Mastodawn

Michael Kohlman 3d ago

This is exactly the kind of low-hanging fruit that ebikes are perfect for and could make a massive difference in our transportation system. The majority of car trips in the US are less than 3 miles, and there are plenty of people for whom owning a car is a huge (often insurmountable) cost burden. Make bikes & ebikes free (or close to it) for those folks. The benefits pay for themselves. #BikeNYC

https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2025/04/28/first-new-yorker-to-get-a-subsidized-e-bike-its-perfect

First New Yorker To Get A Subsidized E-Bike: 'It's Perfect' - Streetsblog New York City

Meet the first person in the state to get a subsidised e-bike!

Andres S 3d ago

The comments are, as usual, terrible. But to address some of them: many people have cars who can't afford them. Sometimes they're hand-me-downs, sometimes they're old junkers at the end of their life that they got a good deal on. But while those older cars were cheap up-front, the cost to continue maintaining them becomes a burden as parts fail. A $3,000 car has 100k+ miles on it and is a going to need parts replaced very soon. A $3,000 _new_ ebike is a high quality vehicle with warranty.

Andres S 3d ago

This is how taxes work. You are buying bombs to kill brown children. You are buying asphalt to pave roadways, and all the associated machinery and maintenance materials (like road salt) to keep them paved. But the thing is, people who bike are getting better health outcomes than people who drive or take transit (and if people don't make much money, you're paying for that health care one way or another). Bikes also cause hugely less road wear than cars and buses. So buying that bike costs less.

風曜日琳子 ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭3d ago

@Andres4NY Far too many people in this country are still operating under the mistaken impression that cars and their drivers are the only people who pay for motor vehicle infrastructure.

And to respond to the people complaining about the tax burden, I will say that no one is forcing them to live in NYC or NYS and pay NYC or NYS taxes. Move, if you don't like paying for ebikes. Move to Texas or some other shitty antisocial state, because clearly that's where you belong.

Ted Mielczarek 3d ago

@gcvsa @Andres4NY living in NYC and wanting to drive a car is a ridiculous position to stake out.

風曜日琳子 ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭3d ago

@tedmielczarek @Andres4NY My family is from College Point, on the North shore of Queens. Have you ever been there? NYC is a very large place, and it doesn't all look like Manhattan.

It took me 90 minutes each way to commute to and from my high school in Manhattan, by bus, subway, and walking. We had a driveway and a two-car detached garage, as did virtually everyone on our block.

風曜日琳子 ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭3d ago

@tedmielczarek Also, Ossining, NY, is in Westchester County, not in NYC. It's not even near NYC; it's 35 miles North of the city.

Ted Mielczarek 3d ago

@gcvsa @Andres4NY yes, I have family in both Queens and Brooklyn and I visit both on a regular basis. I'm not sure why you're arguing with me, I think we fundamentally agree? Our society is built around cars, NYC is probably the least worst of it in the US.

@Andres4NY Taxes subsidize lots of things (including hugely profitable corporations) but this is what he chooses to object to.

@Andres4NY To be fair, we also buy bombs to kill black children, and white children, and Asian children. But, your analysis is still dead-on. Something I've learned over the years: doing good for others is nearly always the cheapest and best solution to public policy issues.

Andres S 3d ago

@agreeable_landfall Yeah, not meant to be an exhaustive list of the types of children we bomb.. 😢

@Andres4NY "PB" has clearly never watched an F350 forcibly eject a softball-sized chunk of asphalt at 30 mph.

Superman on a Specialized wouldn't have the torque for that.

@Andres4NY and insurance. Health insurance for healthy people who never go to the hospital help pay for less well people. Insurance for houses that never burn down help pay for those that do. But you can't tell which group you are in until after it happens. If everyone prepared for the worst, we'd all be poorer than if we pooled our resources this way.

@Andres4NY I dream that one day we'll be collectively smart enough at economics to not collectively punch ourselves in the face with transportation policy. The public cost of driving is well over $1/mile just to maintain the network and pick up the broken pieces and casualties, hose off the blood... neglecting public health costs. And in my experience e-bike miles displaced 3x as many car miles, so about $3k/yr we're spending for people to drive when they could be using an e-bike.

@Andres4NY in fact there's a good argument for subsidizing e-bikes for wealthy people, who drive more, instead of trying to means-test and limit e-bike subsidies we could be cutting a lot more VMT and saving the road wear and other public costs if we made them as easy to access as car subsidies.

Andres S 3d ago

@enobacon Absolutely. But if we get started by subsidizing ebikes for poor people while simultaneously charging congestion pricing to wealthy people? That works for me.

Rachael L 3d ago

@Andres4NY Also once you have a car (or bike!) you depend on it for more. If you're used to using a bike and walk/transit and the bike needs repair, it's a lot easier to get by temporarily without. But a car can encourage commitments to trips or shopping that's much more challenging to do without the car, esp at short notice.

風曜日琳子 ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭3d ago

@Andres4NY Not to mention that fact that sometimes, people's economic circumstances change for the worse. I, for one, used to make a healthy upper middle class income, and now am living literally below the poverty level. That's why I've been car-free now for nearly 4 years. Yes, I used to have a car, an old Ford F-150 that was a hand-me-down from my deceased father, who paid something like $40K for it new 25 years ago. It was 20 years old when it broke down and I couldn't afford to get it fixed.

@Andres4NY After the scooter lot went up across the street from me, I looked into buying one for myself -- unlikely to happen anytime soon given the #tariffs - but this was weeks ago.

I stopped myself when I discovered that I'm not really that near many bike lanes. Too scared of getting smashed in traffic.

Andres S 3d ago

@yoasif Yes, that is a huge factor that keeps people from biking. It is also helped by getting more people biking. Drivers slow down and get used to seeing bikes. Demand for (and validation for, based on DOT bike counts) bike lanes increases as more people bike. But of course, many people have bikes but don't use them due to a lack of safe infrastructure, and building that infrastructure creates a huge spike in biking.

@Andres4NY Stories like https://www.bicycling.com/news/a62018471/johnny-gaudreau-killed-by-driver-on-a-bike-ride/ don't inspire confidence for "sharing the road" with cars, sadly.

I've also seen multiple crashes at the same intersection that the scooter parking is - it is amazing seeing how fast a crash can occur, and how impossible it is to escape injury or death (if not inside one of the vehicles).

NHL Star and His Brother Killed By Driver While on a Bike Ride

According to police reports, the driver who struck and killed Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau was suspected of being under the influence of alcohol.

Bicycling

@Andres4NY Shared some photos of the last crash over on Pixelfed: https://pixelfed.social/p/yoasif/822871524125216603