Artkansas 

Andrew Marr had an interesting segment on pedaled rickshaws in Dhaka, the capitol of Bangladesh. Here's real world car-free transportation. The segment starts at 5:30. It goes to 10:00.

https://youtu.be/B4OsB9R7kx8?t=5m30s He returns to bicycles at 21:55 talking about bicycle sharing in London.

cooker

Having horses pull people in carriages in central park is animal cruelty. Having people pedal them in rickshaws is green employment.

Mobile 155

How can it be cruel to have a horse do what it was bred to do but not to have a human preform sub servant labor they were not designed to do be preferable?

Mobile 155

Another thing before cars were not horses used to haul goods and materials to market? Isn't that where we get the term teamster from? They seem to be the origional car free promoters.

Artkansas 

The human can refuse to do it. The horse has no choice.

I'm not sure why it's considered cruelty for a horse to draw a carriage. Though the Humane Society says it is because horses are prey animals easily spooked. According to them, with horses it's not fight or flight, just flight and that leads to many accidents. That's why England had a man walk ahead of a car with a flag at the turn of the 20th Century.

But this thread is not really about horses. It's about car-free transportation writ large.

TheManShow

Most people in third world countries would love to live the life of a Budweiser Clydesdale.


A day in the life of a Budweiser Clydesdale | Fox News

Mobile 155

How true TheManShow: my sister raises horses and I know several people that use draft horses to pull wedding parties and special events at Christmas.

I know from seeing how they are treated that a Richshaw Coolie would only hope to be treated as well. The horses get clean living conditions, grooming, food and limited work schedules. They aren't allowed to be over loaded or worked in extream heat.

Coolies pull whoever can get in the cart and in whatever conditions happen to be outside. If they don't get many customers they don't eat. They don't get groomed and they may not have a place to stay.

And I wasn't the one that brought up the subject of horses to start with.

wolfchild

I hope you're joking.

cooker

I'm just reporting.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-w...rawn-carriages

Mobile 155

No Cooker now you may be reporting but before you made a statement without qualifications. I reject the statement as political propaganda.

cooker

It was a joke. Or rather, it was an attempt at an ironic observation.

Speaking of irony...

Probably most of you have never pulled a rickshaw. One time during Gay Pride, the leaders of a green organization I support were going to ride in the parade in rickshaws, to demonstrate green transportation, in contrast to various other NGO, business and political leaders who were expected to be riding on motorized floats or in cars.

A call went out to some of us on the email list that they had some volunteer rickshaw drivers for the parade itself, but they needed some volunteers to collect the rickshaws from the rental company, and deliver them to the parade marshalling site 5-6 km away, early, before the parade started. The email mentioned that the rickshaws were pedal driven and that sounded fair enough, so I got up at 6 am and biked down to the rental office to help. It turned out the rickshaws were designed for pulling on foot, so I strapped my Bike Friday into one and a few of us started a convoy of about 4 Rickshaws that we pulled in single file across downtown Toronto in light holiday morning traffic, to the bemusement of drunks and early risers.

The worst part was that we had to go down into the Don Valley and back up Rosedale Valley Road to where the parade was being set up, and it was extremely hard to control the rickshaw going down hill (on River St north from Gerrard Av if you want to do Google Street view) and very heavy pulling it up Rosedale Valley Rd. I didn't mind as I had partly done it for the exercise.

However I do think it was a bit of unfortunate but amusing irony that during the parade, the group leaders who had intended to make a positive statement about the environmental benefit of non-motorized transportation ended up inadvertently looking a bit like aristocrats been ferried about by human mules.

Mobile 155

Ok Cooker I missed the humor so I will accept that. I may get a bit touchy on the subject because half of my sisters are Married to men from the Yakama Nation and we have our family reunion in White Swan at my Brother in laws house. The subject of the relationship between man and horse does come up and almost to a man they resent the Citified liberal concept that their horses are mistreated. There is a bond between them and the horse they simply don't believe these do-gooders understand.

My Half Brother even works at Toppenish farms and has tried to convert me to organic foods as well. Free range chicken and range fed Beef included.

So whenever I hear these people talk as if they even knew what they were talking about from their air conditioned offices wearing tennis shoes produced by child labor getting barely poverty wages I dismiss their concerns as worthless at best and dishonest at least.

Rant off.

cooker

I didn't know there was a "citified liberal concept" that natives' horses are being mistreated. I thought the citified liberal position was that natives were being mistreated.

Mobile 155

The horror at riding a horse or using one for pulling being cruel is heart and soul a liberal misconception. But I might agree if those same liberals that condemn the working relationship between man and horse were allowed the priveledge of pulling a Amish wagon to save a horse I would be more than agreeable. Once they have done so then they can confirm if the horse is indeed mistreated.

I am also not impressed with the idea of Coolie pulling Rickshaws as being so green. The origional purpose was to use a lesser person as a beast of burden much like the picture you described in your earlier post.

It does look quaint from the perspective of the elitist sitting in the Rickshaw but it is a lot of work for the guy doing all the work.

This simply cannot be what being car free is all about. If it is it isn't worth doing.

Artkansas 

Well, in the U.S. we call them pedicabs. I don't personally see any diminution of someone who uses their muscles to propel a pedicab. If it doesn't pay enough then people should find a different way to make money. I know one person locally who started his own pedicab business. But last I heard, he is selling his rig.

Apparently, in Dhaka, if you emigrate in from the countryside, it may be the first job you can get. That doesn't say much for it's status. But from the video, it's obvious that it's a thriving way to get around in a city with such a terrible transportation infrastructure.

But I think that the pedal rickshaw rises above the horse drawn carriage in that it can be an active part of traffic and a serious mode of transport in the right circumstances. The pedaler has control of the rickshaw.

With the loose control that a teamster has over their vehicle, it's a great danger to its driver, passengers and horse. That danger of accidents seems to be de Blasio's main reason for trying to eliminate the carriages. So far, his enemies have gotten that legislation stalled in committee.

Mobile 155

Well Artkansas it would be interesting to see how many accidents the teamsters have been in to see if it is anything but a political ploy by De Blasio. It seems more horse free than car free but in this case I guess it is best to realize the old saying, "not my circus, not my monkeys." And let it go.

cooker

I did a little reading up on the Yakama. It seems like one controversial issue where some "citified liberals" may take issue, is the slaughtering of wild horse and selling the meat. It's a complex issue, and I'm not taking a stand on this, and I don't know how your relatives figure in it, but it is quite a bit different than the issue of how working animals are treated, and it certainly doesn't say much about the "bond between man and horse".

My point about the rickshaws was exactly that - an attempt to make a positive statement inadvertently ended up looking weirdly elitist and inappropriate. However I don't object in principle to using other humans as a "beast of burden". It's a service job, and if they do it willingly and are paid a fair wage, it's really no different from any other service job where we pay people to do stuff we don't want to or can't do ourselves. The reason rickshaw running has an aura of objectionability, is because historically it was part of a larger pattern of colonialism, oppression, exploitation, classism, and so on - stuff "liberals" rightly object to. Had the parade entry featured pedalled rickshaws ("pedicabs" as mentioned above), that historical association with greater social wrongs would have somehow been invalidated and nobody would have batted an eye, any more than if the conveyance had been motorized, with a hired or volunteer driver.