Repeating b.s. about everything being about race and class: bike infrastructure in Washington, DC

I owe Marc Fisher (I wrote about a similar controversy he fostered on historic preservation 18 years ago!, "Preservation takes it on the chin (updated)" 2006) thanks for getting me off my ass to write--I haven't blogged in months--although I had been on the cusp recently.  My "eating disorder" led me to consume not enough calories to be motivated to write and do other stuff.

His column, "The truth about bike lanes: They’re not about the bikes" asks the wrong question.  He writes about people complaining about the construction of bike infrastructure in their neighborhoods since fewer people are biking to work or in their areas.

The right question to ask is "in a city that was designed to optimize walking, biking, and transit" why don't more people use those modes?"

Ironically, GGW reports ("CaBi breaks all-time annual ridership record…in October") that DC's bike sharing system CaBi is experiencing record use.  I think that's ironic because it has taken 14 years to get to this point--the system was launched in September 2010 and has been expanding, albeit primarily in the city's core, where biking works best (more below on this).

At the same time this illustrates how change takes time, especially when you rely on trickle down--if you build it they will come, rather than purposive strategies that focus on increasing bicycling ("Revisiting assistance programs to get people biking: 18 programs," "Biking to Work Isn't Gaining Any Ground in the US | Bloomberg Opinion," Bloomberg) walking, and transit use by assisting people with making the change.

Versus

Fisher makes it out that this is a racial and social class issue, the same way he did about historic preservation.  Maybe I'm just a racist, but that's a facile take.  

Transportation demand management in the Walking City ("Transportation and Urban Form: Stages in the Spatial Evolution of the American Metropolis" Muller) is about optimal mobility.

Also see the book, Reclaiming our Cities and Towns: Better Living Through less traffic by the founder of the concept of TDM; he realized that fewer car users meant less demand for expanding roadways.  Since when is forcing car use pro-race and pro-class?  From the article:

Rodney Foxworth, a longtime civic activist who now leads an anti-bike lane group, says the city “has a bias in favor of bike lanes no matter whether residents or businesses want them, and a lot of these lanes are being installed in Black, low-income communities. There is a nexus between bike lanes and gentrification.”

I have written about making sustainable mobility about race with frustration for 18+ years:

-- "Urg: bad studies don't push the discourse or policy forward | biking in low income communities (in DC) edition," 2014
-- "The co-existence of streetcars and churches elsewhere ought to counter anti-streetcar arguments by churches in DC today," 2014
-- "Why not get a bike?: 'He walked 17 miles a day to work until a stranger gave him a ride and changed his life forever'," 2021

So again, not realizing the right questions, bike lanes aren't about bikes.  They are about mobility and people throughput, just like more people ride a bus take up less room than 60 cars.

If I could ride until 63--for me, riding more has only been hindered by the onset of congestive heart failure and I hope to be riding short distances again, finally, within the next few months--so can older people in DC.  

Plus, for each person shifted to sustainable modes, that's one less car on the road, one less competitor for limited parking spaces, etc.

Plus it's cheaper ("AAA: Your Driving Costs: The Price of New Car Ownership Continues to Climb").  --over $1,000 per month.  For us, not owning a car supported $100,000 of our mortgage.

If anything it's about applying suburban ideas about bicycling ("DC as a suburban agenda dominated city," 2013) or transit ("Transit notes #2: Anti-transit opposition a form of defending automobility as a way of life," 2016) to urban areas.