Adventure: Carspiracy, The Final Installment

DATELINE: NEW MEXICO, AUGUST 31ST, 2024. Since the time I wrote this post, we have had yet another tragedy when it comes to people being killed cycling. It will be interesting to follow this case to see if anything serious happens to the accused. Even though one of the deceased is famous, this doesn’t mean anything will happen to the driver. In the United States, people who kill cyclists often get off with little to no punishment.

The timing on this was so perfect I can’t stand myself, but for those of you who are easily triggered you should sign off now. The day after posting my last piece about Carspiracy, The Guardian ran a story about the future Olympics in Los Angeles. The city’s mayor, Karen Bass, stated her intent of creating a “no-car” atmosphere during the event. I lived in Los Angeles for many years, so this got my attention. A novel idea. A novel cause? But in the “City of the Automobile?” I have my doubts. (LA is my least favorite major city in the world.)

To the city’s credit, compared to when I lived in Los Angeles, the options for public transit have expanded exponentially. Although not known as a public transit city, and perhaps it never will be, there has at least been an effort to try. Light rail, metro, improved and expanded bus lines. (Rife with corruption, extended timelines and over budget apologies.) Los Angeles, like many American cities is about one thing more than anything else: sprawl. We love sprawl in America, and rarely if ever put any restrictions on this self-inflicted ideology. Drive east on I10 from Los Angeles on your way to Phoenix and you will encounter slapstick neighborhoods of poorly constructed houses EIGHTY MILES from Phoenix with no public transit options. Every single household with at least one car having to duke it out on the already overloaded freeway. Pure lunacy labeled “progress” by the people building the neighborhoods. Adored by the oil and gas industry.

But The Guardian article was filled with things that caused me to pause, including this incredible line. “The real heavy lift for moving the 15 million expected visitors coming for the Olympics will not come from trains: it will come from buses. That means constructing bus-only lanes, better bus stops and changing curbs to accommodate riders.” Holy shit. “Bus-only lanes, better bus stops and changing curbs to accommodate riders.” Oh, but wait. It gets even better. In regard to the bus lanes the article goes on to say “Most of those(bus lanes) will be permanent, but there will also be dedicated bus lanes created just for moving people to the venues, Reynolds says.

This peels back what a lot of people have been saying for years. When there is money to be made, solutions will suddenly appear. You want more? Okay, here you go. “There will also be some streets, Reynolds says, that will be completely closed to cars during the games:” Wait, what? We were told this was impossible. Closing streets to cars? How Paris of you. How New York of you. You mean pedestrians and bike riders are important too? Okay, and to finish of the fairytale. “Bus lanes can be deployed in a short amount of time. The Institute of Transportation Studies did a research project in 2017 looking at areas around the United States that had quickly deployed bus lanes and found that one city had deployed them in just six weeks. There are also new regulations allowing Metro to use cameras to catch and fine drivers who illegally use bus lanes.”

This is mind blowing. Permanent lanes, which means separate and curbed, might take as little as six weeks. And look how easy it is to fine drivers to keep your revenue stream going. I went to the city council meetings when I lived in Southern California. I went specifically to listen to and watch wealthy city employees who live in gated communities talk about the impossibility of building bike lanes. I watched as they pointed at me and whispered to each other. (Found out later they thought I was a journalist.) But buses run on energy. They are ruling out diesel, at least for now, but natural gas and electricity are still powered by the oil and gas industry. That’s why this is on the table. It just cracks me up. The corruption level in America is off the charts. This dates back to the colonies when to be a politician you needed to own land. Wealthy land owners, to stack the government in their favor, would give massive land grants to their friends for pennies on the dollar. (One family received one million acres for $1.)There are families in Maine still living off these gifts and is one reason why Maine has so little public beach access.

I think one of the basic challenges to our infrastructure is only a tiny, tiny fraction of our elected leaders use public transit, commute by bike or walk anywhere of considerable distance. They are disconnected through wealth and privilege. If you have a driver, paid for by the city, why would you care about anything else? (I spent a day with the Phoenix mayor back in 1993 and he was in a town car with a driver.) This will certainly trigger a lot of folks.) Americans wonder why our healthcare system is SO expensive while ignoring the fact that a significant portion of congress hold assets in the healthcare industry. “Given that making policy changes in the health care industry could impact any investments a member has, their voting could be biased toward their own financial gain.” No, really? Can’t believe it. (Don’t forget the insider trading rife in congress as well, and for you haters, it’s both parties.)

I think this article proves, once again, the simple idea that gas powered vehicles get a pass in the psyche of the modern world. We can’t help ourselves. Call it a double standard because it is. The pollution, the raw materials, the dependency on fossil fuels. Continuing to operate as normal is, most likely, a death sentence. I’ll be gone. You will be gone. We might be the lucky ones. However, there is hope at the end of this tunnel, at least in my mind. Historically, when things get bad we innovate. A LOT of cool stuff will come from this self-inflicted body blow. Will there be trauma? Yes. Will there be an initial public outcry? When is there not? Will the delicate ones claim an infringement of civil liberties? For sure. In the end these will be speed bumps because we won’t have any other choice.

PS: Need to say something here. Some of the responses to my posts about Carspiracy have suggested these posts might spur people to “doomscroll,” and that I should stop posting these things and just go with the flow, or in other words, quit. First off, if these posts cause you to doomscroll, you should think about therapy. Doomscrolling, no matter how many of your friends and family are caught in this cycle, is NOT normal behavior. Doomscrolling is an addiction like drugs, alcohol, etc. There is a reason why some folks need therapy to break this cycle.

Doomscrolling activates dopamine receptors, easing anxiety temporarily (even though we feel worse later). Many return to doomscrolling to feel better again, continuing the negative spiral. Similar to social media addiction, people who succumb to doomscrolling can suffer a slew of consequences, including poor attention span, reduced academic performance, and even financial problems.⁹ Similarly, internet addiction can lead to neurological, psychological, and social problems.¹⁰

I see the “poor attention span” linked to quitting, giving up or constantly complaining without doing anything to research the problem, question or trend. I’ve said this many times before, but I have no magic solution to all this. I’m simply interested and know our current model isn’t working. That’s all.