I got a new Ebike today. If it had been an e-car, the government would have given me $9,500 of your money
This is not exactly a new revelation to those that ride micromobility but when you actually go out and buy a new one yourself it really hits you. This ebike can take you anywhere in NYC and back on a charge, could be 100% of the vast majority of people’s complete transportation needs in a totally sustainable way, and at $1500 is less than how much the rest of us pay to every single electric car buyer to entice them into $50-100k cars.
We quite literally could give every single single adult that wants one an ebike in NYC. We are doing far more for electric cars, and then after you purchase your giant overkill vehicle you also get to drive it away on roads that the rest of us pay a fortune for, and store it for the rest of it’s life on free public real estate in on some of the most expensive land in the world. (The land under NYC alone is worth 1.7 trillion dollars. Many hundreds of billions given away to car storage.)
This is absurd. People wonder why we have a car problem in NYC. It’s because every facet of society is built around this type of thinking and the massive shifting of wealth and convenience from those that don’t drive (most New Yorkers) to those that do.
While all of our politicians claim to be “climate mayors” or whatever, very few do anything other than enable and pamper drivers. The fact that New York does not have subsidies for the most effecient electric vehicles, and does not subsidise electric citibikes to keep their costs in line with subway fares as Lincoln Restler has proposed is ridiculous.
We need public ebike subsidies now.