Montreal City Weblog

Kate 08:16 on 2019-08-11 Permalink Reply  

• Baru 09:32 on 2019-08-11 Permalink

  oh wow, i just rode these in paris a couple of weeks ago. embarrassed to say i really enjoyed the experience. I tried to avoid it since it just reminded me of those dorks on segways in the old port. i could see lime being a huge hit in mtl.

• Faiz Imam 10:52 on 2019-08-11 Permalink

  Saw this picture from Nashville of designated scooter storage in parking spaces.

  https://twitter.com/g_meslin/status/1157064790562476032

  There is a lot of things that could work to integrate these vehicles with less chaos and disruption.but up front I suspect we’ll have plenty of stories of conflict.

• Chris 11:03 on 2019-08-11 Permalink

  Baru, why embarrassed?

  Strange how a handful of deaths are used to argue for banning these things. Automobiles kill way way way more people, but if one advocates for even partial automobile bans, one is thoroughly disparaged.

• Kate 11:18 on 2019-08-11 Permalink

  The main thing that makes me sad about these powered vehicles is here we are talking about making more inhabitable cities, about people needing to be more active, we finally get Bixi working well, we get a few pedestrianized streets, and then along come some “disruptors” and put motorized vehicles back in the mix that make it easier again for people to putt-putt along instead of pedalling or walking.

  Since it seems to need to be said: I don’t begrudge powered assistance to anyone who needs it, but I dislike seeing these things portrayed as progressive and as an unmixed blessing. We all know they’ll be used on bike paths and sidewalks, we all know people will use them who don’t need them. Yes, they’re better than having someone use a car. But they’re also potentially a blight. Let’s watch.

• dwgs 11:21 on 2019-08-11 Permalink

  I was in Nashville this spring. When you are out of the downtown core the scooter parking is generally pretty good but when you’re strolling around the core you have to keep one eye on the sidewalk to make sure you’re not going to trip over one that has been dumped. Mind you downtown Nashville is pretty crazy to begin with.

• Chris 11:30 on 2019-08-11 Permalink

  Kate, it’s been about a century since automobiles have displaced cycling. With effort, we could probably get ourselves up to Amsterdam or Copenhagen levels, or maybe a bit beyond, say 40% mode share levels. But what about the other 60%? You’re just never going to convince most people to use active transport. I wish it weren’t so, but it is. If we can get some of them to use less-polluting motorized transport like these scooters, then great. Maybe it can help uncrowd the metro.

  These things shouldn’t be on sidewalks, I certainly agree there. (99% of the time anyway.)

  And, yeah, before Ephraim says… of course not everyone is capable of biking, or scootering, and they need to be considered too of course. I’ll also point out that not everyone is capable of driving a car either! It’s not an argument against having cars, bikes, or scooters.

• Ephraim 11:36 on 2019-08-11 Permalink

  Chris, wasn’t going to say it. Besides, I live in a pedestrian area of the city. We walk.

• Chris 13:35 on 2019-08-11 Permalink

  Relatedly, on another site I read, just saw this study saying ebikers actually get quite a bit of exercise: https://electrek.co/2019/08/11/electric-bike-riders-more-exercise-than-cyclists/

• Marco 14:04 on 2019-08-11 Permalink

  I was just in LA and these scooters are all over the place. There are piles of them on the sidewalk in busy areas. Get used to scenes like this: https://assets.change.org/photos/0/mg/ro/KsmGRoKOhwYQcmp-800×450-noPad.jpg?1559155846

• Blork 14:35 on 2019-08-11 Permalink

  Chris, you’ve said “it’s been about a century since automobiles have displaced cycling” and I’ve called you out on it before, and I’ll do it again.

  Automobiles did not replace cycling. 100 years ago, nobody cycled in the city aside from a few people in parks and out in the countryside. The streets were full of horse shit, cobblestones, and tram tracks, and were very uncyclable. Plus, the bicycles of 100 years ago were heavy and hard to ride. Cycling then was just a recreational activity undertaken by a few oddballs.

  Cars did not replace bicycles FFS. Cars replaced horses and trams, not bicycles.

• Chris 18:11 on 2019-08-11 Permalink

  First, i said displace, not replace.

  Commuter cycling was a thing since the beginning of cycling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cycling#Commuting

  Cars certainly displaced horses and trams too! And walking and public transit too.

  Point is Kate’s lament for active transport is a century late. The automobile was the great disruptor. We’ve had active transport options for a century, most people just don’t want to.

• Raymond Lutz 18:11 on 2019-08-11 Permalink

  Paris? In the twitter thread submitted by Faiz, one can read:”After four deaths in the last three months, Atlanta’s mayor has banned use of dockless shareable scooters/bikes from 9:00pm – 4:00am, and has revoked the planning dept’s authority to permit more of them.”

• Chris 18:30 on 2019-08-11 Permalink

  Imagine 4 gun deaths and them banning guns. Or 4 car deaths and them banning cars. What’s the real reason they ban these scooters?

• Michael Black 19:01 on 2019-08-11 Permalink

  My experience with Copenhagen is 55 years old. But I’ve wondered if they have more cycling because of WWII. Things were tough in Europe then, shortages of everything, so whatever level cycling was at, they likely depended in bikes because gas and cars weren’t so available. In 1965 I thought WWII was well in the past, but Europe was still recovering, which perhaps kept bikes in use.

  Of course, things may have developed differently in Eurooe anyway. Denser cities, less parking places, maybe less income, so bicycles had a different chance.

  Michael

• Kate 09:15 on 2019-08-12 Permalink

  Michael, I’m not sure about the WWII-bike link. Wartime would’ve made bicycle manufacture difficult, no?

  I can tell you that in the Netherlands cycling was always fairly popular – it’s a flat country, nobody needed special gearing to get around – but it only really surged after protests in the 1970s in response to a spike in pedestrian deaths in traffic. Some data here. There isn’t anything about history in the corresponding article on cycling in Denmark.

• Tim S. 20:24 on 2019-08-11 Permalink

  I suppose one thing about the deaths – one here, two there – is that they’re extra deaths. Yes, cars kill people, but there’s a fair amount of effort going into reducing those deaths – the activism of people like Chris included. Maybe not enough effort, but still some. And now there’s a whole new way for people to die! And injure others into the bargain. I think it’s fair to say citizens should decide if the cost/benefits are worth it, and not a bunch of businesspeople in California.

• Blork 23:18 on 2019-08-11 Permalink

  @Chris, I challenge you to find an historical photo (1875 to 1920) that shows even a single bicycle on a downtown Montreal street. Your revisionist history implies there should be copious photos showing vast clusters of cycling commuters from that era, but I doubt you can find a photo that shows even one.

• dwgs 07:44 on 2019-08-12 Permalink

  Consider your sources Chris ” According to the website Bike to Work, this practice continued in the United States until the 1920s, when biking experienced a sharp drop, in part due to the growth of suburbs and the popularity of the car.”
  Not sure that an obscure website (a search for the website returns iffy results and several different domains) should be cited as authoritative.

• Michael Black 08:34 on 2019-08-12 Permalink

  It’s relative. “People have always commuted by bicycle” is probably a true statement, though maybe not back to when bikes were new. I can remember seeing people almost fifty years ago commuting along Sherbrooke Street, dressed more for work than exercise.

  But that dkesn’t mean it was common.

  People also rode in winter, bicycles were used for delivery from corner stores, there was a bike boom in the seventies.

  But it was relative, dwarfed by what came later. But the foundatjon has been there a !ong time. Nobody tried to get bike paths in the seventies to get people to give up cars, it was because they wanted to be safe and bike paths seemed like a solution.

  And it’s those decades of activism that got us to today, not because millennials want to ride bikes. The infrastructure is now decades old.

  Michael

• Kate 09:25 on 2019-08-12 Permalink

  Blork, William Notman’s studio took a lot of photos of Montrealers on penny-farthings and such, but they’re studio shots, so arguably the subjects could’ve been dilettantes. However, what about this article?

  I’ve read that in many places it was cyclists who first pressed for roads to be paved, not motorists.

• Blork 11:26 on 2019-08-12 Permalink

  Kate, that article does show lots of bicycles, but most are either (a) not particularly urban settings, or (b) more recent than 1920. I only see one that shows bicycles on the street within the 1875-1920 timeframe. (“Une voiture, un cheval, une charrette et trois bicyclettes sur la rue, vers 1909.”)

  I’m using that timeframe because of Chris’ assertion that cars replaced/displaced bikes about 100 years ago. If that were true, you’d see lots and lots of bicycles in the various urban photos from MORE THAN 100 years ago (i.e., before they were replaced or displaced by cars).

  I’m not saying bicycles didn’t exist then; I’m just saying they weren’t around in great numbers such that the rise of cars resulted from people getting off their bikes and into cars.