spend any time around a bike co-op and you'll see that lots of people need bikes and bike lanes — from decked-out road bikers to those of lower income who don't own a car, and yeah, maybe some hipsters with fixies.
That part of the article left a nasty taste in my mouth. The only reason anyone would make such a statement would be to backup their own shortsighted, backward-looking way of thinking.
> cycling is a physical activity that you can partake in well into old age.
I'm not sure at what age it's no longer safe. Even when you are young, riding around a busy city with traffic can be a bit dangerous. Coordination decreases as you age, and at certain point, one fall can yield broken bones. A broken hip, for example, when you are old can be the beginning of a permanent decline.
There are comments about how communities were not consulted before installing these bikes.
I found it so refreshing to actually see something happen in SF. No endless community town hall meetings, pilot programs, bond measures, and political grandstanding. Instead a bunch of cheap and publicly accessible bikes appeared overnight.
No of course the program is not perfect, but if the city had asked every single person if they were OK with it we would have ended up with nothing.
This article is one of the most rediculous thing I've ever read.
San Francisco needs those bikes for people to get around because the public transportation in SF is downright awful. The "subway" is composed of cars from many lines that travel through a single tube and then go on the street and become subject to the traffic. I walk faster than many bus lines.
If anything, the bikes make life easier for everyone here and that is a good thing.
That's sort of besides the point, as the article points out. Many people realize these are in fact an economic boon.
But since the rollout was handled poorly (particularly by the city) it's unsurprising that folks objected to parking and space being displaced without any clear explanation of the value proposition.
> Does the value proposition of bikes for rent at lower cost than provided by existing bike rentals needs to be explained?
The cost of it, its availability, and eligibility certainly needs to be explained. How would anyone know them otherwise? I've seen multiple stations and the signage explaining the program did not answer my questions, but rather referred me to a website. That's not an option for everyone, nor were the signs I saw in a diversity of languages to improve comprehension.
Maybe the stations I saw lacked these features and others have them, so I will accept correction there.
You might be right here that the stations could do a better job of explaining different options, but it seems like people will tell their friends about it and learn about it that way if its useful.
To be honest though, almost every major city has a bike share now so I am a little perplexed that we need to reexplain its value from first principles.
Those bikes cost money to rent, though. The Bay Area Bike Share costs $3 for a 30 minute rental. That's expensive compared to the Muni. The annual pass is a $124 fee. That's a steep one time fee for someone who's barely making ends meet.
These folks who bike generally aren't renting bike shares. They're scavenging cheap used kids' bikes off Craigslist.
The muni pass costs $70/month. One year of bike costs less than 2 months of muni, not sure the cost argument holds up. If you are actually using it to commute, and not to hipster around town, it's very cheap.
As another commenter pointed out they even have a program where you can get a yearly pass for $5 if you qualify. I simply can't see this as worse than not having it.
Sounds like you've never been poor. Often it's easier for a poor person to pay daily than to scrounge for a pass. They don't have $70 in the bank today, but they have enough to ride daily until their next payday.
That makes sense but why would you be enraged about this if you were in that situation? It's not hurting anyone besides maybe car owners who aren't in the category you mention.
I can't afford a lot of things but if having them available improves the life of others why bother complaining if it doesn't harm me.
"Bike Share for All provides a one-time $5 annual membership for qualifying residents. The program also includes a cash payment option for those who do not have a debit or credit card. Bike Share for All is available to Bay Area residents ages 18 and older who qualify for Calfresh, SFMTA (Low Income) Lifeline Passes or PG&E CARE utility discount."
> “Overnight, they just came and set this up. They had no respect for this community.”
A common narrative amongst opponents of the program is the lack of community outreach. Not mentioned in the article is that Motivate, the company that runs the bike share program, reached out to communities and collected feedback for 2+ years before rolling the program out.
Yeah its amazing the opponents can just lie and say it happened overnight. I knew where the stations were going for a LONG time and there were over 30 community meetings.
Meanwhile the critics say they "will not negotiate" with the bike share program. Never a good sign.
> Supporters of the program said it could help people struggling to make ends meet and claimed it is one of the most accessible in the country, with a $5 annual membership for low-income people and options to sign up without a credit or debit card.
This is the most enraging part of the article. The people who administer this program spent time and money to make it more accessible to the poor, and they're still vilified as gentrifiers. Will they bother to do that next time? Isn't the lesson here, "don't bother to sit down and listen to the activists and incorporate their feedback, it won't help"?
Haters gonna hate...everything. Anyone who mutilates a bicycle like this has deep seated psychological issues that go way beyond planning and any gentrification issues.
As a probably gentrifier in NYC, I can relate to both sides of this issue. I have friends who grew up in Brooklyn who are so incensed by gentrification that they throw garbage all over the street, in order to deter "more fucking billionaires from moving into their high rises". Feelings aren't always rational, nor are our reactions to them. I applaud outreach groups who are trying to find common ground here. As Mario says, “It’s the cheapest transportation option we have.” And everyone should be onboard with that, especially because it also helps solve congestion that makes quality of life worse for all residents (travel time, air quality, noise...)
> in order to deter "more fucking billionaires from moving into their high rises"
They're most probably fighting a losing battle. The only thing that can now stop the NYC real-estate bubble from inflating even further would be a severe financial crisis, in which case your friends' neighborhood gentrification will be the last of their problems.
I wonder if your friend is also incensed by all the low- and middle-income families moving into those high-rises, or just by the "billionaires" who make that feasible.
I live in the neighborhood in question. The "nextdoor" group for the neighborhood has a healthy mix of "new comers" and "long timers/latinos". There is a poll in the neighborhood asking "should the bike share stations be allowed in the mission", and right now it has about 75% "yes", 20% "no" and 5% "I don't know". IMO, this poll is clearly not scientific, but it does show broad based support for the bikes, and my view is that those who are virulently against the bikes are a distinct, loud minority of residents in the neighborhood.
One of the most ridiculous facts that gets overlooked in all this is that the bike share wanted to offer cheaper day passes to use the bikes. The bike rental shops pushed back and said it would harm their business so the bike share couldn't offer a cheap daily pass and had to push people to either a very short rental (say 30-45 minutes) or a long term membership.
Now everyone blames the bike share for not having a reasonable pass to bike for a few hours or the whole day even though it was their competition that made it that way!
I would think historically and perhaps globally, travelling by car was a symbol of wealth, and bikes were for the masses and the poor. So the attacks are more likely directed at a culture that embraces bikes rather than directed at gentrification.
It's easy to slash bike tires, it's hard to move into a high paying job in SF when you're not already on the right track. I'm one of the people doing my fair share of displacing low income people. And that's because I happen to be able to afford the huge rent.
Do I like seeing that kind of money going to my landlord? No way!
Would I be interested in seeing more political initiatives designed to increase the housing supply? Yes!
Am I worried about who will be able to afford to live here and teach my kids or police the streets? Yes again!
What about the chronic nimbyism that plagues the area? People that already own houses here are desperate not to see any devaluation to their properties.
It pains me to see the murals in the Mission portraying tech people as the bad guys, when to me it's more like we're just the visible newcomers that are getting most of the blame. At least for now we get to share some of the attention with the bike sharing system.
In my city, bike sharing stations are in wealthy / hip neighborhoods, and bike lanes connect those neighborhoods with each other and with the places such people go.
The bike stations are not in neighborhoods of people who need inexpensive transportation, and the bike lanes do not connect, for example, poor and working class people with their jobs. For example, bike lanes connecting poor immigrant communities with the restaurants where many of the residents work would be great.
Requiring a credit card also limits access (though I don't know if that's still true).
Bike sharing is designed by the young, upwardly mobile urban, for the young, upwardly mobile urban - maybe that's done unconsciously, but that's the outcome I see in my town.
It costs money to provide bicycles, and bicycles are easy to steal and break. There most likely exists a funding and expense problem in poor immigrant communities that makes it unfeasible to offer bicycles, the local government does not collect enough tax and the losses from theft and damage to bicycles too high. Requiring a credit card with a sufficient amount of credit limit fixes this issue.
> There most likely exists a funding and expense problem in poor immigrant communities that makes it unfeasible to offer bicycles
The funding for the wealthy and poor communities all comes from the same city treasury.
> Requiring a credit card with a sufficient amount of credit limit fixes this issue.
So much for opportunity, democracy, and equality under the law. Only the few who qualify get the real benefits of citizenship. Billy Bragg once sang (referring to Ronald Reagan's "Morning in America"):
It's morning in America
And you can be your best
If you have a major credit card
And can pass a urine test
Without knowing what city you're talking about, it could be like SF where the poor neighborborhoods blocked bikes. Here they say the bikes are too expensive for poor people even though its $5/year if you qualify for discounted public transit.
The poorer neighborhoods didn't block the bikes. My impression: Upwardly mobile younger citizens liked the idea of bikeshare, so they built a system to serve their interests using pubilc (i.e., everybody's) money. The real value to bikeshare, IMHO, is the economic benefit to those who lack access to other forms of transportation such as privately owned cars and (automobile) ridsshare.
San Francisco's brand of liberalism has jumped the shark. It's like they live in opposite world. It's bad enough that they believe that way to lower housing costs is to never build anything at all and to impose rent control in a market that is all too willing to convert to condos and sell. But now they are arguing that the lowest cost form of urban transportation should be stripped of its infrastructure in order to protect against gentrification. It's crazy, and they should be ashamed of their inability to critically think about anything at all.
It's the alt-left vs the moderate left (of which I'm a part of, I think bike lanes and bike sharing are great ideas). Just goes to show you that the crazies aren't just in the Republican party.
All cities change, can't stop time from flowing. It's not just the LA culture that is under threat of change. I don't see a good side or a bad side to this process. It just is.
I would like to know more about the Ford sponsorship. First of all, why would they sponsor it? How much are they paying? Is there another bike share program that doesn't require me to be a moving Ford advertisement?
Citibike, Ford, Barclays... most the major bike shares have corporate sponsors. They sponsor it because they get highly visible advertising and they collect mobility data about where people move between.
The proportion of whites in San Francisco is steadily falling [0], yet the interviewees are upset that rich white people are moving in. Whites went from 92% in 1940, to 42% in 2010, and still there's too many?
So how long until SF and the Bay Area's anti-development, anti-improvement ethos causes some other place (Austin/Denver)? to replace Silicon Valley.
For me, I'm only here for the money I get to keep after expenses. Once somewhere else matches that and without the crazy whining about gentrification and privilege, and the extreme NIMBYism, I'm gone. I suspect the same is true for many others.
> So how long until SF and the Bay Area's anti-development, anti-improvement ethos causes some other place (Austin/Denver)? to replace Silicon Valley.
> For me, I'm only here for the money I get to keep after expenses. Once somewhere else matches that and without the crazy whining about gentrification and privilege, and the extreme NIMBYism, I'm gone. I suspect the same is true for many others.
Can't comment on Austin, but having lived in the Bay and Denver, there is just as much gnashing of teeth and nativism in Denver (let alone Boulder, my god). Same goes for Portland, Seattle, hell, even NYC. Locales like to act like they are the only city in the states undergoing demographic shifts.
The privilege of being a non-white professional in San Francisco is getting to join a housing development protest to check out details on the new trendy building I want to consider living.
Mario, a San Francisco user of the bike-share program, who has a discounted membership because he qualifies for food stamps, said he was perplexed by the backlash. “It’s the cheapest transportation option we have,” said the 29-year-old, who works as an administrative assistant and asked not to use his full name, because he feared backlash from anti-gentrification activists.