[sustran] Re: EU laws to put brake on bikers(motorcyclists) BUT BUT BUT

[Eric Bruun]

We have been over this before, but I want to mention these points one more time:

1) We should distinguish between richer countries like Greece that have decent public transportation but still allow motorcycles to run wild in cities and poor countries where transit options don't exist. Motorcycles don't 
have to be the first step towards automobiles, their use can be curtailed down to far more reasonable levels if there is some investment in higher-quality transit (rail, BRT, bus lanes, etc.). Have a look at Taipei if you
don't believe me.

Why not give the World Bank and national governments some blame for the situation as well? They
are the ones that ignore transit while promoting roads for the rich and for commerce.  Can
you blame the lower income people for wanting to be mobile? Why is it OK for the elite
to drive around in their cars and hog so much of the street space, to endanger pedestrians, to
pollute, and so on.

2) Motorcycles are not automatically "stinkier". They can be cleaned up just like automobiles. Again
blame governments too, not just the people who buy what is for sale.

Eric Bruun


-----Original Message-----
>From: Todd Edelman <edelman at greenidea.info>
>Sent: May 17, 2006 5:02 PM
>To: sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org
>Cc: mailbox at carfree.com
>Subject: [sustran] Re: EU laws to put brake on bikers(motorcyclists) BUT BUT	BUT
>
>Eric Britton said:
>
>> Todd Edelman wrote on this date with ref to the letter of our
>> knowledgeable Greek colleague K. Tsourlakis and his pertinent comments
>> on motorcycles (see below) as follows:
>
>"I suggest we move this discussion off the Carfree Cities as it is my
>understanding that carfree definately means motorcycle-free in the view
>of the owner of the Carfree Cities list, with no discussion possible."
>
>Britton continued:
>> "Fair enough Mr. Owner. But I just want my colleagues here in our fine
>> Sustran group and in the New Mobility Agenda that I really like the "no
>> discussion possible" bit. It tells us a great deal about the real world
>> relevance of this point of view and I must conclude the forum itself.
>> But what is great about the web of course is that there is plenty of
>> space out here for utopian thinking, and it is only right that they set
>> their own agendas. What is apparently most important in this case is not
>> the untidy world in which we live and have to work with, but the
>> pristine ones that some of us have in our heads.  Life is sweet.
>
>Eric, you are so sensitive! I had a dream I wanted to share with you:
>
>The World Bank hired Daryl Oster and started to build his Evacuated Tube
>Transport. Some Thai kids stole a motorcycle powered by a secret utopian
>energy source and drove it through the unfinished ETT all the way to
>Paris, where you greeted them with fresh bread, soft cheese and all of a
>sudden the dreaded Wikipolice showed up and asked you some serious
>questions.
>
>The skies turned black and subsonic thunder vibrated the cosmos. Then the
>skies turned bright blue just as abruptly and the Carfree Ark appeared and
>the naked carfree children gave utopian vitamins to everyone and all the
>worlds problems were solved, forever.
>
>---
>>
>> Okay, why do I bother you all with this? It is more than just an
>> opportunity to share a wry grin with you.  To the contrary, it is to
>> encourage more critical discussion and idea mongering on both these fora
>> of precisely the motorcycles in cities dilemma.  It's a huge reality
>> (you know, reality).  For those of us who have lived and worked in Asia,
>> we can only see that this is a situation which is profoundly out of
>> control and which, as it happens. Deal with phenomena and practices
>> which have entirely escaped both planners and policy makers.  To take
>> just one point of the untidy real world: there is a growing population
>> of people for whom two wheels bangers are cheaper and "better" than even
>> the cheapest bus.  Well, what do we do then?
>>
>> So if the "no discussion possible" comments do nothing other than to
>> activate further discussions and work on this here, well they would have
>> made a real contribution.
>
>The Thai kids later found out that each of them had two half-time jobs:
>One was to work on carfree cities; the other was to work on doing as much
>as possible to eliminate the dangers of stinky, evil motorcycles. Their
>bosses, unsurprisingly, did not find the two jobs to be a conflict of
>purpose.
>
>- Fin -
>
>The non-Canadian Todd (Edelman)
>
>
>>
>> Eric Britton
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Motorcycles may be "little guy" in Czechia, but Czechia (or perhaps
>> North
>> America) is not the whole world. In many South European and Asian cities
>> (and in
>> an ever growing number of African countries) motorcycle traffic is an
>> important
>> part of motorised traffic (and in many cases - e.g China or Vietnam- a
>> first
>> step towards car motorisation).
>>
>> In Athens for instance, 1 million motorcycles pollute freely the city,
>> besides 2
>> million automobiles - without any (unlike cars) exhaust gas and noise
>> controls.
>> Motorcycling is deliberately promoted (instead of biking - Athens lacks
>> even 1
>> km of bike lane) in order to maximize motorised traffic. The corrupt
>> administration favours motorcycling because they don't compete cars, but
>> use
>> mostly pedestrian spaces and other free spaces (parks, squares etc) -
>> they have
>> also recently granted them legally free access to dedicated bus lanes.
>> They use
>> under police immunity sidewalks and other pedestrian spaces and act more
>> aggressively than cars, being a major component of the violence and
>> oppression
>> pedestrians experience in Athens in everyday life, and an important
>> (although
>> unrecognised) part of the pollution of the most polluted capital in
>> Europe.
>>
>> You are not right: they don't only cause damage to the motorcyclists
>> themselves,
>> but they also kill pedestrians and bicyclists. Even the damage they
>> bring about
>> to themselves shouldn't be confronted with indifference, given the
>> efforts the
>> motorcycle lobby makes to lure inexperienced and aggression inclined
>> people to
>> the motorcycle ideology. However I agree with you that fines and efforts
>> should
>> concentrate more to the damage they cause to others (like speeding or
>> pedestrian
>> rights violations) than the harm they cause to themselves (like helmet
>> use -
>> advising rather than penalties are more appropriate in this case).
>>
>> Although carfree cities is a worthy prospect, perhaps a completely
>> carfree world
>> is still far away, but a motorcycle free world is already feasible (and
>> may
>> become a first step towards the carfree vision). For a more thorough
>> discussion
>> about motorcycles look at
>>
>> http://www.geocities.com/pezosgr/motocbust.rtf
>> or
>> http://www.geocities.com/pezosgr/motocbust.htm
>>
>>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------
>
>Todd Edelman
>International Coordinator
>On the Train Towards the Future!
>
>Green Idea Factory
>Laubova 5
>CZ-13000 Praha 3
>
>++420 605 915 970
>
>edelman at greenidea.info
>http://www.worldcarfree.net/onthetrain
>
>Green Idea Factory,
>a member of World Carfree Network
>
>
>
>================================================================
>SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred, equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries (the 'Global South'). Because of the history of the list, the main focus is on urban transport policy in Asia.