You may say it's a conspiracy theory but Waymo is arriving in Toronto and we have this master plan to dismantle our bike lanes happening at the same time

[grumble209@kolektiva.social]

@renata Are the Waymo cars equipped to handle the cold?

How about Molotov cocktails?

[renata@cosocial.ca]

@grumble209 I can’t wait for the blogto headline “This hot cocktail is the newest trend in the streets of Toronto!”

[renata@cosocial.ca]

@digipooch The Ontario government. Yes, it’s stupid but they’re spending millions of dollars to remove existing bike infrastructure.

[aadeacon@mastodon.social]

@renata It would be defamatory to suggest corruption, so I will not.

[chigaze@cosocial.ca]

@renata WTF?!

'…Waymo told safe street advocates that bike lane-awareness is “too high a bar,” because customers want to be dropped off in them.’

I’m failing to see why legally this is even remotely relevant. It would be like allowing them to speed or run red lights because customers want to go faster.

[renata@cosocial.ca]

@Chigaze Don't give them ideas

[jripley@mastodon.social]

@renata Just the other day, commenting in a thread where someone complained about "human drivers", I listed off all the *harm* Waymo and others are *factually* (documented) causing, including: increasing the number of cars on the roads, increasing traffic (they never park), constantly blocking emergency access, critical threat to widespread disaster response, and _moving transport discourse away from public transit and bicycles_.

[canleaf@mastodon.social]

@renata so next time in Toronto I will hail a Beck car.

[maccruiskeen@social.linux.pizza]

@renata "Waymo vehicles routinely pull into the city’s bike lanes both to pick up and drop off passengers "

Uber and Lyft drivers do this too, unless the lane has some sort of actual barrier. Not to excuse Waymo, but just to note that Uber also sucks.

[cargot_robbie@urbanists.social]

@renata ooo goodness, I do not care for these ghouls or their ghost cars

[shirobloo@mastodon.social]

@renata it boggles my mind that a country seen as so progressively in other areas is so backwards in terms of urbanism.

Taking down cycling lanes is crazy.

[charlesrandall@grumble.social]

@renata oh, this explains a lot, doesn't it

[richlv@mastodon.social]

@renata @grumble209 Dear SNL writers on fedi, plz make this delivered by Stefon…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefon

[crzwdjk@mastodon.social]

@renata I thought the actual reason was that Doug Ford got mad seeing cyclists pass him as he got driven to work. Which is why the bike lane they are removing is specifically the one that is on his way to work.

[datarama@hachyderm.io]

@Chigaze @renata Well, I think that basically seals Waymo's fate in the Netherlands and Denmark.

[jimjoe_isback@mastodon.social]

@renata No you got way moooo lanes.

[jimjoe_isback@mastodon.social]

@renata I know, not funny. If it's any consideration, we have a beach town called Pismo.

[mechametachemical@kolektiva.social]

@crzwdjk @renata This absolutely has his grubby little fingers all over this. It's such an easy win for the right wing populist leader. It's like a one-page AI witten document and Step. 7 is "Go after bike lanes, and make sure to privatise as much public money as possible while you're at it."

[zed@mstdn.party]

@renata I never liked them, but I didn’t hate Waymo’s as an SF biker, because at first they respected all the laws, never drove nor parked in bike lanes, always signaled, and were easily predictable.

Sometime early 2024 is when they started intentionally making illegal maneuvers, and using bike lanes.

[afilina@phpc.social]

@renata Toronto drivers better get ready to have even more traffic problems. I've seen firsthand how these stupid things block traffic. How is that even legal?!