a lot of cities are focusing their efforts on building bicycle infrastructure to attract new cyclists (aka the “creative class”) rather build it for low income folks who already bike. This promotion of the creative class cycling is definitely linked to gentrification. In this way, cities are basically saying that “invisible” cyclists do not belong within their rebranded vision of a city for and by the so-called “creative” class.

from a discussion here: https://bikeleague.org/rethinking-term-invisible-cyclist/

[–] Fuckass@hexbear.net 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s similar to how most vegans are non white and lower income but the media portrays them as some Manhattan socialite eating soy caviar at a Michelin star restaurant

[–] JuneFall@hexbear.net 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Totally.

The first people I met that were vegan, trans, queer and used pronouns and also were internationalist intersectionalist (yes all of that at the same time) were punks in squats, who were poor, not seldomly drop outs (from school or in general) and most did not have rich or even economical okay parents. That was in the 90s-early 2000s.

But it is too hard for our Dr. Engineering to use words like they, fuck off.

[–] JuneFall@hexbear.net 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks I hate the term now.

[–] culpritus@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago

Ya, this exchange from the 2nd link really gets into some of the depths of the issue:

Wasn’t there also a sense of how these cyclists “want” to be invisible? to hide from the police persecution Do mentioned, and to in general stay “under the radar”. Not to say the term should still be used. Specifically I know some people who bike prefer not to have lights, because they don’t want to be seen. Not to say that all low income men of color who bike think that.

– Juana in Minneapolis

Do’s response: This is a really good point that indicates the nuanced complexity and diversity of how people can experience cycling in the street. If certain cyclists are being profiled and targeted for over policing and surveillance, then a person could be motivated to become less visible (e.g. no lights) at the cost of decreased safety – and this might be a trade off a few might be willing to take if the consequences of policing are dire enough (e.g. documentation status, paying hefty tickets/fines, or even being arrested). This attempt to make themselves less visible does still point a problem where “invisible” cyclists are visible, but in bad ways. At least in NYC, many so-called “invisible” cyclists have been made to be more visible through a city council ordinance that requires delivery cyclists to wear bright reflector vests with identification of their employer (and they have to take safety classes too). As far as we can tell, this ordinance has primarily targeted and been enforced with food delivery cyclists, who are often Latino and Chinese immigrants, but not other delivery cyclists (like bike messengers). The intention of this ordinance was to crack down on the “bad” cycling of delivery cyclists and make them more visible to pedestrians and drivers, but I would argue that it also makes these delivery cyclists, mostly immigrants, highly visible for surveillance and policing. And it marks these delivery people as cyclists who need to be controlled and disciplined and hence they are different from other, more privileged cyclists. A report by Levine and Siegel (2014) that was highlighted in a recent Streetsblog article found that the NYPD were issuing high volumes of summonses for biking on sidewalks in neighborhoods of majority Black and Latino populations as compared to other neighborhoods with majority white and other populations.

I think for me, one big issue here is that the so-called “invisible” cyclists have not claimed the name for themselves as representative of their lived experience, but rather it describes how others with more privileged perspectives and power have chosen to ignore these cyclists for distributing bicycling benefits and to overlook abusive policing.

I'd prefer a better term to describe this phenomenon as well.