BONUS: Chaos in the Bike Lane with Aaron Gordon (Patreon)

Hello!

For this month's Patreon-only bonus episode, we welcomed journalist Aaron Gordon back to The War on Cars. Aaron was previously a guest on episode 63, "The Emperor's New Tunnel." 

Recently, Aaron wrote an essay for his newsletter titled "Biking in New York City Has Gotten Worse," in which he laments the change that's happened in recent years of larger and faster motorized vehicles using the city's bike lanes. We're not talking pedal-assist e-bikes and cargo bikes or even the Arrow e-bikes that have long been preferred by New York's delivery workers. We're talking full-on mopeds and motorcycles—electric and gas-powered alike—many of which are unlicensed and, even if they did have the proper registration, generally do not belong in bike lanes.

The reasons these vehicles have proliferated are complicated but have a lot to do with the ways in which the major food-delivery app companies have grown on the backs of a mostly immigrant workforce, one that's easily exploitable. Such delivery workers are classified not as employees but as contractors, which allows the companies to wash their hands of any responsibility for providing them with fair wages, benefits, and even street-legal vehicles.

As we note in this conversation, worker exploitation in the ever-expanding gig economy is an issue far beyond food delivery and affects a wide variety of industries these days. The issue of fast, heavy vehicles in spaces designed for slower, lighter bicycles also raises a lot of questions about government's ability to anticipate problems or react to them using more than just "whac-a-mole" tactics such as enforcement stings that don't address root causes.

So, what can be done? How can this problem be put into its proper context with solutions to match? How does one separate bad-faith actors who want to ban all bikes—all the while ignoring the problems caused by cars—from the honest concerns of fair-minded people?  Can government force the app companies to step up? What should people who advocate for safe streets and bike infrastructure do? Like we said, it's complicated. 

We hope you enjoy this discussion.

Thanks as always for your continued support,

- Sarah, Doug and Aaron (Naparstek)