I normally prefer to go for a trip on Friday however it’s a bit moist out right now:

In Williamsburg, Brooklyn pic.twitter.com/qXHkUmPtax

— NYScanner (@nyscanner) September 29, 2023

You’re not purported to level this out, however flooding in Brooklyn is nothing new:

Again then it was streetcars:

And now it’s buses:

INSANE: This video was taken inside an @MTA bus on 18th Avenue and 60 Road in Brooklyn pic.twitter.com/h3dpsOy2hG

— NYScanner (@nyscanner) September 29, 2023

Although so far as I do know there’s solely been one chocolate flood:

However give it time.

After all it’s human nature to really feel as if issues are progressively getting worse:

There isn’t any query that the hazards of motor automobiles have robbed kids of many freedoms, and proceed to rob kids of their lives. However nothing’s that straightforward, and 1923 was hardly an idyllic time for the kids of New York Metropolis:

Motorized vehicle deaths in New York Metropolis then had been far larger than they’re right now–there have been “solely” 255 whole site visitors fatalities in 2022, and that’s with far fewer vehicles on the roads–and youngsters had been definitely admonished to remain out of the streets:

Even in 1900, when there solely 8,000 registered motor automobiles in all the United States (there have been solely 500 in all of New York State in response to one supply), trolleys killed over 100 folks in Brooklyn alone:

You hear so much about how we “normalize site visitors violence” now, however again then it was so regular for trolleys to kill folks that they named a baseball crew after it.

After all it’s true that within the olden days you can get in much more bother for killing somebody with a car. In outdated articles about drivers operating folks down they had been typically charged with severe crimes–as had been the trolley motormen and conductors, as per the aforementioned article. However is that this as a result of there was nonetheless a perception that streets had been for folks and youngsters needs to be free to stroll and play in them? Or is it as a result of within the days earlier than unions and publicly-owned transit a personal firm was more than pleased to throw one in all its staff underneath the bus? (Pun meant.) The truth that motorists right now are sometimes shielded from the implications of their actions by the legislation and the insurance coverage corporations might be infuriating and as such appears like a significant step backwards for humanity. However this transformation was pushed (pun meant) not solely by the automotive trade but in addition by our ever-evolving concepts about what constitutes due course of and the rights to which we’re entitled. In 1900, ladies couldn’t vote. In 1927, the Supreme Courtroom upheld the state’s proper to forcibly sterilize the feebleminded. Racial segregation wasn’t outlawed till 1964, and homosexuality was unlawful in varied states effectively into the twenty first century. I point out all this not as a result of I consider the asshole who hit you together with his Hyundai shouldn’t be punished, however as a result of historic context is necessary, and if you examine somebody being thrown in jail 100 years in the past it may be very naive to imagine the explanation for it was that the folks holding the important thing had a extra extremely advanced sense of justice and humanity than we do right now.

TLDR; it may be harmful to idealize the previous. Some issues had been higher then, whereas others had been worse. Means worse. There are one million issues fallacious with vehicles and automotive tradition, and we must always endeavor to enhance them, however on stability I’d say children have it approach higher right now than they did again within the days earlier than antibiotics when their academics might nonetheless beat the shit out of them and so they’d get run over by a trolley whereas limping residence.

After all, as one of many biking world’s foremost retrogrouches that is one thing I personally should continuously bear in mind, and I’m typically responsible of romanticizing the parts of yore, and dismissing new stuff just because it’s new. Fortuitously, there are actually no ethical pitfalls in doing so, because it’s simply bike elements, and who am I actually hurting if I whine about, say, this?

Sure, lastly, now you’ll be able to give up utterly to the algorithm whereas driving your bicycle:

Assuming you take into account this a “bicycle:”

And also you take into account this “biking:”

Sure, in the event you hate just about every little thing about biking besides the looking-at-what’s-in-front-of-you half, that is the bike for you:

Feels like watching the screensaver in your Apple TV.