Good, or just better than?

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Dave Feucht
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In the world of citizen cycling, and honestly in U.S. culture as a whole, I find a tendency from a certain cross-section of people to get very upset about people asking for changes to the way society works, the way our public space is built, the way people are treated. This certain cross-section of people (which I’m designating simply by this held opinion, not by any other common characteristic) seem to think that if a person has it better than any other randomly selected person, they should just stop complaining and learn to live with whatever circumstances they find themselves in.

For instance, this kind of view pops up often enough in comment threads on BikePortland, where Jonathan, or another of his commenters, is criticizing something that Portland has done (or not done) regarding promoting citizen cycling. The viewpoint often thrown out is essentially “You have it better in Portland than in *insert city name here*, so stop complaining!” or “Portland is the #1 cycling city in the U.S., you have no right to complain about your conditions there!” Sometimes it comes from locals too, insinuating that because a person lives in the central city, where there is more cycling infrastructure, they have no right to complain because it’s way better than East Portland or Southwest Portland.

But here’s the thing; there’s a difference between better than, and good.

By stating that Portland is better for cycling than Houston, is there really a direct implication that Portland is good for cycling? By saying that Burger King is better than McDonalds health-wise, is there a direct implication that Burger King is therefore healthy? By stating that Starbucks is better than the little suburban parking lot espresso cart, is there then a direct implication that Starbucks is objectively good coffee?

The answer, I feel, to all of these, is no.

Whatever the reasons for these views, and I think there are probably many different circumstances that come together to produce them, I don’t really feel the position is valid.

Yes, I realize that I, in Portland, have it better than some people in the world. However, I don’t feel that this is a valid reason to just kick back and do nothing about the problems I find in Portland, of which there are many.

I’m not inclined to base my views about the quality of my life, the quality of the place I live, and the quality of my enjoyment on a comparison with the quality of everyone else’s life, the quality of every other place, and the quality of everyone else’s enjoyment. I want the quality of my life to be good, the quality of the place I live to be good, and the quality of my enjoyment to be good – standing on their own, apart from whether they are ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than anything else.

Don’t get me wrong, I want to improve, and see improved, conditions for those who are worse off than me. The aim of my life is not to better my condition at the expense of anyone else. I firmly believe that improving conditions from the bottom up improves conditions for all of society, and that is my emphasis and aim in life.

However, I also don’t believe that simply because my situation is better in some way than someone else’s situation, that I should just live with everything in my situation and do nothing to improve it. That is just asking for everything to get worse. I also don’t believe that ‘better’ implies ‘good’ – and I’m going to work to make conditions good where I live, regardless of whether they are already better or worse than anywhere else.

Who’s with me?

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  • http://twitter.com/rabbitsblinkity Brian

    Absolutely!

    With regard to bicycling specifically, I’ve always seen Portland as a sort of experiment, figuring out the best way to make cycling really work in an American city. That’s partly why I moved here—I wanted to see how the experiment was going. We can’t act as if these things exist in a vacuum. Bicycling in Houston needs bicycling in Portland as a model (just like bicycling in Portland needs, say, Copenhagen as a model). It’s all connected. And improving things in one place help us improve things in another place.

    • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

      Yup, I agree. Now here’s hoping someone here gets a little more courage to act on all the talk flying around :)

  • Glenn Woodbury

    I live where cycling conditions are crappy. I’m with you. I want your cycling conditions to be better, I want mine to be better. It’s not mutually exclusive! FWIW, I live in rural Jefferson County on the Olympic Peninsula. Right off Highway 116. The road only uses 22 ft of a 60 ft right of way. So there’s plenty of legal room for separate bike paths and separate pedestrian paths. Or they could at least widen the margins!

    • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

      …and I want things to improve for you as well. The simple fact is that life in the U.S. right now seems to be more about how much can be gotten out of the citizens than how they can be best taken care of, and that’s really unfortunate. Providing safe, accessible, convenient ways to get around without personally owning (or needing to operate) an automobile is a major ‘providing for your citizens’ kind of thing.

  • Bill E

    Totally agree (as I observe Portland with interest from Pittsburgh, PA!). Work to an ideal, not to comparables. And keep setting the standard higher. Even those in Amstercopendamhagen know they can keep trying to improve.

    • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

      And if you follow Marc from Amsterdamize, it’s clear that even there, the pressure is always on to cater to automobile-focused interests over the rest, it’s important to never get complacent.

  • Nick

    I absolutely agree that we should never let being ‘better than’ hold us back from being as good as we can be.

    That said, I do think there is a difference in statements comparing Portland vs. Houston and Inner Portland vs Outer Portland. The City Portland and it’s citizens have no responsibility to Houston. They have no duty to ensure safety, equitability and accessibility to the people living 1800 miles away. Houstonites don’t pay our taxes, and we can’t invest in their city. There is no reason for us to wait around until they catch up.

    The same is not true when you are talking about areas within the City of Portland. All portlanders pay taxes, all portlanders deserve representation, and all portlanders deserve livability, healthy transportation options and safety.

    This isn’t to say you should halt advocacy of hyperlocal concerns and investment. But it does mean that the City has a responsibility to all of it’s citizens to take a big picture view when investing in infrastructure.

    • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

      Yes, I totally agree. I realize that there are major differences between inner Portland and outer East Portland or SW Portland, not only in terms of cycling, but even paved roads and sidewalks. I also agree that the city government has as much responsibility to those areas as it does to the inner city.

      One thing that is problematic is our particular version of democracy in the U.S., which seems to be “we do whatever the people want us to do” – which is different than, for instance, the Netherlands, which is “we elect leaders to make good decisions about what we should be doing”.

      This results in, for instance, ODOT’s stance that a speed limit on a street is set by the speed people actually drive on the street. So if traffic keeps getting faster, the speed limit they feel is reasonable keeps going up, regardless of other concerns.

      The reason I bring this up is that people in the outer parts of the city (for many factors that could make up a whole post in itself) tend to be more auto-centric in thinking, and so they tend to push less for other means of transportation, and to even oppose it if it takes away from the auto-centric design, and so I think the city to some extent just says “ok, well, that’s what they want.”

      It also means that in a city where 85% of travel is made in automobiles, there has to be massive citizen uprising to get any other major infrastructure done, or some kind of big political pressure, even in the parts of the city where large numbers of people would immediately be using it, even if 60% or more of citizens say they would get around other ways if it was safer, more convenient, etc.

  • crankypants

    well – the city of Boston is making a serious effort to reach10% bike share by the end of the decade (which could actually happen as long as the next admin shares this current admin’s goal – Cambridge already beats Portland in % of bike commuters – Somerville is also getting close to portlandesque % – there’s definitely momentum) – so I think a bit of friendly competition between similarly sized american cities could help a bit with the complacency…

    but you’re right on all counts. Portland also doesn’t have even close to the high number of users of other alternative modes of transit such as places like NYC, Chicago, Boston, etc… so, yeah – you guys still have a ways to go.

    (btw – I’m serious when I say that the Boston area could possibly surpass portland – the actual real numbers of metro area bike commuters is similar in both cities – it’s just that the larger share isn’t within the city proper – plus Boston had zero bike lanes until 4 years ago).

    • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

      That brings up another issue that I feel is kind of important – that we gauge our ‘bike-friendliness’ in the U.S. strictly by ‘bike commuter’ numbers, when I actually feel the number of people riding bikes in Portland is WAY higher than our ‘bike commuter’ number, it’s just that they don’t ride to work, but they ride all over their neighborhoods.

      Anyway, that’s a bit of an aside. I feel like Portland’s public transit, though maybe good for the U.S. as a whole, is really pretty mediocre at best. Mostly it is geared to go from the outer parts of the city into downtown (in east-west directions), so if you have to go north-south across the city, it can be really convoluted and inconvenient. And TriMet (the transit organization) has to keep making cuts over and over and over, so it is only getting worse, in many ways. It’s kind of a local joke that so many people ride bicycles because the public transit is so inconvenient.

      I completely believe that Cambridge and Somverville could catch us up and pass us in the near future. I really feel, and I’ve been validated by a number of ‘outsiders’ who I’ve talked to about this lately, that our infrastructure is simply predicated on there not being very many cars (which there aren’t compared to, say, SF or NYC), but that it really isn’t very good. it’s inconsistent, illogical, incomplete, and often creates worse situations than if it weren’t there at all. In fact, we really don’t have much ‘infrastructure’ at all to speak of. To me, calling painted bike lanes infrastructure is like calling a patch of dirt a toilet. I mean, sure, you can use it for that, but you didn’t really do anything to make it a toilet, except maybe clear some brush out of the way.

      In any case, we can’t sit around saying “well, we’re better than __________” – because it’s clear that the conditions for cyclists here are still not ‘good’ in any kind of objective sense. But I feel like we get caught up in that ratings game a lot, and I don’t think it’s really helpful, as I really think it makes people who don’t ride bikes feel like things are great for those who do, and those who do feel jaded because they know the truth.

      • David Chase

        It’s instructive to compare the density of Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, and neighboring towns to Portland. Portland’s got 4300 per square mile; Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville have 12700, 16400, and 18100, respectively, and all the towns adjacent to Cambridge and Somerville (Everett, Medford, Arlington, Belmont, and Watertown) are all denser than Portland (I live in Belmont). Parking’s insane. Rush hour is a mess (I raced my wife to the kids’ dentist once, and handily won). There’s lots of mass transit in C & S, but from an adjacent town I can get across Cambridge (to Kendall square, MIT) faster by bicycle.

        A friend’s daughter attends Harvard Law School and lives in Somerville (with 5 other people in the 3rd floor of a triple-decker); there’s so many people there it’s hard to find bicycle parking, never mind cars. You look at it and wonder why they don’t just ban cars completely from that neighborhood.

        The only things that keep people in cars here are mass delusion, inertia, and fear of being hit by other people driving cars. C&S could easily “do better” than Portland, if we had a sudden outbreak of sanity; the pressure to “do things right” would be immense.

        On the other hand, new infrastructure is mixed. Some is separated and wonderful, some is confusing routes full of stop signs through residential neighborhoods. I managed to plot a route through Somerville to the plywood store that was not-too-hilly, not-too-busy, and not-too-often wrong-way (on streets where the one-way exists only to exclude obnoxious cut-through auto traffic — i.e., not busy, ought to be 2-way-for-bikes), and you would never, ever happen on this route by accident.

        PS — And John Pucher is speaking at Harvard Monday afternoon!!!

        • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

          The area we just moved into in Portland is probably the most dense area, tons of large (old) apartment complexes, and really dense businesses (I have 3 grocery stores, a cobbler, dry cleaner, kitchen store, hardware store, 2-3 coffee shops, and a dozen or more restaurants within about 5 blocks of our apartment). I find myself pondering the same perplexity – it’s extremely difficult to park in that part of the city, and yet people insist on doing it, and get angry about it if they can’t park right where they need to go, and have to walk (god forbid) the 4 blocks from where they parked (after driving 15 miles from the suburbs).

          We live on the third floor of our apartment building, with narrow stairs and a small elevator (it’s a 1909 building), in a small apartment, and so our bikes stay locked to a street sign, because there is nowhere else to park them.

          Portland could easily triple the number of people riding bikes in areas like this, simply by removing on-street auto parking, and by putting in a ton of bike parking. Build a big parking garage on an empty lot at the edge of the dense part of the neighborhood, charge for it, and say “If you want to drive here, park there and walk into the neighborhood.”

          It’s time to end the myth that “if they can’t come by car, they won’t come”.

          Recently, the Portland Metro governance was trying to figure out how to get people to take our light rail to Washington Park rather than driving (the park includes our Zoo, Japanese Garden, and a huge Rose Garden). They noted that on days where there are big events in the park (sometimes concerts and other things are held there), the number of people riding the light rail was something like twice as high. Simple equation – because people assumed parking would be scarce due to the special event, they decided to take light rail, so as not to have to deal with it. I always did this when I lived in the suburbs and was going to an event in Portland, for that exact reason.

          All we have to do is remove the expectation that a person should be able to drive and park anywhere they want to, and we’d have a major change in transportation usage, I think.

          In terms of infrastructure in Portland, we have almost none at all. There are two examples of cycle tracks, both disconnected from other infrastructure, and in totally different areas of the city. We have a lot of 5-block spans of painted bike lanes that suddenly end on the near side of an intersection, forcing you to merge in the intersection (quickly, so as to not hit the parked cars that are suddenly in front of you) with traffic going 20mph faster than you, and we have a few traffic diverters on quiet, low-traffic streets that allow bikes through but not cars. That’s it.

          Not exactly a great example of a city doing all they can to promote bicycle use. Our numbers are really coming from the bottom up, not the other way – but I really feel like we’re plateau-ing, except in very specific places where non-governmental entities are pushing hard to encourage people to ride (such as businesses giving incentives to ride).

          • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QNZNLKFZ5SXU6KBLI7VXIEP4SI Doobie

            Boston already has a problem that there isn’t really any space for cars (which is why less than half of the people in the urban core get around by them) – IMO – the reason more people don’t ride bikes because it’s still not very safe and you cannot take your bike on the trains during rush hour (folding bikes are too expensive for most people).

            and – even though the state DOT just announced that they’re shifting their focus away from cars toward other modes – the irony is that because they – and the MBTA – have no money to increase service and capacity on transit – getting more people on bikes is currently, by far, the cheapest solution to growing congestion problems – on our transit system. also – if the “vulnerable road users bill” actually passes this next legislative session, we’ll suddenly see a bigger shift… I think our advantage is that this shift will occur as a supplement (and slightly take away from) public transit rather than trying to get motorists out of their cars.
            as for portland – I can’t imagine seeing the numbers growing any larger because it seems like the focus is more on lifestyle (economics, environment, artificially making it more inconvenient for motorists) – rather than people riding bikes because it’s the fastest and most convenient way to get around. unless the city gets about 3 times as dense or gas suddenly costs $20 a gallon, I think you guys might be stuck.

          • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

            Yeah, in Portland it’s going to take either a scarcity of fuel, or else a real effort (as in many European cities) to make it simply more convenient to ride a bike rather than drive – everything from parking to routes. Currently, the city policy is basically to just do almost nothing, and just let traffic go kind of willy-nilly (regardless of mode). I’ve talked about this with a few outsiders recently, that our traffic planning and infrastructure are basically predicated on the fact that we have pretty low density, there just aren’t that many people around. If we had the density of Boston, NYC or San Francisco, we’d be getting slaughtered out on the roads.

          • David Chase

            Was looking at my accumulated blog whining over the years, realized I had two pictures of good/bad infrastructure. The cycle track, which is half-wonderful: http://dr2chase.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/two-cycle-tracks/

            To reach Harvard Square in a low-stress way (as opposed to as-fast-as-possible), you take the cycle track, a stretch of lovely separated path, and then this dubious route through neighborhood streets: http://dr2chase.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/theres-something-about-this-bike-route-that-bugs-me/

            There’s also continuing work on the Minuteman Trail and the Linear Park (it might be called the Minuteman Trail extension now, not sure). Traversing Davis Square remains confusing.

        • crankypants

          here’s the pucher lecture:

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWAMtiBCMO8