People don’t stop for the stop lines, nor the crosswalk, nor the red light. We haven’t even solved stop-on-red. Solutions that will only be implemented in the occasional rich neighborhood are a joke. The problem is that we never had a proper conversation of whether the general public can be trusted to operate heavy machinery. Some dickheads got rich selling the heavy machinery and that was enough to quash any discussion about people being squashed. We need car-free places where people can truly live their lives not only without cars, but without other people zipping by on their cars. Not just 14th Street but all of Manhattan. Make that the go-to move for rich parents who prioritize their childrens’ safety above all else. Make other cities get jealous of the money flowing into car-free Manhattan and implement their own car-free zones.
Tinkering around the edges is Vision Maybe-Marginally-Less.
Well yeah we should ideally abolish cars for all but the most necessary uses - rural living, etc. But that is something I think falls squarely in the “what we can do after overthrowing capitalism” vision bucket. Folks can grasp that even things more realizable under capitalism are simple and can be fought for. Those fights will also usually fail but in doing so can teach valuable lessons about the nature of bourgeois electoralism.
Car-free Manhattan is just the 78% of households without cars winning out over the 22% with and the daily invaders from out of town. Those percentages are way beyond pro-weed vs. anti-weed and weed has won in a lot of places even without overthrowing capitalism. It’s long overdue there and even the late mayor Koch considered it before I was born.
People don’t stop for the stop lines, nor the crosswalk, nor the red light. We haven’t even solved stop-on-red. Solutions that will only be implemented in the occasional rich neighborhood are a joke. The problem is that we never had a proper conversation of whether the general public can be trusted to operate heavy machinery. Some dickheads got rich selling the heavy machinery and that was enough to quash any discussion about people being squashed. We need car-free places where people can truly live their lives not only without cars, but without other people zipping by on their cars. Not just 14th Street but all of Manhattan. Make that the go-to move for rich parents who prioritize their childrens’ safety above all else. Make other cities get jealous of the money flowing into car-free Manhattan and implement their own car-free zones.
Tinkering around the edges is Vision Maybe-Marginally-Less.
Well yeah we should ideally abolish cars for all but the most necessary uses - rural living, etc. But that is something I think falls squarely in the “what we can do after overthrowing capitalism” vision bucket. Folks can grasp that even things more realizable under capitalism are simple and can be fought for. Those fights will also usually fail but in doing so can teach valuable lessons about the nature of bourgeois electoralism.
Car-free Manhattan is just the 78% of households without cars winning out over the 22% with and the daily invaders from out of town. Those percentages are way beyond pro-weed vs. anti-weed and weed has won in a lot of places even without overthrowing capitalism. It’s long overdue there and even the late mayor Koch considered it before I was born.
It will lose because 78% isn’t organized and willing to force change down the throats of those with power.
By the time they were, we could do the necessary overthrow of capitalism first because it is the capitalists that will prevent a car-free Manhattan.
But I’m also saying that you can try. When you do, remember who the enemy is and see who prevents you - and who they align with!