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(((Matthew Lewis))) enjoys being offline Profile picture
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Jan 18 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
This is the best argument for safe streets I’ve ever read.

“Despite the common misperception that Slow Streets are designed for athletic ‘tech bro’ bikers, they aren’t the ones who benefit most. It is people like me who need more space to feel safe.” sfchronicle.com/opinion/openfo…
“Rather than taking away transportation options from seniors and mobility impaired people like me, Slow Streets offer us new, healthier possibilities.”

Dear drivers, they’re not your god damn streets, they being to us all and your time monopolizing and dominating them is over.
One thing that makes violent drivers so pernicious in their anti-safe-streets advocacy is, most people don’t know the details behind their lie:

Victims of driver violence are overwhelmingly NOT athletic “tech bros.”

They’re children, the elderly, disabled, & people of color.
“But I only see white tech bros on bicycles”

Tell me you live in a segregated neighborhood without telling me you live in a segregated neighborhood

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(((Matthew Lewis))) enjoys being offline Profile picture
Jan 19
Having done my best to piss off a lot of people on this website one thing that stands out is how people who are accustomed to driving their car everywhere have never even really given car culture any thought.

Like, no part of it.
People don't know how roads are paid for -- or that their taxes don't cover them. People don't know driving is the leading cause of climate pollution in the US. People don't know cars are the leading killer of children on earth, and leading cause of hospitalization for all humans
People don't know that their suburban, car-oriented lifestyle leads to virtually guaranteed municipal bankruptcy. People don't know that it's not actually cheaper to "drive til you qualify" when you ... include the cost of the driving.
Read 12 tweets
(((Matthew Lewis))) enjoys being offline Profile picture
Jan 18
Among the many reasons that vehicle weight taxes are good is, carmakers are planning to replace 5,000 pound gasoline SUVs with 8,000 pound battery/electric ones and, as usual, stick us with the bill for the increased deaths and road damage.

Nope. Pay for that shit yourselves.
I've been arguing for ~ 15 years all road users should pay taxes proportionate to road impact -- as long as it's based on physics.

So, for example, biklings should pay $1 per year for wear and tear we cause roads -- if drivers pay $17,000 per year. streets.mn/2016/07/07/cha…
I'm open to negotiation on this. So, if drivers don't want to pay $17,000 per year, then ... we could pay cyclists $1,000 a year to ride their bikes, and in exchange for the dramatic reduction in road wear, charge drivers only, say, $10,000 a year.
Read 4 tweets
(((Matthew Lewis))) enjoys being offline Profile picture
Jan 14
electric vehicle advocates are basically assuming they'll be able to convince a ~ billion gasoline SUV drivers in 2030 to retire their SUVs early and drop ~ $25,000 on a new electric vehicle "because it's better"
The more likely scenario is, taxpayers will be forced to give SUV drivers $25 trillion in "cash for clunkers" programs.

Hell, Bernie Sanders proposed this exact approach two years ago -- $2 trillion in handouts to the for-profit capitalist car industry!

"climate action"
alternatively, we could *stop* burning money, start to claw back all the land and tax dollars the car industry stole from us, use it for housing and transit, and do it all *for less money*

Demand for walkable neighborhoods is through the roof.

People hate long car commutes.
Read 5 tweets
(((Matthew Lewis))) enjoys being offline Profile picture
Jan 14
Honestly, these things are always impossible to see in the moment but I abso-fucking-lutely guarantee that the humans of 2122 will view the car industry (which will have been nuked from outer space -- just to be sure) as the single worst villain in the history of humanity.
What's wild about this, is cars are *just about* single-handedly responsible for failure on climate because of where they sit in the ecosystem of pollution sources.

This is not just about gasoline.
In addition to their oil addiction, cars are the largest consumers of steel and related products on earth, and *also* the largest drivers of demand for concrete for roads.

Steel and concrete cause 15% of all carbon emissions globally.
Read 6 tweets
(((Matthew Lewis))) enjoys being offline Profile picture
Jan 14
"Global SUV sales have proven resilient throughout the pandemic, growing by over 10% between 2020 and 2021. In 2021, SUVs are on course to account for more than 45% of global car sales – setting a new record in terms of both volume and market share." iea.org/commentaries/g…
let's keep arguing over parking everybody
"Over 98% of SUVs on world’s roads today still rely on internal combustion engines. SUVs are also heavier and consume 20% more energy than a medium-sized car. As such, SUVs rank among the top causes of energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions growth over the last decade."
Read 6 tweets
(((Matthew Lewis))) enjoys being offline Profile picture
Jan 12
One reason to generally* avoid engaging left-NIMBYs/vacancy truthers is not just it's a time suck & they're acting in bad faith (which, true) -- they don't even bother to check if their claims are accurate.

For example, vacancies are at historic lows.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
While it's problematic when NIMBY lies cross over into actual policy discussions, this generally only happens with policy makers who are *themselves* already NIMBYs and appreciate the legwork left-NIMBYs do in providing them with right-wing talking points in "lefty-ish" language.
Which is to say, the work is about electoral strategy and keeping NIMBYs out of office to begin with, because once they're in there, it doesn't really matter what the facts are -- left-NIMBYs will feed them lies and they'll try to legislate with them.
Read 4 tweets

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