I agree - and something about driving really fosters the me first attitude. I look forward to the future when biking to work becomes inconvenient because there are too many other cyclists lol but as it stands, on my east-west dc commute on bike, I always enjoy riding with a group of commuters cycling, especially when there’s no bike infrastructure and we just take up the road.

I agree but I think it’s “unfair” to make the comparison between gun violence and car/driver violence. We will often here more about instances of gun violence but won’t hear about “near” misses or car crashes unless someone is dead, seriously injured, or a building is ran through.

So I think a more transparent metric is necessary - unless it already exists.

I’m curious to why you insist on blaming some other entity except drivers. It’s also curious that you would start this discussion after yesterdays post where a driver yelled racist comments at a biker trying to get a car out of a protected bike lane. It almost seems like you’re justifying the drivers racist remarks because they were driven by some other entity.

And I would also push back on your comment that the roads are “becoming more inconvenient.” They were always inconvenient for everyone except drivers. Now that we’re democratizing transit and making it equitable, drivers are realizing they have to share or give way more of the transit pie.

311 it! But also - we left our trash cans out in the alley after trash pick up and received a $75 fine.

I think your post starting with “socially liberal but fiscally conservative” and your provision of “gay people in my family” explains a lot. When you arrived you tolerated those who are different - marginalized even - but you didn’t see the systemic problems that kept/keeps them marginalized.

The trump administration certainly moved extraordinary racism (ie the things people wouldn’t say out loud) to not only out loud but normalized and basically quotidian. I think you just found yourself aligning more strongly with that rhetoric.

I think living in DC for me has allowed me to explore my own biases and continue to examine crime with compassion (it’s certainly hard when you’re the target or crime) - ie being anti racist. It’s definitely hard and the approach has received scrutiny because the telos is constantly changing but that’s kinda the point.

Cries in millennial 😭 I saw Death Cab in 2007(?) at DAR Constitution Hall. I saw this popped up and my bones couldn’t react fast enough lol

Im grateful for some of the new medians being placed to give refuge to pedestrians on some of these longer crosswalks. But more still needs to be done - like bollards for centerline hardening and raised crosswalks everywhere.

In other words - there’s no accountability for reckless driving and residents should just accept this behavior as normal. /s

Sorta like every (or multiple times a) week there’s a death from reckless driving.

I don’t disagree but I think phones are only a component of the problem - ie a specific behavior in which traffic violence manifests.

Yeah - also I was born in dc and raised in pg. and I think my experience growing up in the suburbs is similar to a lot of Americans. Specifically, getting a license and being able to drive and having access to a car even though it was a minivan or a 20 year old clunker. This also meant I envied classmates who got nicer cars and wanted that too. Literally seduced into thinking that owning a car meant being an adult and the nicer the car the more successful I must be.

And now I ride around a used single-speed I bought on Craigslist for $150.

I think framing the issue as “car culture” in the US is the best way to discuss the ongoing traffic violence we’ve been seeing in cities like DC. It’s almost akin to the gun culture we have - ie a mass shooting ever so often that it normal when it shouldn’t be. A car crash that kills a cyclist, pedestrian and/or driver is normal and for some reason there isn’t a way to stop it from happening cause some folks are so car dependent. A glimpse at Nextdoor or the comments on Washingtonprobs gives some insight into the mental gymnastics that never places the blame on drivers.

Another wild conjecture is the issue being bike lanes that cause traffic and car crashes - when increasing transit option removes cars from the road.

Lol “my anecdotal experience is everyone’s reality.”

Biking is how I buy groceries and go to work. This isn’t a hobby. The only difference between my bike and a car is that it costs me >$150 a year to maintain (and it’s a single speed) and it doesn’t have the potential to kill people.

A lot of residents love the open streets events! It’s a great time to enjoy local businesses and build community.

If this was nextdoor, we’d have to say “but those lawless cyclists!”

And then MD enters the chat “DC makes it so hard to drive in the city! Who has time to bike!”