Folks, if you live in a U.S. city with bad or no transit, it’s because a bunch of your NIMBY neighbors attend transportation committee hearings to make sure your tax money goes to parking lots and road widening. It’s not a nefarious oil industry plot.
I used to go to these meetings in Berkeley. It was just a bunch of NIMBY regulars, ornery grandmas and angry empty nesters and Tesla fanatics. We thought that if we went to a bunch of the meetings, we could get bus and bike lanes all over Berkeley. But the drivers use …
… credible threats of violence to prevent that from happening. Again, they don’t work for the car industry. Most of them don’t seem to work at all! They just harass city staff and threaten safe streets advocates and … win. I suppose we could still defeat them if enough …
… people showed up, often enough, to demonstrate that the city is failing its residents on safe streets, on transit, and on climate change. But that would require the left — Berkeley is a city of leftists — to stop trying to convince people that climate change is caused by
10 corporations, and individuals have no responsibility. I am not holding my breath. Berkeley’s left has shown no inclination toward climate action, just bromides and protest signs. But your city might be different. You should try. You’ll at least be able to confirm that
… none of the “10 most evil corporations in the galaxy” attend meetings of the parking subcommittee of the transportation commission. It’s just 10 of your NIMBY neighbors who are more committed to wrecking the climate than we are to saving it.
Thing about historians who argue this point is their knowledge of transport history stops at, like 1950. For example, the entire DC metro was planned and built decades after the city pulled up its streetcars and light rail. Los Angeles is building a world-class metro *today.*
Thing about historians who argue this point is their knowledge of transport history stops at, like 1950. For example, the entire DC metro was planned and built decades after the city pulled up its streetcars and light rail. Los Angeles is building a world-class metro *today.*
@mateosfo This isn’t necessarily true tbh in Santa Cruz the largest opponents are Joby and waymo and other folks who work for these companies they’re the ones who have gotten literally tens of millions to fight transportation issues and remove train tracks through rail banking efforts
@mateosfo Same thing for wind and solar in rural areas in the midwest
@mateosfo Astroturfing is a thing, but it still relies on your weird uncle that's still living with your grandparents wanting to believe it's true. latimes.com/environment/st…