StreetsBlog: StreetCritiques
by Lewis DerkinsJune 2nd, 2008, 9:35 pm
Recently, many of our readers have probably noticed that we have been engaged in a lively discussion with several StreetsBloggers concerning various disagreements we have with their policies. The debate centers around us picking on StreetsBlog – whom we view as a nerdy younger brother – over our respective visions for solutions to our nations’ transportation problems.
We’ve done posts on their organization, their financiers, and we’ve addressed their comments and questions at length. I will say that for the most part, the StreetsBloggers who leave comments on our site are well versed in the issues, provide thoughtful and insightful comments, and tolerate our generally mocking and abusive nature. In my opinion, this type of candid discussion is exactly what we need if we’re really going to address any of these issues.
Now for the fun part - this doesn’t mean that we’re going to be nice to StreetsBlog. The people who read the blog are one thing, but honestly, the StreetsBlog writers themselves are not being treated to a fair discourse on their subject. For example, both Judd and I have made comments critical of StreetsBlog posts which have been removed in order to preserve the dogma of the site and stifle an honest discussion on the issue. I rarely see issues treated in a realistic sense on StreetsBlog. Instead, I see a lot of talking points about a utopian society full of bicycle riding do-gooders who zip down Broadway waving salutations to each other in a happy fantasyland with no crime, poverty, bigotry, or any of the other problems that plague those of us here in the real world.
In the spirit of giving the StreetsBloggers out there a balanced view on the subject, I’ve decided today that I’m going to pick my five favorite recent StreetsBlog delusions and do Lewis’ knee-jerk reactions to them. (You may remember the Commuter Outrage knee-jerk reaction from Judd’s post on the Fortune 500) I’ll say up front that I intend to be completely sarcastic and mocking, and in no way give these people a fair treatment – so if you’re a StreetsBlogger who cries easily, stop reading and have mommy go change your diaper. But my reasoning for this is simple – StreetsBlog already gives you the rosy picture on these subjects. If you want to read their side, click the links in my post and go read their posts to hear them out. But here you’re going to hear what you don’t see or hear on StreetsBlog – an honest critique of the viability of these “solutions”.
Up first, we have this one - “The Latest Innovation From Paris: Cargocycles.” You can almost sense the unabashed infatuation as they wax poetic about this – like an angsty middle-schooler who just replied to their crush’s “do you love me? circle yes or no” note. Of course they circle yes, and of course Paris loves them.
As they swoon over this little contraption, which is a giant man-tricycle with a big cargo bin on the back, they can’t help falling all over themselves to sing its praises. Some brides-to-be gush about the correct translation for the name in French while others lament that New York is actually trying to limit these things.
As you’re told to “think again” about whether or not this could work in New York, a link takes you to a page where an article in the New York Times helpfully explains that for the low price of $6 you can have cheese delivered by these things. If you’re the kind of person who needs $50 worth of cheese, it’s free delivery.
What a bargain, now if I only knew someone who needed $50 worth of cheese … oh, wait, I do, and they’re all rich and live in Manhattan. Haha. How silly of me. I’m such a plebeian.
What’s completely lacking from this post is any serious discussion of how this is a solution to anything. StreetsBloggers want to create a bicycle friendly city, but there is no debate about the utility of something that can only carry about 400lbs of cargo. By contrast, a semi trailer can haul up to 32,000 lbs on a tandem axle.
So how is replacing one tractor trailer and it’s payload with 80 cargo cycles a solution? There’s no mention of the fact that these cargo cycles are unwieldy and would block the precious bike lanes that StreetsBloggers advocate. In general, there’s a total lack of anything useful about this post, even as a quirky item to think about, unless of course you happen to be wealthy enough to need $50 worth of cheese delivered to your door.
Next up, we have this piece - “New York Suffering From Bike Shortage” - on how bike shops are running out of inventory because people are switching over to bicycles in lieu of high gas prices.
While trying to overlook the sheer glee with which StreetsBloggers seem to regard the plight of working class Americans who are having trouble making ends meet, I am struck by the fact that this proves NOTHING!
Sure, people are buying bikes. Who cares? The real question is will they continue to ride them? My guess is: wait until winter sets in, and we’ll see who the true believers are.
But instead of warmly embracing their new compatriots, the StreetsBloggers revel in the misery of working people who face financial hardship. It’s not enough that you get what you advocate for at StreetsBlog, here’s a hefty dose of “I told you so” with some salt in your wounds.
My favorite part is the Let’s Ruin America link, that mocks a promotion by Chrysler to move their cars by guaranteeing $3 gas for three years with a purchase. All I can say is don’t laugh too hard, when winter rolls around you might find that people don’t find biking as fun as you do – and your smarmy attitudes probably won’t help keep them loyal.
Third, we have this - “Streetfilms: The Great NYC Commuter Race” - a little race that StreetsBlog organized as a pro-bike event. That’s fine, the bicyclist won. Now start from somewhere 20 miles outside the city, where most people commute from, and see who wins. Doesn’t look like the bike is “always the fastest” anymore, especially if you’re an old lady, or out of shape. Again, it’s easy to commute by bike if you can afford to live in the city, what happens if you can’t – see the above post under gloating at the working man’s plight.
Also, let’s set up a fair race next time. The girl who rides mass transit doesn’t appear to be in any particular hurry. The girl on the bike appears to be flying through intersections. Did she follow all the traffic laws? If not, is that really a fair race? She’s supposed to follow the same laws as the automobiles. Why three different routes, and why does the bicyclist get to cut corners? Why not let the three of them race the same course to see which performs better?
The bicyclist mentions that it takes her 45 minutes to commute by bicycle and 1 hour by metro. But what we’re leaving out is that commuting by Metro allows you to be productive in other ways while you commute. You can read the paper or some files you take home with you, you can check email or make phones calls, you could break out a computer and crunch spreadsheets if you really wanted to (a car has advantages too, you can carry more people or whatever else it is you have to carry, it’s not as dangerous to the driver, and it’s safer to listen to the radio) – none of which you can do on a bike to save 15 minutes and show up to work drenched in sweat. Well that sounds just awesome. I love to smell like a jock strap first thing in the morning and have my suit soaked through with perspiration that I’ll have to sit in all day. Thanks for that helpful tip.
Let’s also not overlook the fact that one and a half hours is also a lot of exercise for most people. Now you could argue either side of that, but the reality, whether you like it or not, is that many people simply couldn’t do this.
Special derision goes out to this post for the incorporation of carbon footprints, which are complete garbage.
But my favorite part of this is the way that it undermines StreetsBlog’s intentions. By portraying mass transit as the clear loser between the three competing modes of commuting, you’re not exactly encouraging people to abandon their cars for mass transit. One StreetsBlogger actually points this out, only to be dismissed by everyone as if he didn’t get the point. The point is hooray bicycles!! Don’t worry that you have to convince other people who don’t already believe. Don’t worry that your test had some flaws that are pretty easy for a layman to pick out.
Fourth, and possibly the most sadly-comical is this - “Cartoon Tuesday: Memorial Day 2009?” - just a Memorial Day cartoon that encourages us to “Organize a Pedal Powered Parade”.
Maybe I’m reading too much into this. Maybe I’m just getting off on nit-picking StreetsBloggers the way some of them nitpick certain parts of our argument while avoiding the ideological center, but what’s good for the gander … so the saying goes … so here goes.
The average parade float is very heavy. It’s not something you can pull with a bicycle. Here’s an excerpt on just how heavy these things are:
Each float requires an average of 10,000 lb (4,545 kg) of flowers and takes 7,000 person-hours or more to decorate.
That doesn’t include any of the steel tubing used for the structural support, or any of the other decorations which can be made out of anything from wood to food products. If we return to our cargo cycle discussion, that’s 25 cyclists to pull just the flowers. Better add some guys to that drawing.
Also lacking in this cartoon is anything memorializing Memorial Day, which is what we’re supposed to be parading for.
Now look, I understand cartoons aren’t to be taken too seriously, but there’s a part of this that when taken into context with the rest of StreetsBlog seems a little too close to the “I Want To Believe” poster in Agent Mulder’s office. It’s one thing to have a grand vision, and on second thought, maybe I’d rather not see veterans portrayed paying homage to their fallen comrades by participating in a StreetsBlog pedal parade, but I don’t know, part of me just thinks this is ridiculous. It’s like the type of thing you use to motivate kindergarteners not to eat paste. I can’t wait to hear how many people make fun of things on our site now because of what I just said.
The real problem here again is that there is no true discussion of the issues. Now maybe that’s fine, but aren’t we missing an opportunity to make a deeper point. If you’re just going to go for humor, at least go for good humor – here at Commuter Outrage we like to keep it raunchy.
Finally, we have this piece - “‘Kheel Plan II’ to Revive Free Transit Proposal for ‘09 Races” - on congestion pricing. Now this one I find interesting because at Commuter Outrage we’re always lambasted about how the government “socially engineered us toward automobiles” (which we think is about as accurate as Judd shooting darts after he’s been drinking) and how wrong this was. But here, StreetsBloggers seem more than willing to engage in exactly the social engineering they seem to loath so much when it involves the automobile.
I guess you can overlook ideology when you get what you want.
The author of this post makes an argument for why congestion pricing should not only be re-considered, but doubled. His point is that this would allow us to fully subsidize mass transit and make the cost of riding free. He argues that this would provide a huge carrot (I agree) and a stick in the form of a now $16 congestion fee (I also agree).
The justification for this is the same as it always is – the externalities that automobiles don’t pay for. Never mind that 2.86 cents off of every gallon of gas pays for mass transit through your gas tax (that’s 20% of gas tax revenues). But whatever, that’s a different post.
Let me shoot some truth at you, if people adopt mass transit or bicycle commutes because you ratchet up the costs until automobiles aren’t affordable, you haven’t proven that people prefer those methods you advocate.
If we’re really trying to reach Pareto Superior results and be Pegouvian in the administration of our laws, then we should be trying to produce more winners than losers while making people pay for negative externalities that cause market failure.
Now forget that when we introduce taxes, we’re past the market failure piece because the government has already gotten involved so the market is skewed, and let’s concentrate on what our beloved clowns in the circu … err … legislature should be trying to do with the laws they create – create the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
Let’s also forget the circular nature of this argument – we’re going to double the fee, which will provide fees to expand mass transit and keep ticket prices at zero, which will entice drivers to leave the roads, which will mean less revenues to keep this little pyramid scheme going … ooops wait, is that how it works?
I have a better idea for this. Let’s raise the property taxes in Manhattan by an average of 3.5%.
EEEEEEEK!! Blasphemy!
Look, the reason the traffic exists isn’t because of the people who have to work there, it’s because of the businesses that employ them. If they weren’t located in the city, traffic wouldn’t be so congested, so let’s make them pay the fair price to seat their business in the financial capital of the world. These businesses impose the social costs of automobiles on us, and they should pay for it.
The property owners should pay too, after all, they choose to cram themselves onto this small island with limited access over a few choke-point bridges. If we didn’t need to deliver goods and services to them, we wouldn’t need to drive into the city, and the fact that so many of them have crammed in there has driven up real estate prices to the point where many people can’t afford to live there, thus forcing them to commute into the city and clog the roads.
So let’s tax these people. This produces winners all around. The City of New York estimates taking in $13 billion in property taxes this year, on a billable assessed value of $123 billion, that’s about 10.6%. The NYC metro needs about $4.2 billion to cover the lost revenues if all tickets were free. If we raised the property tax to an average of 14%, we would bring in $17.2 billion – enough to cover the 13 billion we need now, and to cover the operating expenses of metro.
The property owners aren’t really getting hit that hard – after all, their property is projected to increase by 30% in value by 2012 so they’re beating the increase easily. At that tax rate, we’ll be bringing in $22.4 billion per year, and that extra money can help to finance a huge expansion of the system. In the meantime, we won’t be penalizing anyone – hell once we start making those kinds of revenues, we can probably eliminate all the tolls too.
This benefits everyone. The subway will suddenly be free, and a huge portion of people can switch over thereby clearing up the roads. The drivers won’t get hit with a huge penalty, and we’ll preserve the flexibility of automobiles for people who really need it. New York will have a first-class transit system, unparalleled anywhere. And property owners will see their property values skyrocket with the additional convenience of the transit system and the newly reduced traffic – probably outpacing the projected growth.
Besides, why should we reward these property owners with a windfall at the expense of drivers – why should their property values go up and their transit costs go to zero? Why should they get all of the benefits without paying for any of the costs? Isn’t that really what this country is about – getting what you pay for vice getting something for nothing?
The best part is we’ll finally see which form of transportation is really the most preferred. Then people will have both mass transit and automobiles fully subsidized and we’ll know if the claims StreetsBloggers make about people’s preferences hold water. I suspect that it could go either way, but I know this, it would be a lot more equitable if it goes their way.
The Streetsblog Truth Squad
- Part 1: Car Haters: Streetsblog
- Part 2: Pete at Streetsblog: “Few Ideas” at Commuter Outrage
- Part 3: Who Is Mark Gorton?
- Part 4: StreetsBlog: StreetCritiques
- Part 5: Pick Your Poison - Gas, Guns, or Elitism
- Part 6: Streetsblog’s Comment Moderation Policy: Waaaaaaaaaaa!
- Part 7: A Picture’s Worth A Thousand Words
- Part 8: Bike Box?
Posted in Congestion Pricing, Gas Prices, Gas Taxes, Mass Transit, Subways, Tax Increases, Tolls, Traffic Congestion |
Lewis, a few stylistic points for the blog from a total stranger.
1) Where do you find the time to write such long screeds? You make some interesting points, but come on…tighten it up a little bit! You lose 90% of readers when they see a long post like this, and that hurts you.
2) While your responses in comments have been thoughtful, the intentionally bratty nature of your posts makes you look angry. Few will sympathize with - or listen to - a caustic rant. Again, that hurts you. Humor is good, sarcasm is fine, but those are entirely different than the bitter tone you put forth.
3) Finally, and most seriously, you seem to like the term “social engineering” to describe the motives and means of “bikeable/walkable” advocates. What a sloppy, debate-debasing phrase that is. What you refer to as “social engineering” is in fact public policy and debate about that policy. By merely existing and continuing the status quo transportation investment balance, the government is engaging in “social engineering” because its policies have an impact on society. By perpetuating the status quo for transportation funding, government is taking a stand by supporting existing policy. “Neutral” does not exist. Those who challenge this policy are not engaging in “social engineering” - or if you like, they are engaging in it as much as you are. Debate over the merits of current policy and changes to that policy is called civic discussion and participation, not social engineering. Please stop carelessly tagging your ideological opponents with this tag; it only serves to further entrench both sides.
As you’ve noted before, you share some goals with the Streetsbloggers - better transit, improved cycling conditions, etc. Why not use this platform as a constructive forum instead of one in which you mock and deride others? I mean, this isn’t Gawker. Right?
You’ll probably mock and deride this comment, but hey - it was worth a shot. Best of luck with the blog - I hope it becomes a constructive place for dialogue about transportation.
Jack,
Thanks for your comments. Lewis and I will take them into consideration.
One clarification: This is not a blog. It’s a magazine.
Judd,
One clarification: Magazines, for the most part, do journalism. You don’t. You guys publish whiny, tossed-off, poorly thought-out ideological rants and commentary on other publications’ stories. This isn’t a magazine.
jack, you clearly haven’t been paying attention: lewis, if you can stand reading his caffeine-addled ranting, believes that any policy that encourages, incentivizes or funds mass transit or bicycling is “social engineering.” any policy that encourages, incentivizes or funds motor vehicle usage and suburban sprawl is the market be allowed to do its thing and give the american people what they want. it’s a pretty simple set of ideas around here at commuter outrage once you get into the groove of it.
jack, you clearly haven’t been paying attention:
if you can bear to read lewis’s caffeine-addled ranting, you’ll find that he believes any policy that encourages, incentivizes or funds mass transit or bicycling is “social engineering.”
any policy that encourages, incentivizes or funds motor vehicle usage and suburban sprawl is the market be allowed to do its thing and give the american consumer what he or she wants.
it’s a pretty simple set of ideas around here at commuter outrage once you get into the groove of it.
David,
I think you’re right. I’ll reclarify: We’re a scholarly journal.
Sam,
You’re actually not in the groove yet. I suggest reading the FAQ, and perhaps a few other posts, before you embarrass yourself any further.
We believe in all modes of transportation – cars, buses, subways, light rail, long-distance trains, airplanes, bicycles, walking. We believe that our government should enable all of these modes through infrastructure construction, maintenance, and upgrades, which is why we pay income taxes in the first place. We don’t believe it’s the role of government to socially engineer us through additional taxation and regulation toward attitudes and behaviors it thinks would be best for us (but which we do not prefer). We believe that the government should allow us to decide ourselves how to get from point A to point B. In terms of paying for our infrastructure, we believe the government should shift existing tax dollars from pork-barrel projects, rather than levying new taxes.
Folks,
Is Mad Magazine journalism?
G-d Bless.
SEE YOU AT IHOP.
Mr. Kaag
Sam - I appreciate that you recognize caffiene addled ranting when you see it. I have a Coke on my desk and a smile on my face right now.
I don’t believe that any policy that incentivizes, funds, or encourages mass transit is social engineering.
I use mass transit and would love to see it funded more than it is.
I think that funding or incentivizing DISPROPORTIONATELY to usage patters, or heavily taxing or nickel and diming with fees to discourage use is social engineering.
I think all modes should be funded to the maximum amount that makes sense, but what makes sense is determined by usage patterns - and obviously, this shouldn’t be skewed by the total absence of mass transit with an overabundance of highways - here you could make valid arguments for investment in mass transit.
But you wouldn’t fund disproportionately in an area where both exist if one isn’t used.
In New York, I actually think it makes a lot of sense to fund mass transit more than automobiles, because roughly 55% of the people use it.
But, I still don’t think you can simply not fund the automobile infrastructure in New York.
Jack,
Welcome to the site.
To address your concerns - my caffeine intake allows me to whip off these rants faster than I can think them up, as Sam pointed out.
As to the length, I appreciate the comment, but I disagree with you. If someone isn’t willing to invest the time and hear me out, I don’t want them to read the post.
People can go plenty of places on the internet and see a four sentence rehash of an article and a couple of bumper sticker talking points - but what does that do to advance the debate?
Transportation is an issue that touches every single person in this country. Can you name anyone who hasn’t been pissed off at some point about something transportation related?
I recognize that most people have about a ten second attention span, but this ties into your second point, you have to catch their attention.
In my posts, I make valid points. But, I make them in a very abrasive, mocking, sarcastic and crude way. Let’s be honest, if I was sitting here reciting from the DoT manual on highways, people would fall asleep before they finished the first sentence.
We’re trying to get more of the average people in this country - the ones who don’t necessarily care about the minute details, but still feel the pain - interested and involved. So sometimes that means that I have to respect that if the average guy appreciates fart jokes, you pander to him.
I would also point out that the name of the site is “Commuter OUTRAGE” (not meant in a condescending way toward you, meant as an expression of emotion) - you have to embrace it. This isn’t a place for stylized talking points, this is a place for Judd and I to vent about problems we see every day around us, and hopefully for others to do the same.
This is the way it works - I see a story and have a gut reaction to it - I know instantly whether I like it or not and whether I think it is crap or not. I write a sarcastic, mocking, angry, etc… rant about it and let people tell me what an idiot I am, then I respond with thoughtful comments.
We feel that’s a formula for success - but you have to capture their attention first. If they read the whole post, they’re rewarded with everything from crude humor, to what we consider sly wit (StreetsBloggers may disagree on that point), but look, if you stick with it, you’re rewarded. Even if you think I’m a moron, at least you get a laugh out of my idiocy, and then you feel that you have to say something and so the debate begins.
But it’s a way to get people interested in something that honestly probably doesn’t interest them. It’s also a forum for honest debate - we pick on StreetsBlog, but there are blogs on the other side that are just as bad and probably worse, and we’ll find them and mock them too. It’s not that StreetsBlog’s ideas are all bad, it’s just that there isn’t an open and honest debate on a lot of the issues, and there isn’t a lot of intellectual rigor to most of the posts. Everyone there seems to believe the same thing - so who are you convincing?
StreetBloggers will probably never see eye-to-eye with Me and Judd, so we’re not trying to convert them. But having a forum for honest and blunt conversation is good for everyone. It’s good for both sides, us and them, because it helps both sides ID the weaknesses in their arguments and mitigate them - after all StreetsBlog is trying to convert people - how do you do that if you can’t answer basic questions that I can come up with in a 5-second knee-jerk reaction?
And the people on the fence benefit because they get to hear both sides of the argument out, and even better - they don’t just hear bumper sticker talking points here. You won’t just hear that the “US government subsidizes the automobile” you’ll see us challenge people on that and take them to task to explain what they mean. We’ll explain our side too, and you can follow the REASONING behind it so it’s not just some watered down factoid that fits nicely on a t-shirt - there’s some substance to it.
Look, you might be right, it may not work. But, we don’t care, we do this because it’s fun. We don’t make any money off of it currently, unless Judd is holding out on me. It’s a good way for us to blow off some steam, and hopefully engage some people on an issue that they don’t devote a lot of thought to beyond their frustration while they sit in traffic.
If more people think about it, changes will start to come a lot faster. If there’s one things the clowns on capitol hill understand it’s “don’t get yourself voted out of office”.
I actually agree with you on most of the social engineering comment. See my response to Sam above and see if that clears up my position for you.
So rest easy, I didn’t mock and deride you this time. But if you visit back and wish to engage in debate, which we hope you will, be prepared to back up any ridiculous statements you throw on the table, or you WILL be mocked and derided.
You’re free to mock and deride back - we have never taken down a comment - nor will we, unless it it blatantly rascist, bigoted or uses completely foul language (which most of the time we just BLEEP out.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to scour the news to see what pisses me off today.
Sam -
One more thing, in the spirit of your “get into the groove of it” around here comment, I’m going to recommend to Judd that we add “Into the Groove” by Madonna to our Traffic Jams section.
Judd -
What do you think? In Sam’s honor - shall we?
Already up there.
Your website can’t ever get any facts straight.
Streetsblog did NOT organize the Commuter Challenge at all. Had NOTHING to do with it. They did cover it thru, I believe, Streetfilms.
The organizers were Transportation Alternatives. it is no wonder no one can trust you guys, for every fact you get right, there are two that are not.
Mr. Generic Bike -
Congratulations. You got me. Transportation Alternatives put this on and StreetFilms simply covered it.
What relevance does that have to any of the critique of the race? This isn’t meant to be a history lesson. It’s meant to be a critique of the lack of thoughtful dialogue on Streetsblog.
You managed to point out one wrong fact. I count 7 different assertions of fact in that short segment on the bike race. Where are the other 13 things I got wrong?