Why Do Micromobility Advocates Have Tiny-Demand Syndrome?
Terenig Topjian published a brilliant article this week explaining how micromobility advocates think too small when seeking public infrastructure.
Here’s my take on it for the tl;dr people out there.
Bike and now micromobility advocates don’t sell a big enough vision when seeking infrastructure changes — a micromobility lane here or there — they talk about using existing infrastructure. It won’t require the scale of investment of a new road or light rail — it must be good. They “beg for twigs” to get small unconnected projects done.
Asking for small amounts for bits and pieces of bike lanes — not a city-wide network isn’t exciting, doesn’t create jobs and ultimately doesn’t solve the problem. We need to think much bigger.
“A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A billion dollars.”
Aaron Sorkin from The Social Network. Go big.
Look at what Terenig describes the auto industry doing in the early 20th century…
“By creating a mind-shift — framing car infrastructure as a “public responsibility” — the auto industry helped change our national priorities and instigated the creation of car-centric infrastructure to support what Americans now worship as the pinnacle of individual freedom.
As if that weren’t enough, they also stole our primary public spaces in cities: the streets.
Today we think of streets as a utility for transportation. Yet for thousands of years, streets were public spaces, used for socializing, playing, business, street vending, meetings, civic activism, and festivals — they were humanity’s living room. In the blink of a historic eye, car companies were able to occupy these spaces with strategies such as the invention of “jaywalking,” outlawing things humans had done for thousands of years: freely use and cross public streets.
This was likely the largest single de facto privatization of public space in urban history.”
We need to plan multi-billion dollar micromobility solutions which provide city-wide access to safe and efficient micromobility infrastructure connected to cities major transit hubs and destination points.
As we’re seeing in some European cities, public spaces must be prioritised for communities, pedestrians and micromobility users. The era of cars ruling must end and public space needs to be reallocated.
It won’t happen if we only beg for twigs. We need the micromobility industry, particularly the scooter-share companies to work together with cities to drive this major change in thinking and infrastructure budget allocations.
Please read Terenig’s full article below.
