Lower, targeted tariffs on Chinese imports would ease financial pressures for Canadian consumers and mitigate Canada’s excessive reliance on the United States.
Infrastructure is not the best for cyclists I agree and I dont blame you for feeling unsafe for riding your bike. Everyone has a different threat model though and most Canadians live in large urban areas with large and expanding bike networks that they can take advantage of. That might not mean commuting to work by bike but maybe trips like going to the grocery store or the dentist can be replaced by bike trips.
I do agree that safe cycling infrastructure is one of the largest barriers to getting people on bikes, but let’s not pretend that there is some big modern day conspiracy against bike lanes. It’s everyday people who fight tooth and nail against every bike lane that is proposed because they will take away parking or driving lanes. Doug Ford might have a personal vendetta against bike lanes but many many people support this vendetta and support Ford because he is trying to remove them.
I’m so tired of privileged people in the city talking down to everyone else like we don’t know how cities work (“different threat models” fuck outta here with that bullshit). I’ve lived in cities ranging from 200k to 700k and guess what? There isn’t bike infrastructure; you share the road and there’s some adequate bike-lanes in affluent neighbourhoods that I don’t give a shit about. In the city I’m currently in, bike-lanes share a merge with turning lanes f so nooooobody uses them because they don’t want to get nailed by some douchebag in a light truck who can’t even see past the steering wheel. Nobody is talking about a conspiracy, this is the reality of neoliberal politics and the ruins of suburban sprawl. When I say, “authorities” I’m referring to the systems of power that operate in opposition to workers and the land that relegates decisions for infrastructure to affluent land-owners who couldn’t give a shit less about sustainability or accessibility. I also saw you put “wear warm clothes” as a response to someone saying that dangerous winter weather makes bikes impractical like you’re on some Marie Antoinette shit. Don’t talk to me like you understand any of this when it’s obvious you haven’t actually had to live in different places in this country.
Regardless of that, car-dependency makes biking distances prohibitively expensive in the one way that you clearly have never had to think about: time. I do not have the fucking time to bike to my dentist or grocery store – even if I had a backfiets that could actually carry groceries – when everything is spaced out to accomodate cars. It’s nice that you have time for that, most people have work and responsibilites that puts their time at a premium and that makes biking a very low priority on how to live sustainably. I cannot afford to bike. Everything you’ve said speaks from the distorition that individual choice is a primary vector for change when we know that systemic causes for decisions, like driving instead of biking, provide more effective explanations and paths to real change. You subscribe to the very narratives that are used to reproduce this unsustainable way of life and have the gall to sit there and act like you know better than others. -
Im confused by your animosity when I mostly agree with you, but nothing I’ve said is wrong. Different people are comfortable with different levels of risk when biking but that does not mean it can’t be done. Cold weather biking is very doable in cities with warm clothing and if needed, studded tires. People go outside in cold weather to walk and for recreation all the time, biking is not some bizarre activity that is impossible to do in the cold. I’ve biked in places with cold snowy winters and places with mild slushy winters, if theres been a lot of snow that hasn’t been cleared yet, I usually opt for transit on those days. If I am not comfortable riding a bike in those conditions though, I certainly wont be comfortable driving.
car-dependency makes biking distances prohibitively expensive in the one way that you clearly have never had to think about: time
This is an argument that I find surprising. Maybe Im not as good at scheduling as other people but if a 5 minute car ride turns into a 15 or 20 minute bike ride, is that really that much extra time? Is your whole day going to be ruined? Or a 15 minute car commute turns into a 30 or 40 minute bike commute, is that extra time really not worth the cost savings? Not to mention the time you dont have to spend at the gym now. There are loads of people that choose to live somewhere where they have to spend over an hour commuting to and from work by car. Personally I think an hour long commute by bike would be much more pleasant.
I see a lot of lame excuses as to why people cant ride their bikes. But most of these are solvable problems. Safe infrastructure is, in my opinion, the only factor that needs to be addressed to get people on bikes. Unfortunately we have administrations that are actively adversarial against this sort of change. Rather than tell people that it is hopeless to try to ride a bike in our society, I am telling people that it is very much possible to make the choice to ride a bike if you are dtermined enough. If people are saying that they cant bike places because its too cold or too rainy or too far, I am going to give them solutions, I am not going to just say that our infrastructure is too awful to support that choice in the first place. The best way to get people advocating for safe cycling infrastructure is to get more people on bikes. Im sorry that you’ve given up on change.
You misunderstand, what you said was rude enough on its own to warrant animosity. You fundamentally do not understand what you are talking about because you lack the basic empathy and systemic knowledge to even identify the problem; you have presumed that by the grace of god you have divine answers and never questioned why you think what you think. Who benefits from such a shallow narrative?
“Personally I think an hour long commute by bike would be much more pleasant.”
I know that may come as a shock to you, people are not just dumber than you. Most people do in fact make good decisions based on what resources they have available to them, and time is extremely limited for us poor peasants who have to work for a living. It does not matter if you think infrastructure is the only reasonable barrier and most people are just big lazy dumdums, because infrastructure is not getting fixed in most places in this country. As with many Canadians, I do not live in a place where it is safe or practical to use a bike regularly, that is a fact. The closest grocery stores to me are about forty minutes round trip by bike and would require me to traverse a six lane highway to access, that is not acceptable when it is a ten minute drive with nearly zero risk to my body. Yes, that is too much time because again, this may be shocking to you, people with work and responsibilities also have significantly limited energy in their day that would be expended not only by the biking itself, but the stress of risking your life to make the trip. People who work fucking forty to sixty hours a week on swing shifts with kids are not obligated give up whatever time and energy they have to maintain their health and home to force the use of a bicycle to make up for being forced to have a car. It is pointless.
Your comfort is irrelevant, I do not give a shit if this reality makes the world more incomprehensible to you. Grow up, not everyone has your resources and you’ve been privileged enough to get what you’ve had.
Unreal level of pompous douchebag energy here, I will not be paying attention to you and I will not read whatever bullshit response you cobble together.
The only person making assumptions her is you who seems to believe im some wealthy city-dwelling socialite who doesn’t work for a living. I ride my bike because its less stressful and cheaper than owning a car. I could hardly afford a car if I even wanted to.
You give all these reasons why you cant ride a bike and that’s fine, those are your reasons. But you act like everyone else is in the exact same position as you and everyone just simply is not able to ride a bike even if they wanted to. That simply is not true, lots of people are in a position where they can bike but choose not to. Im tired of people acting like the reason they make these decisions is because they have no choice. Maybe thats true sometimes, but most of the times I think its just that people dont want to and we would all be better off if people were up front about it.
OP suggested we focus on bicycles instead of cars and a bunch of people come out saying “well bicycles dont work for me or anybody else” and I have been saying they can work for a lot of people if they just made the effort. This is apparently a privileged position? I didn’t realize living in the most populated city in the country makes me a privileged elite but apparently that’s all it takes.
Infrastructure is not the best for cyclists I agree and I dont blame you for feeling unsafe for riding your bike. Everyone has a different threat model though and most Canadians live in large urban areas with large and expanding bike networks that they can take advantage of. That might not mean commuting to work by bike but maybe trips like going to the grocery store or the dentist can be replaced by bike trips.
I do agree that safe cycling infrastructure is one of the largest barriers to getting people on bikes, but let’s not pretend that there is some big modern day conspiracy against bike lanes. It’s everyday people who fight tooth and nail against every bike lane that is proposed because they will take away parking or driving lanes. Doug Ford might have a personal vendetta against bike lanes but many many people support this vendetta and support Ford because he is trying to remove them.
I’m so tired of privileged people in the city talking down to everyone else like we don’t know how cities work (“different threat models” fuck outta here with that bullshit). I’ve lived in cities ranging from 200k to 700k and guess what? There isn’t bike infrastructure; you share the road and there’s some adequate bike-lanes in affluent neighbourhoods that I don’t give a shit about. In the city I’m currently in, bike-lanes share a merge with turning lanes f so nooooobody uses them because they don’t want to get nailed by some douchebag in a light truck who can’t even see past the steering wheel. Nobody is talking about a conspiracy, this is the reality of neoliberal politics and the ruins of suburban sprawl. When I say, “authorities” I’m referring to the systems of power that operate in opposition to workers and the land that relegates decisions for infrastructure to affluent land-owners who couldn’t give a shit less about sustainability or accessibility. I also saw you put “wear warm clothes” as a response to someone saying that dangerous winter weather makes bikes impractical like you’re on some Marie Antoinette shit. Don’t talk to me like you understand any of this when it’s obvious you haven’t actually had to live in different places in this country.
Regardless of that, car-dependency makes biking distances prohibitively expensive in the one way that you clearly have never had to think about: time. I do not have the fucking time to bike to my dentist or grocery store – even if I had a backfiets that could actually carry groceries – when everything is spaced out to accomodate cars. It’s nice that you have time for that, most people have work and responsibilites that puts their time at a premium and that makes biking a very low priority on how to live sustainably. I cannot afford to bike. Everything you’ve said speaks from the distorition that individual choice is a primary vector for change when we know that systemic causes for decisions, like driving instead of biking, provide more effective explanations and paths to real change. You subscribe to the very narratives that are used to reproduce this unsustainable way of life and have the gall to sit there and act like you know better than others. -
Im confused by your animosity when I mostly agree with you, but nothing I’ve said is wrong. Different people are comfortable with different levels of risk when biking but that does not mean it can’t be done. Cold weather biking is very doable in cities with warm clothing and if needed, studded tires. People go outside in cold weather to walk and for recreation all the time, biking is not some bizarre activity that is impossible to do in the cold. I’ve biked in places with cold snowy winters and places with mild slushy winters, if theres been a lot of snow that hasn’t been cleared yet, I usually opt for transit on those days. If I am not comfortable riding a bike in those conditions though, I certainly wont be comfortable driving.
This is an argument that I find surprising. Maybe Im not as good at scheduling as other people but if a 5 minute car ride turns into a 15 or 20 minute bike ride, is that really that much extra time? Is your whole day going to be ruined? Or a 15 minute car commute turns into a 30 or 40 minute bike commute, is that extra time really not worth the cost savings? Not to mention the time you dont have to spend at the gym now. There are loads of people that choose to live somewhere where they have to spend over an hour commuting to and from work by car. Personally I think an hour long commute by bike would be much more pleasant.
I see a lot of lame excuses as to why people cant ride their bikes. But most of these are solvable problems. Safe infrastructure is, in my opinion, the only factor that needs to be addressed to get people on bikes. Unfortunately we have administrations that are actively adversarial against this sort of change. Rather than tell people that it is hopeless to try to ride a bike in our society, I am telling people that it is very much possible to make the choice to ride a bike if you are dtermined enough. If people are saying that they cant bike places because its too cold or too rainy or too far, I am going to give them solutions, I am not going to just say that our infrastructure is too awful to support that choice in the first place. The best way to get people advocating for safe cycling infrastructure is to get more people on bikes. Im sorry that you’ve given up on change.
You misunderstand, what you said was rude enough on its own to warrant animosity. You fundamentally do not understand what you are talking about because you lack the basic empathy and systemic knowledge to even identify the problem; you have presumed that by the grace of god you have divine answers and never questioned why you think what you think. Who benefits from such a shallow narrative?
“Personally I think an hour long commute by bike would be much more pleasant.”
I know that may come as a shock to you, people are not just dumber than you. Most people do in fact make good decisions based on what resources they have available to them, and time is extremely limited for us poor peasants who have to work for a living. It does not matter if you think infrastructure is the only reasonable barrier and most people are just big lazy dumdums, because infrastructure is not getting fixed in most places in this country. As with many Canadians, I do not live in a place where it is safe or practical to use a bike regularly, that is a fact. The closest grocery stores to me are about forty minutes round trip by bike and would require me to traverse a six lane highway to access, that is not acceptable when it is a ten minute drive with nearly zero risk to my body. Yes, that is too much time because again, this may be shocking to you, people with work and responsibilities also have significantly limited energy in their day that would be expended not only by the biking itself, but the stress of risking your life to make the trip. People who work fucking forty to sixty hours a week on swing shifts with kids are not obligated give up whatever time and energy they have to maintain their health and home to force the use of a bicycle to make up for being forced to have a car. It is pointless.
Your comfort is irrelevant, I do not give a shit if this reality makes the world more incomprehensible to you. Grow up, not everyone has your resources and you’ve been privileged enough to get what you’ve had.
Unreal level of pompous douchebag energy here, I will not be paying attention to you and I will not read whatever bullshit response you cobble together.
The only person making assumptions her is you who seems to believe im some wealthy city-dwelling socialite who doesn’t work for a living. I ride my bike because its less stressful and cheaper than owning a car. I could hardly afford a car if I even wanted to.
You give all these reasons why you cant ride a bike and that’s fine, those are your reasons. But you act like everyone else is in the exact same position as you and everyone just simply is not able to ride a bike even if they wanted to. That simply is not true, lots of people are in a position where they can bike but choose not to. Im tired of people acting like the reason they make these decisions is because they have no choice. Maybe thats true sometimes, but most of the times I think its just that people dont want to and we would all be better off if people were up front about it.
OP suggested we focus on bicycles instead of cars and a bunch of people come out saying “well bicycles dont work for me or anybody else” and I have been saying they can work for a lot of people if they just made the effort. This is apparently a privileged position? I didn’t realize living in the most populated city in the country makes me a privileged elite but apparently that’s all it takes.