Pontifications

“Furthermore, we have identified a discourse that blends the Corbusian and Constantian ideals, seemingly offering the best of two worlds: time savings and excitement, productivity and fun. In alignment with a number of scholars (e.g. Spinney 2016; Duarte 2016), we suggest that cycling may have become enrolled into discourses that correspond to a neoliberal urban agenda with a tinge of greenwashing and a mobility politics in which the physical labour of delivering products and services is obscured by the imagery of fitness and adventure.

As new mobility concepts, visions and technologies capture the imagination of policy-makers and general public, the place and content of velotopian imaginaries within broader urban mobility discourses is likely to continue to evolve. Will the bicycle eventually come to be seen as a complementary add-on in the driverless car system, or as its challenger? If the latter, will this challenge be on the grounds of efficiency, speed and convenience, or on the grounds of a possibility of a life without hurry? Depending on the trajectory that is ultimately taken, cycling may even lose its place on the streets entirely as it once did in many cities around the world.” <– read the whole thing: Exploring velotopian urban imaginaries: where Le Corbusier meets Constant?
I am not convinced that driverless cars are necessary (we have driverless trains already; just add buses and then done!) or that self driving cars will work outside urban cores because software can’t be trusted to not kill people and to reliably drive cars.