This sort of thing in the bicycle scene is very common; there are a lot of "bike kitchens" in urban areas. The best part about them is that most bicycle maintenance can be very DIY even in a tiny apartment; you just need tools and know-how, so you're not just "giving a man a fish" - people can become very self-reliant for many bike repairs. Park Tools has an AMAZING youtube channel that teaches people how to do damn near anything.
I've wanted to do something similar, and I remember reading on reddit that communal garages are very common on military bases...but in the real world, the greatest barrier I can see is insurance, primarily liability insurance. The potential liabilities, especially if you are a "shadetree" mechanic without some sort of recognized certification, are huge. Waivers cannot cover everything (including gross negligence.) I really wish the article had covered how he structured things; maybe he's simply banking on not having anything worth going after?
There's the liability not just from the repairs but from having volunteers using tools and lifts.
On a moral front: I'm very experienced with car repair, and while I have done things like brake jobs for street and track cars - it's me in the driver's seat in those cars. I wouldn't do a brake job for a friend beyond maybe a pad and rotor change, mostly because I couldn't bear the thought of my fucking up something and it resulting in someone being hurt.
Efforts like this are commendable, but what we really need to work on is putting back the public transit infrastructure that used to be in this country, and making it not only possible to walk and bike, but safe to do so, in terms of infrastructure and enforcement of vehicle standards and traffic laws that hold people more legally responsible if they are at fault when injuring or hurting others.
The automotive industry acclimating us to the notion that you can get away with injuring someone in a car crash you caused without any criminal penalty is the greatest wool-pull-over on the American public in probably the history of our country. Ditto for establishing the precedent that the identity of someone inside a metal box with partially reflective (and likely even tinted) windows in order to hold them responsible.
Why? As the article points out:
> Automobile culture is a system in which individuals privately shoulder the cost of public economic life. If your car fails in Alabama — and you cannot get to work, the grocery store, or school — your life begins to fail. It’s a system that perpetuates poverty.
If he really wants to help people, getting them on e-bikes, if it's practical to do so, would be a huge money savings for them. The vast majority of the US population lives in urbanized areas, and the vast majority of vehicle trips in the US are well under 5 miles. The "need" for cars is entirely artificial in much of our country and it is due to conscious choices by transportation planners and politicians to make infrastructure hostile to people not in a car.
I think the break-event point for a $1-1.5k ebike, which is a pretty damn nice ebike, is probably less than a thousand miles of driving a car (going off the IRS 50 cents/mile deduction) particularly an older one that doesn't get good mileage. Even if you've got a Prius, in gas costs alone the payback is under a year presuming you drive 20k miles/year.
> If he really wants to help people, getting them on e-bikes, if it's practical to do so, would be a huge money savings for them.
He is really helping people. People are coming to him for a solution to a problem and they're solving it.
Frankly, when you look at what hacker news types have done by coming up with scalable solutions in search of problems, it's a disaster. E-bikes where I live, in Chattanooga, would be a disaster, and having been to Montgomery, the problems are likely worse there. Sure, there are lots of <5-mile drives in Chattanooga--across bridges where the speed limit is 55 and it's not enforced, so the average traffic speed is closer to 75. Consider dragging around groceries on an E-bike, and consider it for more than 2 people: poor people have more children on average than rich people. And then consider that the average doesn't tell the whole story: if you need to make a trip once a week that's 25 miles, suddenly you've got to find a ride once a week. Dirt roads don't work well with Ebikes. Repairs are less available. Hospital bills when you get in a bike accident are more expensive than cars. The list of reasons why you should actually listen to people from Alabama before suggesting solutions for Alabama goes on and on and on.
The fact is, infrastructural change needs to happen before anything like an Ebike revolution could happen. And the only way infrastructural change like that will happen is if there is political change. And the only way political change like that will happen is if you start persuading people to form a real community that is united in trying to make positive changes. A mutual aid mechanic is a step in that direction--maybe it will lead to Ebikes, but we're pretty far away from that.
Henson seems to have reached a lot of the same conclusions I've reached. When people try to make big changes by "disrupting" things, they're trying to skip a bunch of necessary steps and as a result, it doesn't work out as they planned and they just end up lining their own pockets while harming everyone else. Positive intentions are worthless.
And look, maybe bikes and ebikes are working out really well in your community--that was certainly the case in Philadelphia when I lived there a decade ago. But it isn't the case in many southern cities. And believe it or not, a big part of the reason southern states don't like liberal coastals isn't completely irrational: it's because people from coastal cities are trying to ram solutions down their throats to problems they don't understand.
You also said, "If he really wants to help people..." about someone who clearly knows more about the people he's helping than you do.
First, you dismissed a practical idea which is being executed successfully. Second, you spent two paragraphs waxing poetic about an impractical idea. Inserting a "if it's practical to do so" between those doesn't really fix it.
If you still don't get what I'm reacting to, perhaps consider where you said, "...but in the real world" or "Efforts like this are commendable, but what we really need to work on is...". It's clear you think you know better than he does how best to help his community, which you've probably never even visited.
I just want to say I appreciate this comment and others you've made in the thread. For all the awesome people, discussions and articles on here, I sometimes feel like it lacks a heart. There just always seems to be something negative in the comments no matter what is posted.
You are doing a fine job in this thread. It is hard to think outside our own experiences. This passerby appreciates your efforts to get others to do just that.
> If he really wants to help people, getting them on e-bikes, if it's practical to do so, would be a huge money savings for them.
On-brand HN technosolutionism. Henson already admitted the naivete and idealism that led him working for people he shouldn't have; what he's doing is confronting the unfortunate reality of his region's car-first infrastructure and addressing existing problems with existing means.
Immediately thought of these when seeing the post. If you're in Los Angeles there is the Bikerowave [1], Bicycle Kitchen [2], and Bike Oven [3]. I'm about to donate two bikes and a ton of parts to Bikerowave this week. Really great places.
Distances are large. The rain is heavy and sudden. The humidity is high. The heat is high in the summer and the cold is low in the winter. Obesity is common. Your pecking order in your local society or work can be determined by things like the vehicle you drive or the church you go to, not to mention the aging population who are often too infirm to ride any bicycle regardless of powertrain.
Further, drivers don't treat bicyclists as human beings even in areas where biking is common, so die hard automobilists will most likely accidentally kill dozens of people every year during the transition period.
While the suggestion is admirable, the practical implementation of it is orders of magnitude more than shelling out a few million dollars.
They avoided putting more than $500 of work into any vehicle and taking jobs over four hours long. The ideal AFC customer, Henson told me, is someone who shows up, does their own work, and gets their car to run for 300,000 miles.
An expensive ebike is potentially an attractive nuisance that could get stolen. Not everyone knows how to ride a bike.
He's been politically active, got someone elected and they didn't keep their promises. He's doing what he can do to make a difference rather than making excuses and saying "We really ought to fix the infrastructure...but..."
In the US, 6%. Non-issue. 3x people do not have a license (16%). Far more people are prohibited from driving for reasons like OUI or nonpayment of citations and such.
> An expensive ebike is potentially an attractive nuisance that could get stolen
Car theft in low-income neighborhoods is a huge problem and police don't care. A bicycle is a fraction of the replacement cost and is much easier to secure. You can't bring a car into your apartment, nor can you stash a car in the corner of your shop at your job.
Also, many renter's insurance policies will either cover a bike by default or they can be added for a cheap rider....far cheaper than the cost of car insurance.
It also doesn't have to be an e-bike...$500 gets you a really nice single-speed transportation bike that costs next to nothing and is easy to stash somewhere safe. Do you seriously not realize that such bikes are a staple of service workers and students in a lot of cities?
> He's doing what he can do to make a difference rather than making excuses and saying "We really ought to fix the infrastructure...but..."
That is a personal attack. It's not appropriate here.
You want to go to Alabama and implement your ideas? Cool. Otherwise, I think it's inappropriate to dismiss the work he chooses to do and assume you, as an outsider, have better armchair solutions.
I grew up in Georgia in a city on the Alabama border. I'm extremely poor and have lived without a car for over a decade.
Insurance for your apartment is not something extremely poor people necessarily have.
Someone very comfortably well-off and living in a bike-oriented locale talked on HN about not wanting to leave their ebike locked up too long in a public place (for fear of it being stolen).* So that's part of where that thought comes from.
I gave up my car while living in Georgia. There were few sidewalks and it was an hour walk to work.
There was a bus stop near my apartment and a bus stop near my job but there was no bus connecting the two. It would have taken more time to take the bus than to walk it.
People who have no actual experience living within the system thinking they can fix fundamental structural societal problems with money is the essence of a savior complex.
If you don't understand the lived experiences of others you have no lever with which to move their world. You can swing your ideological stick all you want to but nothing is gonna happen but tiring yourself out.
First, solve their political problems, their financial problems, their health problems, their access to education problems, their ignorance problems and their self-proclaimed exceptionalism problems.
Once you have done that, then build them to a point where they can engage with their own history from a higher psychological standpoint and THEN you can throw money at the ecological consequences of their transportation issues.
If you do this out of order, you will either have your money appropriated into various contractors and government officials hands or you will find all of your precious ebikes either for sale on ebay within a year or rusting on the side of the road.
I came to this thread to say the military bases I was stationed on in the 90s had Hobby Shops where you could get free help from other [probably uncertified DIYers] mechanics and it was the way you did car maintenance if you were enlisted. (Turns out ~$800 a month didn't go very far, even in the 90s!)
But weird coincidence, a few minutes ago I purchased some Park Tools bicycle repair tools to perform some maintenance on my mountain bike after watching a couple of their videos.
E-bikes probably aren’t going to be a great ROI in communities like this. Half of the people are honestly likely to be too out of shape to be able to use one. That sounds quite crass, but it’s true.
It’s also not uncommon for people living in areas like this to be getting a government check every first of the month & making a singular trip to the nearest Walmart - which may be far away - & getting essentially the months worth of groceries in one trip. Whether or not that’s a good thing is not the point, people are set in their way & nothings going to change that. An ebike cannot make that trip. Automobiles are a lifeline/necessary evil for these people, & life can quickly fall apart without them, as he’s mentioned.
Hell, even riding an ebike in these areas can be quite an alienating social faux pas, & there’s enough deranged people that routinely try to run them off the road/literally run them over (news articles of this happening even front page HN every now & then)
It's crass and classist; you're clearly saying between the lines that you think poor people are fat/lazy.
It's also wrong. Bicycles are more efficient than walking...depending on who you ask, 2-5x times as efficient.
E-bikes require almost no physical fitness to ride. The cheapest ones have a 'throttle' lever; the ones with a cadence sensor just require the pedals be turning. The torque-sensing ones provide a boost to whatever you "put in" and the energy required for a bicycle without assistance to go 10mph is very, very low.
>> and classist; you're clearly saying between the lines that you think poor people are fat/lazy.
Uhh… I’m from one of the poorest parts of Appalachia & am myself disabled (and living on a corresponding income) - do not know just how you came to this conclusion from what I’ve said. Nothing was structured in a way that I’m wanting people to “read between the lines”
Where did I say anything about walking?
Please google “obesity rate”
I’m referring to Americans - not just poor people. Americans are, nearly on average, fat. I didn’t make any mention of laziness.
I am very curious whether or not you’ve ever spent any significant amount of time in a rural/impoverished/blighted part of the USA. A lot of people are too out of shape to operate a riding mower. Heart attacks spike during the beginning of winter from shoveling snow & whenever people first start to use a push lawnmower again.
You are objecting reality & I’m not sure why. Maybe you could email the group in the article to ask their opinion on whether or not I’m making this up.
Anyways, your comment is part of the reason I like to repeatedly bring things like this up on HN. For some reason a significant amount of people on here just seem to have no clue of the quality of life/lifestyles many people have & very openly try to reject the reality surrounding it. You’re never going to see much societal progress when you reject reality.
and if you’d really want to indulge in a hot take of mine - poor people tend to not be lazy. Maybe intellectually lazy if I’m trying to entertain many non-poor peoples opinions on the poor, but the impoverished typically have to work much harder in many facets of life to earn the most meager of a living. People born into the middle class & sheltered by affluence really have no clue, & seem to not care to ever get a clue.
Anecdotally, living in the Netherlands, I've seen more than a few obese individuals (350lb/160kg men) riding bikes. Granted, they are riding maybe 1km to the supermarket and not commuting, but it's certainly possible!
I've wanted to do something similar, and I remember reading on reddit that communal garages are very common on military bases...but in the real world, the greatest barrier I can see is insurance, primarily liability insurance. The potential liabilities, especially if you are a "shadetree" mechanic without some sort of recognized certification, are huge. Waivers cannot cover everything (including gross negligence.) I really wish the article had covered how he structured things; maybe he's simply banking on not having anything worth going after?
There's the liability not just from the repairs but from having volunteers using tools and lifts.
On a moral front: I'm very experienced with car repair, and while I have done things like brake jobs for street and track cars - it's me in the driver's seat in those cars. I wouldn't do a brake job for a friend beyond maybe a pad and rotor change, mostly because I couldn't bear the thought of my fucking up something and it resulting in someone being hurt.
Efforts like this are commendable, but what we really need to work on is putting back the public transit infrastructure that used to be in this country, and making it not only possible to walk and bike, but safe to do so, in terms of infrastructure and enforcement of vehicle standards and traffic laws that hold people more legally responsible if they are at fault when injuring or hurting others.
The automotive industry acclimating us to the notion that you can get away with injuring someone in a car crash you caused without any criminal penalty is the greatest wool-pull-over on the American public in probably the history of our country. Ditto for establishing the precedent that the identity of someone inside a metal box with partially reflective (and likely even tinted) windows in order to hold them responsible.
Why? As the article points out:
> Automobile culture is a system in which individuals privately shoulder the cost of public economic life. If your car fails in Alabama — and you cannot get to work, the grocery store, or school — your life begins to fail. It’s a system that perpetuates poverty.
If he really wants to help people, getting them on e-bikes, if it's practical to do so, would be a huge money savings for them. The vast majority of the US population lives in urbanized areas, and the vast majority of vehicle trips in the US are well under 5 miles. The "need" for cars is entirely artificial in much of our country and it is due to conscious choices by transportation planners and politicians to make infrastructure hostile to people not in a car.
I think the break-event point for a $1-1.5k ebike, which is a pretty damn nice ebike, is probably less than a thousand miles of driving a car (going off the IRS 50 cents/mile deduction) particularly an older one that doesn't get good mileage. Even if you've got a Prius, in gas costs alone the payback is under a year presuming you drive 20k miles/year.