@xtaran wonders about campaigns designed to boost cycling:
Q4. Given campaigns like #Frostpendeln, #30DaysOfBiking (this is happening right now!) or #Bike2Work: Which type of campaign motivates you most? Are you more looking for "as often as possible" (e.g. at least once per day, outbrave any weather) or more at the distance ("see how "much you cycle get within some period")? Maybe regular group rides similar to a #CriticalMass? Or something completely different?
@ascentale @xtaran #BikeNite A4. Haven't heard of either, but great idea. I really love the posts I see here when people do a "Bike Bus" or other event that gets families involved and getting kids to school, etc. There are SO MANY people I see queuing up to drop their kids off to school where bicycling (heck, WALKING) to school would be faster for them.
@ascentale @xtaran I feel do dumb having done that for the kids when they were younger, now that I find myself getting to their schools in about 5 minutes on bicycle. (Used to sit in a car,. burning gas, for 30 minutes at a time to drop them off at those schools... and another HOUR to pick them up from school at the end of the day... literally 5 minute bicycle rides!!!!). I feel so bad I didn't figure that out sooner, when they were growing up. I also would have saved SO MUCH time. "I'll drive, I'm too busy, I have to get back to work, I will pick them up in the car" went the thinking at the time. #BikeTooter
@ai6yr @ascentale @xtaran Hmm, outside of riding the school bus on rainy days (not common in West Los Angeles) I biked or walked from kindergarten, through junior and senior high school. I don't remember my parents ever taking me to school or picking me up. And I'm glad of it. I enjoyed the freedom to leave school when I pleased (I often stayed late), ability to stop at a friend's house, or library on the way home.
@ai6yr @ascentale @xtaran Correct. Around 1990, police and prison guard unions began spending tens of millions of dollars on ad campaigns designed to frighten the public. This enabled things like 3-strike laws. Its main purpose was to ready the public and legislators for the unions' demands for large increases in funding and pay, which they received. At the same time, prison systems were redesigned not to rehabilitate and get people back into society but to retain them for as long as possible, increasing prison populations, which was then used to justify more prison construction, more law enforcement and corrections officers, so more members in the unions, more dues, more funding for ads and promotion, and so on.
Today it's all pretty much a scam designed to funnel taxpayer money into private pockets. The process began in California and quickly spread to most states.
@shuttersparks @ai6yr @xtaran Ah, I had been looking for this graph and finally found it, to add some survey data to what we've all noticed: https://flowingdata.com/2024/02/05/decline-of-the-school-bus/
@ascentale @shuttersparks @ai6yr @xtaran Graph shows walking and biking drop from 42% to 11% while school bus drops from 38% to 33% and the title is "Decline of the School Bus?"
@shuttersparks @HayiWena @ai6yr @xtaran yes, surprisingly mistitled by a person who presumably cares a lot about that sort of thing 😅 I guess I’d attribute it to them probably wanting to write a quick post with minimal commentary.
@shuttersparks @ascentale @xtaran I did the same, but there was a sharp shift somewhere soon after -- I think there was some kind of thing based on fears of serial killers stealing your children off the street, combined with growing traffic...