Swizzle [bicycling]
Feb. 17th, 2021 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rebeccmeisterMy college is requiring that all employees get COVID tested before the start of our spring semester next Monday, with the PCR-based test.
Getting this checked off the to-do list is pretty easy for people who get around by car. Heck, I could have gotten it done last Wednesday when I went for my second vaccine poke, because there's a drive-through testing site at SUNY Albany in addition to the mass vaccination site.
However, at the drive-through testing site they absolutely do not allow anybody who is not inside a closed-up motor vehicle to get tested. I know this because of a colleague who commented that if you show up there in a convertible with the top down, they'll make you leave and put the top up before you can proceed. (*gasp* how inconvenient!)
Based on information from students here who don't own cars, there's a testing site at an Annoying Big Pharmacy Chain close to my house that allows walk-ups, but according to the Annoying Big Pharmacy Chain's website that testing site does not offer the gold-standard PCR-based test.
So I found the next-closest location of the Annoying Big Pharmacy Chain and scheduled a test in spite of the online verbiage declaring it to be a drive-through testing site.
This was one of those occasions when I think that presenting as a Harmless Masked Middle-Aged White Woman gave me an advantage over people who do not present as a Harmless Masked Middle-Aged Woman. I simply wish to point out my privilege here. Long story short, after some internal consultation they relented and gave me the self-administered test to administer to myself and then drop off in the drive-through bin. From the drive-through window I could see that the pharmacy was pretty busy with foot traffic inside. I definitely wouldn't want to have had to go inside that store. One of the worst Covid risk encounters I've had so far was inside of a different Annoying Big Pharmacy Chain where I went to pick up my cat's methimazole prescription.
While I'm relieved to have the required test done and over with, I'm sad about the lasting inequalities in access to healthcare resources in this country and state, particularly as tied to the privilege of motor vehicle ownership and female whiteness.
In general a lot of places really don't like it when people walk up to the drive-through, and yet isn't it also ridiculous how much stuff in this country is constructed solely around the comfort and convenience of people in cars?
I want to note that the main excuse I've heard given for the dislike of people walking up to the drive-through is that it's "dangerous" for the person who isn't in their protective vehicular shell. And yet traffic flow through drive-throughs tends to be very highly and carefully controlled, so it seems to me that the drive-through is actually far safer for a person on a bicycle or on foot as compared to many other spaces, particularly parking lots.
This is all what structural inequality looks like in the U.S.
Getting this checked off the to-do list is pretty easy for people who get around by car. Heck, I could have gotten it done last Wednesday when I went for my second vaccine poke, because there's a drive-through testing site at SUNY Albany in addition to the mass vaccination site.
However, at the drive-through testing site they absolutely do not allow anybody who is not inside a closed-up motor vehicle to get tested. I know this because of a colleague who commented that if you show up there in a convertible with the top down, they'll make you leave and put the top up before you can proceed. (*gasp* how inconvenient!)
Based on information from students here who don't own cars, there's a testing site at an Annoying Big Pharmacy Chain close to my house that allows walk-ups, but according to the Annoying Big Pharmacy Chain's website that testing site does not offer the gold-standard PCR-based test.
So I found the next-closest location of the Annoying Big Pharmacy Chain and scheduled a test in spite of the online verbiage declaring it to be a drive-through testing site.
This was one of those occasions when I think that presenting as a Harmless Masked Middle-Aged White Woman gave me an advantage over people who do not present as a Harmless Masked Middle-Aged Woman. I simply wish to point out my privilege here. Long story short, after some internal consultation they relented and gave me the self-administered test to administer to myself and then drop off in the drive-through bin. From the drive-through window I could see that the pharmacy was pretty busy with foot traffic inside. I definitely wouldn't want to have had to go inside that store. One of the worst Covid risk encounters I've had so far was inside of a different Annoying Big Pharmacy Chain where I went to pick up my cat's methimazole prescription.
While I'm relieved to have the required test done and over with, I'm sad about the lasting inequalities in access to healthcare resources in this country and state, particularly as tied to the privilege of motor vehicle ownership and female whiteness.
In general a lot of places really don't like it when people walk up to the drive-through, and yet isn't it also ridiculous how much stuff in this country is constructed solely around the comfort and convenience of people in cars?
I want to note that the main excuse I've heard given for the dislike of people walking up to the drive-through is that it's "dangerous" for the person who isn't in their protective vehicular shell. And yet traffic flow through drive-throughs tends to be very highly and carefully controlled, so it seems to me that the drive-through is actually far safer for a person on a bicycle or on foot as compared to many other spaces, particularly parking lots.
This is all what structural inequality looks like in the U.S.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-17 05:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-17 05:28 pm (UTC)We choose not to own a car for environmental reasons and they give us a hard time on so many things while telling us how important environmental reasons are...........
Like during lockdown we get told not to travel unless essential and given dirty looks for using public transport and have police board public transit firing questions while no one says a dickie bird to all the people driving around for no apparent reason!
no subject
Date: 2021-02-17 06:27 pm (UTC)You're only human if you own a car; this was a deliberate policy decision in the 40s. Post-war boom driven by mix of suburbs and auto sales and you have to have both so both were enforced.
Rather like forcing large banks out of fossil carbon loans, not fixable short of policy changes. And MANY policy changes by now, because it's in everything.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-17 08:08 pm (UTC)One of these days I should probably read a book or two on that whole era and the destruction of rail transit in the US so I can be less handwave-y about it.
At the moment I'm going to contribute by empowering more people to ride bikes, getting them to see their built environment differently.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-18 03:07 am (UTC)If you do, please point me at it, since I'm very sceptical of the thesis. Too many data points say it's wrong. For example, the survival of rail transit in NYC, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and New Orleans* (and maybe other cities; those are just the ones I knew offhand and verified).
*: In Nawlins, some streetcar lines were converted to buses in the '50's, so what was left at the end of private ownership in '74 was much less than immediately after WW2. But a brief check of the dates indicates that most of the conversion to buses (or abandonment) happened before WW2.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-18 01:25 pm (UTC)But again - can't claim I've read any convincing authoritative accounts of what all happened between the auto industry and local/state/federal gov'ts in the timeframe between ~1900-1950.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-18 01:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-18 03:24 pm (UTC)Well, the big point to me was that at least the DC and New Orleans streetcar systems were in private hands, not governments ones. In DC, Congress did order the last private owner to switch to buses by '63, but Congress has unusual power in DC.
The conversion to buses rather than abandonment suggests other hypotheses, especially with the systems in private hands. Rather than destroying streetcars, it looks like the owners were trying to find less expensive and more flexible mass transit to compete with automobiles. Which fits some lines being converted and others apparently remaining in heavy use right up to the end (or in Nawlins' case, lines surviving to be expanded in the present day).
The DC example seems to support that idea. While Congress was ordering conversion of steetcars to buses during '55-'63, other parts of the area governments started planning for a major ring highway (now the Washington Beltway) and a massive subway system (DC Metro) in 1960.
According to the Pedia of All Truthy Information, plans for the Metro weren't completed until '68, and construction didn't start until '69. But despite the delay, this shows that at least the DC-area governments -- along with the feds, who picked up half the cost as per usual policy on mass transit -- were willing to spend huge sums on rail transportation, so long as it wasn't for streetcars.
Sorry for the soapbox speech. :) I just have a belief that our problems with mass transit aren't due to some vast conspiracy, but simply that we're trying to solve 21st century problems with 19th century solutions. Of course, I have my own pet 21st century solution. ;)