These are the words my city says to me [Arizona, bicycling]

[rebeccmeister]

The Beg Buttons that are at almost every intersection a bicyclist might use out here serve a dual purpose, as small billboards people on bikes can use to communicate with each other.

I think the city here has tended to fight back most vehemently against stickers that directly modify the sign itself, so there aren't any more "Push Button for Aliens" or the like - at least at the moment.



The posts underneath, however, seem to be attracting more messages.



I always appreciate spotting War on Cars stickers out in the wild:


The above War on Cars sticker is accompanied by an art sticker showing beautiful bike-themed art made by someone I know. And why not?

I'm kicking myself for not having brought more reflective bee and duck stickers with me. I generally don't put those up in public places but I do like to give a duck to people wherever and whenever I can. I just gave all the ducks I had with me to friend S this time. So now I am all out of ducks to give (ha ha I am funny).

I think what I would really like is some sort of "ghost bike" sticker design. Several years ago this City decided the ghost bikes were getting a little out of hand and removed them. The problem is that this undoes the effort to bring visible attention to locations where people have died in crashes with motor vehicles. While I can understand that people find roadside memorials to be "clutter," I think the point still holds that there needs to be some form of visible recognition that these things have happened. I'm going to have to think about how I want to make this happen.

Perhaps I'm biased on this front because every time I am back in Seattle I'm struck (ha!) by the number and variety of signs that people have put up all over the place about various aspects of road safety, including memorials about crash sites.

Comments

[twoeleven]

War on Cars stickers

These don't improve my impression of cyclists. :|

[rebeccmeister]

Well, it's also very hard to improve my impression of people who drive cars in cities, and many such people use their vehicles to make many other political statements in public spaces. ;^)

I think they originally adopted the name and perspective after some news cycle where some politician got outraged about what they phrased as the "War on cars."

In practice, they are a group of people who put on a podcast about bicycling and urban transportation: https://thewaroncars.org/about/

I believe a lot of the rhetoric has its origins as a counterpoint to the era where auto manufacturers successfully convinced the American public that cars were the future for cities.

[rebeccmeister]

Oh, I should note, I don't really ever listen to podcasts, including theirs, but I appreciate their sticker propaganda, most especially whenever and wherever I encounter it in the wild.

[twoeleven]

Well, it's also very hard to improve my impression of people who drive cars in cities

Fair enough. We can politely glare at each other across the net. ;)

many such people use their vehicles to make many other political statements in public spaces.

Sure, but there's a difference between a bumper sticker recommending people "truck fump", and one calling for a war on cyclists.

I believe a lot of the rhetoric has its origins as a counterpoint to the era where auto manufacturers successfully convinced the American public that cars were the future for cities.

Did they? When? This is one of my many questions about urban transportation. Everything I've read about the early 20th century changeover from horse-drawn transport (wagons, carts, carriages, and even streetcars) to cars and electric mass transit suggests two things.

1) Big cities were buried in horse manure and piled with dead horses, so...
2) People were glad to have something that, by the standards of the day, didn't pollute.

In rural areas, people greatly appreciated the speed of even the early cars. A car going 15 mph on rutted dirt roads is far faster than a horse can manage for any length of time, and while early cars needed constant tinkering to keep running, they didn't need the constant care horses did. (Both of these mattered some for city-dwellers as well, but apparently not the the same extent. I think. More research required. Send more funding.)

[rebeccmeister]

I'll note that I always listen to/read historical accounts from the perspective that "History is written by the winners." That said, here's a 26-minute presentation by the author of the book Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjd7PBTPFuU

I don't think there are major disputes about the utility of combustion engine travel in the countryside during that timeframe.

If I'm remembering correctly (haven't rewatched this video in over a year), some of the historic video footage in this presentation might provide some context around horses in cities.

[twoeleven]

I read a couple of reviews of the book while I should be doing other things taking breaks, but it appears that the period under discussion is the 1920s and 30s.

To quote one review:

The struggle was difficult and sometimes fierce. In motordom’s way were street railways, city people afraid for the safety of their children in the streets, and most of the established traffic engineering principles of the 1920s. Motordom, however, had effective rhetorical weapons, growing national organization, a favorable political climate, substantial wealth, and the sympathy of a growing minority of city motorists. By 1930, with these assets, motordom had redefined the city street.

So, a couple of points come to mind, which I'll have to check (in addition to everything else I'm trying to do):

• The first cars showed up in the 1890s, and the Model T entered production in 1909. It wasn't the first mass-produced car either, just the first really cheap one.

So, the book is talking about a time about a generation after the changeover started. Had the problems of horse-drawn transport been forgotten over that generation?

• I think the review's mention of the "substantial wealth" means the Roaring Twenties, a time of many changes, not all of which were due to wealth. But in this case, I think it means that cars "suddenly" went from relative rarities to something many people had.

So, on the one hand, the number of cars on the road jumped quickly, leading to many more people being in favor of them staying that way. I'm not sure it's fair to entirely blame the "usual suspects" of big companies for cars' "sudden" takeover of American cities.

And on the other hand(s), I'm reminded of the two big social-technologial changes of our time, first the cell phone, and then smartphone/antisocial media (they appear at almost the same time, and I suspect their growth is interrelated). Both have also resulted in significant changes in how public space is used, and in what's acceptable to do where.

So, perhaps both went through what are normal phases of social-technologial evolution: introduction, when the new thing has obvious benefits and few downsides; mass uptake, when the large number of users produce undesireable side-effects; and then moderation/pushback, when people try to reduce the side-effects.

There's probably multiple rounds of each, so we're probably going through the first round of pushback against phones/antisocial media -- like the 1920s and 30s with cars -- and there will probably be further rounds as technology and society keep changing.

For example, I've read that part of American falling out of love with the car is a consequence of antisocial media: people don't need to go other places to be with their friends, which has led to the younger generations not learning to drive as much, and so are a (big?) part of the current pushback against cars. (Among other things.)

[rebeccmeister]

The invention of the "jaywalker" is particularly interesting.

I don't know much about counterarguments against what's presented.

That actually contrasts with what I've subsequently seen about the article I highlighted about teaching Indigenous Knowledge alongside science, which did draw some (seemingly appropriate) critical responses in subsequent issues of whatever journal the original was published in (I think that was Nature?).

[twoeleven]

I think that was Nature?

Science. You mentioned it on February 9th. I'll have to remember my AAAS password and see what people said about the piece; it may save me some time commenting on it, which I'd still like to do.

But in short about my reply about science and indigenous knowledge¹: what were you saying about juggling projects a while ago? :) I have about a half page of notes for it. At some point, I decided that the finished piece might be too interesting to bury as a comment, but to post it by itself required more reading. So it got put off. *le sigh*²

In any case, I'll at least read the transcript of the video, and I might watch it. But I'm not sure what you mean by "That actually contrasts with what I've subsequently seen about the article I highlighted about teaching Indigenous Knowledge alongside science".

1: Why does indigenous knowledge get capitalized and science doesn't?

2: If you want a couple of fragments of part of where I'm going:

• Is the Illiad "indigenous knowledge"? Why or why not? It's an oral history about an event, that apparently was passed down for a few hundred years before being codified.

As far as I can tell, the Illiad appears to be based on one or more historical events, and preserving the story served a number of important social/cultural purposes to the people who told it. (A modern author, Jonathan Shay, argues that it and the Odyssey served as a way of reintegrating soldiers into civilian life and thus as a way of discussing, preventing, and/or treating combat trauma.)

• Is spontaneous generation part of European/Old World "indigenous knowledge"? It was widely believed, rested on what was regarded as solid belief, and was of great practical value.

And on the flip side, are there beliefs like spontaneous generation in "indigenous knowledge"? (That is, they rest on what's regarded as common observation and/or solid appeals to recognized authorities.)