Food For Thought – Bike Snob NYC

There’s nothing like a trip to place issues in perspective:

Although I can’t assist including some extra perspective, which is that, whereas it’s true that no person has taken away our freedom to trip in New York to date, 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, one of the vital profound methods wherein 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 usually dismissed any criticism of them by deploying the basic “…However Automobiles!” counter-argument–which is truthful sufficient, since supply riders don’t trigger almost as a lot carnage as drivers.

Nonetheless, supply riders have made getting across the metropolis extra fraught for pedestrians, customers of the bike lane (it’s not likely a motorbike 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 individuals are giving up on driving bikes, all whereas suggesting they’re worse than vehicles and vehicles!

Heady stuff certainly. Till just lately this is able to 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. Nonetheless, congestion pricing has been “paused” indefinitely. So within the meantime it seems he’s tinkering with the supply rider downside, 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 will probably be much less chaotic:

However lengthy journeys are the one motive this entire 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 all the pieces, says that we’d like…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 convey you the meals? Quick journeys are imagined to be the issue with driving, however now they’re going to repair the meals supply shitshow? Additionally, no person ordering out-of-the-way Viking meals is doing it out of necessity, the town’s vibrant Viking group 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 may use the cash to construct “deliverista hubs:”

That’s all superb, but it surely’s value noting that till 2020 we had common eating places. Then we began constructing eating places exterior 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 depart their properties.

Urbanists discuss an excellent recreation, however when you begin digging you notice it’s actually nearly turning the town into one large restaurant.

However the greatest downside with this plan appears to be that it reduces meals supply riders, who’re human beings, to knowledge factors you possibly can plug right into a mannequin and whose habits you possibly can manipulate just by rising or lowering a greenback determine. Whether or not supply riders are making brief journeys or lengthy journeys they need and have to earn a living. They’re additionally most likely touring lengthy distances to take action; residing 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 potential for them to commute to and from locations exterior of the town the place the price of residing 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 downside:

Will somebody operating 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 way in which, Komanoff additionally hyperlinks to the New York Metropolis comptroller’s Avenue Security within the Period of Micromobility report, which comprises this desk:

In the event you 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.