How San Francisco's bike-share scheme became a symbol of gentrification
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Mario, a San Francisco user of the bike-share program, who has a discounted membership because he qualifies for food stamps, said he was perplexed by the backlash. “It’s the cheapest transportation option we have,” said the 29-year-old, who works as an administrative assistant and asked not to use his full name, because he feared backlash from anti-gentrification activists.
Which makes them distinct from exactly no one? This is a conflict of culture not of benefits. This is a result of city planners who do not talk to the communities they plan for/in, and who arbitrarily make changes to public services and facilities without input from the people who actually live in the places they're in.
I'm willing to bet money that nobody who decided where these bike stations went ever even spoke to the poor in the areas where they went. I'm also willing to bet that the people in those areas, even if it isn't true, believed that the extra parking spaces and extra traffic lanes benefitted them more than the bikes. If they didn't, they wouldn't be destroying them.
I'm not saying vandalizing is the solution here, but with the wealthy tech sector utterly dictating the price of housing and consequently shoving out literally everyone else all over the Bay Area, is it really such a reach of logic to think that a shiny rack of new bicycles, no doubt transacted via some kind of app or spiffy web service, is not going to be a lightning rod for communities that are getting the shit beat out of them by a tech obsessed elite?
Hah, classic engineering mistake: assuming people are rational.
People hate change.
People really hate change they didn't choose (irrespective of whether that change is good or bad), because people want to feel in control.
On top of that, given the sheer, mindless hostility that cyclists receive from non-cyclists (some deserved, most not at all), when you mix that with rage over gentrification, these bike share programs should've been seen as a target before they ever got rolled out.
So I agree with you that I'll bet the roll out of this program was botched.
But I very much disagree that the subsequent reaction was rational or thought out based on a cost-benefit analysis.
It's a classic Bay Area story. Any kind of change is met with backlash from somewhere. No place does self-righteous entitlement quite like the Bay Area.
Given that total knowledge is costly and time-consuming to acquire and often the window for action is shorter than the time it would take to acquire a total understanding of the situation, it's only natural people take cognitive shortcuts.
All you've done is eloquently explained why their irrationality might be understandable.
Humans are, by and large, inherently irrational. That fact isn't depressing. It's simply true.
That's not the subject. You've suggested that this specific reaction is irrational. As I've pointed out, it's ENTIRELY rational to use available data to make a decision if the stakes are high and the duration of opportunity to counter it may be short.
It may be sub-optimal and even self-harming in the total balance of accounting, but that is a distinct condition from rationality. You seem to be confusing these different concepts.
I agree. The initial reaction to getting a pipe jammed into your chest is to remove the pipe, even though I'm pretty sure every medical professional would tell you to leave it there, you don't in the heat of the moment understand why: you have a foreign entity in your body, and your instincts are telling you to remove it. It is an irrational and detrimental reaction but I'm willing to bet the vast majority of people would do it, or at least attempt to do it until someone who was not in fight or flight mode stopped them.
Just because emotions are messy and not easily solved with logic and code does not make them irrelevant. We are not the fucking Borg and we likely won't be for an extremely long time, so discarding the emotional end of any argument just because you don't want to deal with the messy irrational reactions of human beings is stupid.
Sure. And you're assuming that's what happened here.
Based on how I've seen people behave, I'm assuming it's not.
We can both have our opinions. Hell, we're probably both right to some degree.
I will say, though, that when it comes to collective human behaviour, politics has taught me to be incredibly cynical... I've consistently been amazed by how willing people are to work against their own best interests in order to reinforce their personal and group identities.
But the vandals in particular? I seriously doubt they put any real thought into the benefits of this bike network. They saw change, introduced from outside, that they see as a symbol of white gentrification (and even worse, it's those damned cyclists that everyone hates... Probably with man buns and bottles of IPA in their backpacks), and reacted.
It's interesting to me that you agree with my previous statements about using approximations to be rational, then engage in that exact process to judge these people, and then refuse to offer them the opportunity to do the same.
I understand emotional tension around these issues tends to run hot. I can be so detached because I recently moved out of the city.
But seriously, dude. This is a bit ridiculous.
Uhh, I'm not judging them at all. Where did you get that idea?
As you say, I'm irrational. Everyone is irrational.
Heck, your assumption that I'm somehow judging these people is irrational. :)
All I'm saying is I believe these people are reacting emotionally. That's it. There's no judgement in that. Again, it's simply my view of the facts. And given bikes are being hung in trees, I think not an unreasonable one.
And that fact changes how you solve the problem. Reasoning with someone who isn't thinking in terms of costs and benefits is pointless. You have to engage differently. So acknowledging that this is what is happening is the first step to moving ahead.
I'm just taking you at your word:
>> Based on how I've seen people behave, I'm assuming it's not.
> All I'm saying is I believe these people are reacting emotionally. That's it.
This is like, "I'm just saying this water is flowing wetly, that's t it." Why even say it then, if you had no other points to make.
I repeat that I think you're confusing rationality with results. Process and outcome are only linked statistically.
Fact.
> People really hate change they didn't choose (irrespective of whether that change is good or bad), because people want to feel in control.
Which is why doing what was done here, i.e. rolling in overnight and changing shit, especially when the direct benefits of that have not even been attempted to be explained to, let alone explained well to the affected community, was probably a shitty idea. And the backlash was utterly predictable.
Considering that these people are paying taxes (even if they get it all back at the end of the year, optically, they are "paying taxes" because they lose a good chunk of their paycheck that they could probably really use) I don't think having a say as to what and how public services are created and executed in their community is such a terrible thing. I'd say that is a fairly rational desire.
> But I very much disagree that the subsequent reaction was rational or thought out based on a cost-benefit analysis.
I have a hard time recollecting any situation where vandalism is a rational, thought out reaction to anything. Nor did I say it was.
The locations for these stations and the second wave of them that will be installed have been known for a long time and numerous community meetings were conducted.
People are probably still just mad they're losing two parking spots near their business.
Do you have data to back this up? Given how quickly the internet took over the world, Facebook, iPhone and smartphones, mass move from IE to Chrome, Uber...
I really don't think there's much truth in this banal platitude.
I'd say history is at least partially on my side.
Wouldn't you?
As an aside: You might disagree with this "banal platitude", but you can be civil about it.
This system where lighter classes of traffic yield to heavier classes of traffic is mostly compatible with typical road rules. There are specific exceptions such as crosswalks and implied exceptions like (like university campuses). Bike suck from a consistancy standpoint because they need to be treated like part of the cars/motorcycles/trucks class of traffic at some times and treated like pedestrians at other times. How they should be treated depends on a bunch of different details of the situation and the interpretation of those details depends on the driver/cyclist.
Drivers are hostile toward cyclists for the same reason drivers are hostile toward tourists who are traveling too slow, in the wrong lane for their turn, slam on the brakes to make the turn, etc. Both groups do not act in ways that are easily predictable to those around them and make those around them spend more effort keeping tabs on them making using the road more stressful.
Segregating different classes of traffic is how the problem is solved in any other case (Pedestrians get sidewalks or the shoulder, cars get the road, trains get rails, ships get water, forklifts and heavy haul trucks are restricted to areas where their interaction with the other classes of traffic is more controllable (when was the last time you saw someone driving a scissor lift down the road?).
Bike lanes solve the problem somewhat but what we really need are rules that better define who does what in what situation so that road users can better predict each other's behavior and not be nuisances to each other.
Huh! This is exactly the opposite of my perception:
In general the way traffic works is "big has a responsibility to not hit small."
If you want to drive an 18-wheeler, you better get a special class of driver's license and special training, and you will certainly lose that special license if you expect "smaller" entities on the road to yield to you because you are larger.
When you drive a car, you again will need to get licensed and registered, though it's less difficult than if you want to drive a truck. You must drive safely around pedestrians--and should drive like you expect them to behave in unexpected ways, in a way where you won't kill them if they do. You yield to pedestrians when turning, or in a crosswalk, or parking lots. You must give bicyclists enough room when passing them and in general treat them like another vehicle, even though they are physically smaller.
When you're on a bike, you should absolutely yield to pedestrians, not the other way around.
In fact, I can't think of a single case in these most common classes of vehicles (trucks, cars, bikes, and pedestrians) where the law gives right-of-way to the larger entity, in a way it wouldn't if the entity were smaller. Can you?
It's not about size it's about traffic class. In the absence of specific instruction smaller classes do not have the right of way. Flagmen direct traffic around construction. The flagman tells the cars to yield so (e.g.) a skid steer can cross the road. Crosswalks tell pedestrians where they have the right of way but sometimes other instructions supersede that right of way. Crossing at a crosswalk at an intersection with a "don't walk" light and you don't have the right of way.
There's a reason most places have a law on the books that lets them fine people for jaywalking. People stop or slow for jaywalkers not because the pedestrian has the right of way but because hitting them is less preferable.
Yes, people who drive wheeled vehicles are trained to expect the smaller classes of traffic to be idiots. The rules that people using the roads are supposed to abide by have many layers of redundancy to make up for stupid. Slowing for pedestrians who are crossing the street where/when they shouldn't be or other vehicles taking turns they shouldn't be is still preferable to just hitting them.
Stop thinking of trucks as separate. Road vehicle with a license plate are the same class of traffic and follow the same rules. Big trucks just optimize their behavior for their size.
The rules of the rod work on paper. The problem is that people don't follow them and there's a bunch of situational details that dictate whether or not the rules can/should be broken.
It's everyone's responsibility not to crash into other stuff. You will have to yield to people not following the on paper rules to do that. Whether having to do so is reasonable is dependent on the situation.
This has to do with prejudice against anything even tenuously associated with an outgroup.
I mean, look at upset people on HN get over user tracking (see recent Firefox analytics uproar) or any other change in software that is forced on users - with software there's a choice to not use and often a choice for another. With Urban development, typically once done it's hard to change or revert changes.
The residents want more control and input over their neighborhoods and lives, not corporations deciding for them. I would think this position is not unreasonable, even if it results in unreasonable actions. Understanding where these reactions come from helps move the discussion to a more amicable place. Does that mean scaling back gentrification efforts while trust is built up? Yes, but that's how relationships work; you have to build a trust foundation.
I think it's entirely reasonable to be mad about a lack of community consult, but I think that this is ultimately the City's fault and not the bikeshare programs. It's unlikely that the outcome of the share point placement would have been much different, but the reduction of vandalization would have easily covered the initial cost.
Sadly, San Francisco has a history of not treating certain communities fairly. They're obligated to do more to undo this bad work, in the event of a program that can be genuinely shown to help everyone.
There were many, many, many community meetings about the bike share program expansion and ample time for anyone to give feedback. People always cry crocodile tears no matter how much public input is put into the process. Source: I'm an advocate for these things, see it at ALL of the meetings I go to.
> They're obligated to do more to undo this bad work, in the event of a program that can be genuinely shown to help everyone.
The program doesn't need to help _everone_ it needs to do more good than harm. There will be a ton of people who don't benefit directly by this but that is not a reason to remove or roll them back.
https://missionlocal.org/2017/07/neighborhood-group-rejects-...
~~~~~
“We really want this to be seen as an asset to all communities around the city,” said Simon.
But Arguello said that his group will not negotiate. “We told them no, and there will be opposition,” he said.
Simon said that the company has done rigorous community outreach, including more than 30 town hall meetings with residents, to gauge approval and need in the city’s neighborhoods.
~~~~~
Also, hey Dave!
Good to see this then. Some folks I know who live around there told me they weren't part of the process. I suppose that's wrong, given this.
What Arguello is saying there is pretty... pretty strange. Certainly Japantown's leadership has been working to make their district less of a theatrical tourist show and more livable for the actual community of folks around there, and has been investing more time in outreach via local cultural outlets (which is why the temple festivals have been getting bigger and more public, I guess?).
IDK though, I only pass by these communities periodically now since I moved out of the city.
And yeah, Arguello seems to be way out there with his ideas and he has really turned me off from the Calle 24 group. Unfortunately they are a major influence in 24th street politics because they have big megaphones even if they don't seem to represent the views of the people in the neighborhood sometimes.
Glad to hear Japantown appears to be headed in a good direction. I actually think a lot of SF's planning is improving the city.
a.k.a. gentrification
Protesting a low-cost, low-impact community transit option is as transparent an announcement of prejudice as you can expect.
Strong disagree. Bike lanes are a necessary part of any city's infrastructure, providing a safe way for all cyclists to move from one point, to another. To anchor bike lanes to groups of people like techies and hipsters is absurd.
Like, yeah, totally agree that bike lanes are an important part of any city's street planning. The more absurd thing is that there have been people riding bikes through the streets of SF for decades, and it wasn't until parts of the city began to gentrify, and bike shares became popular amongst the wealthier residents, that anyone cared enough to fix the problem.
You don't think there's a small chance the previous residents _did_ advocate for change, but their advocacy wasn't effective because it wasn't backed by wealth?
For many poor and middle class people bikes were a sign you were poor and could not afford a car. So some people in the middle would avoid biking so as not to look poor.
Upper middle class, having some security and wealth didn't care about "looking poor". They could ride $5000 bikes to display wealth or could ride $50 used bikes, interchangeably. They already had status so bikes were neutral or even positive (I'm active, I'm pro environment, etc.)
Which is why people get upset. Its not that the changes aren't good, its the fact that the change doesn't happen until someone else asks for them.
But, unlike a lot of other schools in its position, its alumni network generally doesn't give back all that often (probably in part because first-gen college students are more-likely to have financial responsibilities to their families, and less-likely to be able to afford to give/prioritize giving back to their universities).
But I do specifically remember having to move off campus because my dorm had a mouse/mold problem (woke up multiple nights in a row to mice in my bed, and started having breathing problems because of the mold. Some students even had mushrooms growing out of their carpet). And when I brought it up to the director of residence life, he responded by saying that it wasn't a big enough deal to address, and that students always complain about these things and eventually stop pushing....So....
[1] https://www.howard.edu/assessment/documents/reports/Graduati...
When wealthier people move into a neighborhood, expecting bike lanes, they push for them. They probably have more power/influence, but they also have a higher since of entitlement that causes them to not give up, even if the city pushes back.
Visiting a coffee shop (no matter what you buy) will always be seen as a luxury activity, even though people have been going to diners for coffee (or making their own) for years.
Diners (at least those where I live) have started offering more options (including cappuccino style concoctions) in response to the coffee house trend, and now tend to match the prices of those coffee houses.
edit: again with the downvotes? is this not largely true? I think you give most people too much credit if you disagree with this. please back up your down votes with some kind of argument.
It's politics
Build, just build. It benefits everyone but entrenched interests (nimbys).
It's presented as us vs them. And that is so unfortunate, because it should be seen as progress.
edit: downvote? what's to downvote? seriously? don't be a coward, explain yourself!
I'm not sure at what age it's no longer safe. Even when you are young, riding around a busy city with traffic can be a bit dangerous. Coordination decreases as you age, and at certain point, one fall can yield broken bones. A broken hip, for example, when you are old can be the beginning of a permanent decline.
Completely agree. The phrase "this is why we can't have nice things" comes to mind. I can sort of understand the backlash against corporate shuttles or even Uber, since these roll in and only benefit a certain layer of society. However, that decidedly does not seem to be the case with these bikes. From the article:
> “When you look at the transportation privileges that have been provided for these techies, and when you now look at these bikes, it’s not for Juan. It ain’t for Pablo ... The feeling of people in this community is like we don’t exist.”
But then:
> Supporters [...] claimed it is one of the most accessible in the country, with a $5 annual membership for low-income people and options to sign up without a credit or debit card.
This just sounds like complaining about change for the sake of it. Then again, maybe this whole anti-gentrification story is overblown. It could just be bored kids with no larger agenda. After all, the article even mentions it's common for vandals to target bike sharing systems when they first appear.
You blame all maladies and shortcomings on the professionals, the middle class, the merchants, etc., who are taking your entitlements at every chance. It has the typical characteristics of incited class struggle.
I can understand the frustration from people who need to drive when new infrastructure geared towards biking seemingly comes at the expense of drivers. Ex. Market St, the main street in downtown SF, is scheduled to be closed to private vehicles and only used by bikes, taxis and buses.
That part of the article left a nasty taste in my mouth. The only reason anyone would make such a statement would be to backup their own shortsighted, backward-looking way of thinking.
I found it so refreshing to actually see something happen in SF. No endless community town hall meetings, pilot programs, bond measures, and political grandstanding. Instead a bunch of cheap and publicly accessible bikes appeared overnight.
No of course the program is not perfect, but if the city had asked every single person if they were OK with it we would have ended up with nothing.
San Francisco needs those bikes for people to get around because the public transportation in SF is downright awful. The "subway" is composed of cars from many lines that travel through a single tube and then go on the street and become subject to the traffic. I walk faster than many bus lines.
If anything, the bikes make life easier for everyone here and that is a good thing.
But since the rollout was handled poorly (particularly by the city) it's unsurprising that folks objected to parking and space being displaced without any clear explanation of the value proposition.
A single rack might displace 2 parking spaces at the most.
The cost of it, its availability, and eligibility certainly needs to be explained. How would anyone know them otherwise? I've seen multiple stations and the signage explaining the program did not answer my questions, but rather referred me to a website. That's not an option for everyone, nor were the signs I saw in a diversity of languages to improve comprehension.
Maybe the stations I saw lacked these features and others have them, so I will accept correction there.
To be honest though, almost every major city has a bike share now so I am a little perplexed that we need to reexplain its value from first principles.
These folks who bike generally aren't renting bike shares. They're scavenging cheap used kids' bikes off Craigslist.
As another commenter pointed out they even have a program where you can get a yearly pass for $5 if you qualify. I simply can't see this as worse than not having it.
I can't afford a lot of things but if having them available improves the life of others why bother complaining if it doesn't harm me.
https://help.fordgobike.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000247832-T...
"Bike Share for All provides a one-time $5 annual membership for qualifying residents. The program also includes a cash payment option for those who do not have a debit or credit card. Bike Share for All is available to Bay Area residents ages 18 and older who qualify for Calfresh, SFMTA (Low Income) Lifeline Passes or PG&E CARE utility discount."
A common narrative amongst opponents of the program is the lack of community outreach. Not mentioned in the article is that Motivate, the company that runs the bike share program, reached out to communities and collected feedback for 2+ years before rolling the program out.
Outreach report from February: https://s3.amazonaws.com/babs-www-assets/FordGoBikeInterim+O...
Meanwhile the critics say they "will not negotiate" with the bike share program. Never a good sign.
This is the most enraging part of the article. The people who administer this program spent time and money to make it more accessible to the poor, and they're still vilified as gentrifiers. Will they bother to do that next time? Isn't the lesson here, "don't bother to sit down and listen to the activists and incorporate their feedback, it won't help"?
They're most probably fighting a losing battle. The only thing that can now stop the NYC real-estate bubble from inflating even further would be a severe financial crisis, in which case your friends' neighborhood gentrification will be the last of their problems.
That this could ever be written, seriously, points toward how toxic the times we are living in have become.
Now everyone blames the bike share for not having a reasonable pass to bike for a few hours or the whole day even though it was their competition that made it that way!
Do I like seeing that kind of money going to my landlord? No way! Would I be interested in seeing more political initiatives designed to increase the housing supply? Yes! Am I worried about who will be able to afford to live here and teach my kids or police the streets? Yes again! What about the chronic nimbyism that plagues the area? People that already own houses here are desperate not to see any devaluation to their properties.
It pains me to see the murals in the Mission portraying tech people as the bad guys, when to me it's more like we're just the visible newcomers that are getting most of the blame. At least for now we get to share some of the attention with the bike sharing system.
The bike stations are not in neighborhoods of people who need inexpensive transportation, and the bike lanes do not connect, for example, poor and working class people with their jobs. For example, bike lanes connecting poor immigrant communities with the restaurants where many of the residents work would be great.
Requiring a credit card also limits access (though I don't know if that's still true).
Bike sharing is designed by the young, upwardly mobile urban, for the young, upwardly mobile urban - maybe that's done unconsciously, but that's the outcome I see in my town.
The funding for the wealthy and poor communities all comes from the same city treasury.
> Requiring a credit card with a sufficient amount of credit limit fixes this issue.
So much for opportunity, democracy, and equality under the law. Only the few who qualify get the real benefits of citizenship. Billy Bragg once sang (referring to Ronald Reagan's "Morning in America"):
It's morning in America
And you can be your best
If you have a major credit card
And can pass a urine test[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_San_Francisco#...
Downvotes, eh? The article itself contains a complaint about "seeing more affluent white people come into neighbourhoods".
I'm sure that, as the US becomes more diverse, things will turn around.
For me, I'm only here for the money I get to keep after expenses. Once somewhere else matches that and without the crazy whining about gentrification and privilege, and the extreme NIMBYism, I'm gone. I suspect the same is true for many others.
> For me, I'm only here for the money I get to keep after expenses. Once somewhere else matches that and without the crazy whining about gentrification and privilege, and the extreme NIMBYism, I'm gone. I suspect the same is true for many others.
Can't comment on Austin, but having lived in the Bay and Denver, there is just as much gnashing of teeth and nativism in Denver (let alone Boulder, my god). Same goes for Portland, Seattle, hell, even NYC. Locales like to act like they are the only city in the states undergoing demographic shifts.
I hope they put up a bike station near it too.