A History Lesson: The Auto Industry Has Brainwashed Us

Here’s fascinating history on how we’ve been brainwashed, explained in Peter Norton’s book,  Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City. “In ad after ad during the Super Bowl, auto companies… have long promised us nirvana. And we’ve blindly shilled out our life savings” to buy, insure, maintain and park cars. The 1920s program at Harvard taught “the first generation of traffic engineers to prioritize traffic lights for faster driving and more difficult walking.”

We need to use language and educate to make sure messages like “biking is normal,” “walkability,” and “good transportation choices” become better understood and more widely accepted over the next decade.

The conversation continues about scooters, “…as a transportation choice – and other micro mobility vehicles are not a novelty, and we should give everything we can to helping them succeed.”

 

To take back our streets, remember how we lost them to cars

Ford Motor’s “Road of Tomorrow” from the 1939 World Fair

Streets are now thoroughly car-centric, and the idea of people-centered streets remains a difficult concept for most people to grasp. These groups recognized they needed to shift the perceived cause of collisions away from drivers and onto pedestrians. Under the name Motordom, the interest groups were quoted in a 1922 edition of Engineering News-Record that they would lead the effort in a “revision of our concept of what a city street is for.”

A 1937 anti-jaywalking ad from the Federal Art Project. Source

Read more…

https://mobilitylab.org/2015/10/09/how-we-lost-streets-to-cars/

Don’t Blame The Scooter Riders

As Mike Manzella, AP transportation manager reported at the Homeowners’ meeting, scooter use has massively surpassed the use of bike share since the September 2019 launch.  This is the case in cities all over the world where scooters have been introduced.  With the huge increase in scooter usage there is a rise in injuries, but not because of the scooters themselves, or the people riding them.  We’re overlooking the real problem, which is too much space for cars.

People have been brainwashed by the auto industry that roads belong to drivers since cars started to become ubiquitous beginning in the 20’s. Roads quickly became the domain of drivers, to the exclusion of all other users, as the industry subtly and not subtly used ad campaigns and articles to influence the populace. Walkers and bike riders were designated to move within narrow painted lines, people walking outside lines are called jaywalkers, and they’re blamed for being hit by drivers.  The number of people killed by drivers is growing. “More pedestrians and cyclists were killed last year in the United States than in any year since 1990.”

Now scooter riders share the narrow painted spaces allocated to bike riders, and as the newcomers to streets, they’re the new focus of culpability and safety concerns.  #toomanycars #slowthecars

“The rise of the e-scooter has been meteoric, eclipsing bike share usage nationally in 2018, just a year after gaining widespread availability, according to a recent report by NACTO, a national association of city officials. But that doesn’t mean the scooters had anywhere to go — except onto roadways where drivers believe they are the sole legitimate user.”

The Real Reasons Scooter Injuries Are Exploding

It’s not time to quash the micromobility revolution. It’s time to build a world where micromobility riders stand a chance on our streets.

By Kea Wilson 

Photo: Nathan Rupert/Flickr

Scooter injuries are up more than 200 percent over the last four years — but everyone is blaming the wrong people.

The Jan. 8 report from JAMA Surgery does not offer much context for the 222-percent increase in scooter fatalities between 2014 and 2018, which has allowed news outlets to fill the gap with alarmist articles decrying the lack of scooter regulation, lack of helmet usage, and more.

Here’s what’s really going on…

Read more…

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/01/09/e-scooter-injuries/

Slow Roll Bike Ride Tomorrow, Sunday, Jan. 12th, 2pm

A great article in the AP Sun about our monthly rides!  Stay tuned on FaceBook, Instagram, and Next Door for upcoming rides!

A LEISURELY BIKE RIDE AROUND ASBURY PARK THIS SUNDAY

The rides are monthly community events open to everyone, residents and friends of Asbury Park. Helmets are required for those under age 17. The rides last from 60-90 minutes.

“We stop along the way for photos, very easy,” said organizer Polli Schildge, a member of the Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition. “We ride when it’s cold and even once with snow on the roads!”

Schildge said that rides are not held in precipitation, however, and those gatherings are rescheduled.

Email apcompletestreets@gmail.com to get on the mailing list for the monthly Slow Roll, or for more information. Visit the Complete Streets Coalition Facebook page for more information about biking, walking and alternative transportation in Asbury Park, as well as transportation initiatives elsewhere.

The group has been been meeting at The Carousel for the past several rides because of its central location. But Schildge says she’s “happy to begin rides anywhere that will attract the most people to get together on bikes — any age, any kind of bike for an easy cruise around Asbury Park.”

See the full article here!

https://asburyparksun.com/a-leisurely-bike-ride-around-asbury-park-this-sunday/