AI6YR BenMar 13

Oooh, a prior oil crisis is what turned the Netherlands from a driving country to a bicycling country.

The Guardian: Do we want to keep fixing the same issue? Unlearned lessons from the first big oil crisis

As energy prices tripled in the 1970s due to Middle Eastern wars, Scandinavia, France and the Netherlands sped up green transition

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/13/fixing-the-same-issue-first-big-oil-crisis-middle-eastern-wars

#IranWar #bicycling #BikeTooter #cycling

Show threadMegan Lynch (she/her)
@ai6yr US was doing this as well, although with fewer big demonstrations than Dutch folks were making for road safety. It was frightening enough to the oil folks that they made sure Reagan got in there to reverse everything...
Mar 13 at 1:17pmWeb
Show threaddr2chaseMar 13
@meganL @ai6yr John Forester’s Effective Cycling arrived around then, and it was a convenient “let’s do this instead” deflection for US road builders.
Show threadMegan Lynch (she/her)Mar 13

@dr2chase @ai6yr I don't think that's what tilted the US into re-embracing cars, though.

There were a number of factors. Even getting Reagan in there wasn't 100% about oil, but the wealthy right wing got very scared about the activism on campuses in the '60s, the Civil Rights Movement, Women's Movement, Gay Rights Movement, etc. and that was about the time they forged their unholy alliance with previously not-politically-engaged evangelical Protestant churches.

They learned from progressive

Show threadMegan Lynch (she/her)Mar 13

@dr2chase @ai6yr organizing and protest tactics, incorporated and improved upon those. We've been dealing with the fallout of that ever since. Reagan winning over Carter was *the* watershed moment for US democracy, IMO. US wealth distribution has gotten more lopsided and democracy has grown scarcer ever since.

But pushing back against energy-saving and oil-spurning movements was certainly part of that packet. FFS, Reagan even yanked out already-paid-for solar off the White House.