Old news: abandonded dockless vehicles
At the end of my first crit for this project, where I gave an overview of the developing bicycle infrastructure in London, a question from one of the tutors was whether I had seen the terrible pictures of all the abandoned dockless bicycles in Chinese cities? Who hasn't? The media loves a good story especially if it comes with a great picture. Her question was really questioning if we wanted our cities invaded by so many of these vehicles? And my answer was yes, but we obviously need to be mindful not to be too hasty and repeat the patterns in China.
However, as soon as I had taken my seat again and the crits rolled onto the next person, I suddenly flipped open my laptop, launched Firefox and began searching for images of 'parked cars' and 'scrap cars'. I then added these extra slides as an appendix to my presentations as a note to self for next time I am asked this question (people love it as much as the media do):
If I was quick whipped enough, I would have given this response in my crit: that cars have become so ubiquitous that we fail to see them littered across our towns and cities, crammed into every possible space available. We give them permission to line both sides of nearly every street; we create special areas for them to be left unattended, untethered, taking up precious floor space in our ever-populous urban areas; we even build whole buildings dedicated to them, both on mass and inside our homes. They also suffer increasingly short life expectancies, assigned to scrap after a relatively short lived period of service.
So why are we so quick to criticise dockless bicycles? We have in fact been living with the same consequences from the automobile industry for decades, which let's not forget also invite a whole host of other negative consequences for our cities - air pollution, congestion, inactivity.
I was encouraged to read this article on Slate echoing my point. I am not suggesting that dockless bike sharing should follow the same path as cars have taken, but I am calling for some perspective and reflection. Yes, there will be teething problems, but let's be too quick to not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I've been grateful to people at both Mobike and Ofo - the main operators in London - as well as a couple of London boroughs who have chatted with me about their views on dockless bicycles in London, so in my next post I'll follow up with a review of dockless bikes in the capital to date.
However, as soon as I had taken my seat again and the crits rolled onto the next person, I suddenly flipped open my laptop, launched Firefox and began searching for images of 'parked cars' and 'scrap cars'. I then added these extra slides as an appendix to my presentations as a note to self for next time I am asked this question (people love it as much as the media do):
If I was quick whipped enough, I would have given this response in my crit: that cars have become so ubiquitous that we fail to see them littered across our towns and cities, crammed into every possible space available. We give them permission to line both sides of nearly every street; we create special areas for them to be left unattended, untethered, taking up precious floor space in our ever-populous urban areas; we even build whole buildings dedicated to them, both on mass and inside our homes. They also suffer increasingly short life expectancies, assigned to scrap after a relatively short lived period of service.
So why are we so quick to criticise dockless bicycles? We have in fact been living with the same consequences from the automobile industry for decades, which let's not forget also invite a whole host of other negative consequences for our cities - air pollution, congestion, inactivity.
I was encouraged to read this article on Slate echoing my point. I am not suggesting that dockless bike sharing should follow the same path as cars have taken, but I am calling for some perspective and reflection. Yes, there will be teething problems, but let's be too quick to not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I've been grateful to people at both Mobike and Ofo - the main operators in London - as well as a couple of London boroughs who have chatted with me about their views on dockless bicycles in London, so in my next post I'll follow up with a review of dockless bikes in the capital to date.
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