Cycling heaven: The African capital with 'no traffic'
bbc.com
bbc.com
EriTV, the state sponsored new channel and only news station, tends to showcase individuals that exhibit “Eritrean excellence.” This includes professional Eritrean cyclists that compete internationally, making most respect or appreciate the sport. Even the Eritrean community that I’m a part of in the US will come out and support an Eritrean cyclist if race through our city.
Last time I visited the country, cycling was normal for transport but still too expensive for a lot of people. Most relied on black market parts to afford maintenance. But like the article mentions, cheap and legitimate parts have been coming in since the open border with Ethiopia. There’s still plenty of black market dealings, but business is hurting for them with this increased competition.
But now, over 20 years later, it’s all changed. Most of the cycles are gone to be replaced by a few cars, and incredible numbers of noisy, polluting combustion scooters.
Air quality has declined dramatically and city streets have become much less pleasant places to be.
The Vietnamese government probably sees this as progress? I think it’s a dystopian nightmare and a huge step backwards.
I'd like to hear one way or another from a Vietnamese person rather than speculate on this.
Scooters are adopted because they are faster and require less physical exertion of force to get from point A to point B. Every developing economy goes through this phase where pollution worsens. It is still the better choice than the alternative where everybody lives in a "pastoral" (read: impoverished) society for the sake of impressing visitors who have never had to worry about the same problems.
Biking is very common in rural areas.
Unfortunately I've had to skip Eritrea, although I really wanted to get there. Because of the recent peace deal with Ethiopia the borders are wide open.. but that means for me nobody really knows how I can enter at a land border legally... there won't be anyone to stamp my passport, and so it's very likely I'll be arrested by the first Police that see me, even with a valid visa.
The ambassadors in Ethiopia and Djibouti were more than happy to give me a visa, but they had no idea what would happen if I tried to drive in. Maybe I'll have to go back!
After saving for years I quit my job and drove Alaska to Argentina, and it changed my life.
I went back to a desk to save again, and now I've been away for three years driving around. I've also worked really hard to be a freelance travel writer and photographer, so I can do this forever without ever going back to a desk.
I'll never own a big screen TV or new car, but I'm certainly going to see stunning places, meet interesting people and have grand adventures!
This is a really, really common misconception.
For the Alaska to Argentina trek, two years and 40,000 miles through 16 countries, I spent $27k, for everything.[1]
Africa won't really be much more per month than that.
By keeping my monthly expenses low, I'm now very close to sustaining myself while on the road. Some months I do, some I still take a tiny bit from my savings. I'm about to publish another few books, and if they go reasonably well like my current one, I should be good.
My major tip is simply don't be afraid. Give it a go, see what happens.
In five years if all of this doesn't work I'll be sitting back at a desk and I sure as hell won't be sitting around thinking "what if". If it does work, I will be living my dreams.
> What holds me back is the fear of not having enough money
It's funny now from where I sit, the vast majority of people in the developed world are terrified of money. It's really educational to spend time with people that have none, and have no prospects of ever earning any, but are still immensely happy and have tons of time and often find ways to live their own dreams.
I wish you the best
including vehicle? If not, it can be cheaper. We did Europe to SE Asia (southern route: India and up through Tibet / China). Then California down to South America for less over 2 years (wife daughter and I)
I've met plenty of backpackers that travel the world for $10-$12k per year. Backpacking is cheaper than going with a vehicle if you are a single person, though a vehicle is cheaper as soon as there are two or more people, especially when you go to parts of the world where it's easy to camp out in the wild for free.
In my experience the places that sound scary are usually less scary on the ground once you get there, but the stakes are pretty high... I'm still travelling occasionally, but mainly to safer places. I hope to build my confidence back up!
Thanks for sharing! :-)
That this article tries to pass it off as "diplomatic isolation" is a whitewash and a travesty.
- Eritrea has mandatory indefinite military conscription.
- All local media is state-owned. The Eritrean authorities have reportedly imprisoned the fourth highest number of imprisoned journalists in the world behind China, Egypt and Turkey.
- Since independence in 1993, Eritrea has not had a national election.
I would say that's a legitimate label.
Where is this number coming from and what does it apply to exactly? It sounds like something that might be realistic in the US but probably not in most other parts of the world.
But just consider:
- roads
- highways / major ingress/egress
- sidewalks (yup. Don't really need them without cars)
- parking lots & garages
A nice source with color-coded maps - http://oldurbanist.blogspot.com/2011/12/we-are-25-looking-at...
A nice survey/writeup from Vox: https://www.vox.com/a/new-economy-future/cars-cities-technol...
On the other hand it is disputed that the impoverished and economically isolated city of Asmara having barely any cars is a demonstration that a city functions well with virtually no access to private motorised transport and inadequate public transport.
(cf Groningen had a policy of actively removing roads in favour of cycle paths to achieve high cycle use, achieved very high cycle use whilst remaining a typically prosperous mid-sized northern European city. Asmara might be interesting as a human interest story, but if you want to make arguments about the superfluity of powered road vehicles you'd probably be best citing just about anywhere else... except possibly Yangon)
The article itself is fairly barebones (not saying this is bad), it covers exactly what it wants - to describe some pictures of the lack of cars. It doesn't try to sugar coat it either, it's fairly open that the reason they don't have cars isn't due to teams of engineers, but rather lack of money to afford them.
> which combined with low salaries, high import taxes and fuel shortages
Reminds me of:
> Cars are the perfect late capitalist consumer product: an expensive, often de facto mandatory, solution to a problem that the product itself has largely caused.
So for us it allows us to travel to places that wouldn't be otherwise accessible at all. I mean remote mountain villages and valleys, hopping to Italy etc.
Of course cars have tons of issues, but sure as hell they add tons of life quality for many folks out there.
And just like SUVs and crossovers, most of them spend 99% of their time on asphalt.
I agree that we need more practical bikes and cargo bikes.
And pseudo-mountain bikes handle crappy pavement and rubbish on the streets much better. MTB-like bikes with rigid forks is where it's at though.
The only good use I could see is carrying 2 toddlers to school. But that's a very specific situation for a short span of time and in the end it's very rare. Looks damn cool in pics though!
*: https://velohouse.dk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Light-8.jpg
[0] - https://www.bikesatwork.com/store/product/96a-bicycle-traile... (disclosure: my wife and I manufacture these trailers)
BTW now I looked at your (very rich) offer and noticed you don't have any trailers intended for transporting children. Is that not a thing in the US? Most of the bike trailers I'm seeing over here in Europe are for hauling kids.
[1] https://hamburg.adfc.de/fileadmin/_processed_/csm_f22ikea-c_...
yeah but that is future mes problem.
But whats shocking is that dedicated cycle lanes are rare and cyclists have to ply on the same roads that carry cars, trucks etc. I can't recall the last time I saw a dedicated cycle track in an Indian city which is a disgrace since most of the people belonging to lower classes still use cycles as a daily mode of transportation.
I guess, among the explosion of cars and bikes on the roads, people on cycles have either become invisible or they have just been forgotten by those in authorities.
I used to cycle to work a long time ago. After a few Nearly Near-Death-Experiences, I gave up and bought a bike instead. My cycle languished in a corner of my room, until one day the maid that worked at my house asked if she could borrow it so that her husband could drop her children to school and then go work at a nearby textile factory.
I guess, they are still using that cycle while I have graduated from a bike to a car now.
I also assume in India most people would use scooters and not motorbikes.
Bike -> Motorbike
Cycle -> Bicycle
Edit: Also scooters are super rare these days. Motorbikes provide more mileage and are easier to maintain and have longer life. The number of scooters on Indian roads declined starting around 12-15 years ago I recall.
If bike is used without much context, I would also assume you mean bicycle, unless I know you own a motorbike.
After you accept the OP is using Indian English it's not that hard to understand what they mean & I don't think we have to enforce everyone using American dialects on HN for these relatively minor inconveniences.
Perhaps in the next decade, once China has made more effort to clean up its air and traffic congestion, this will return.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_of_Beijing
[1] http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/riders-fight-against-polluti...
[2] https://sports.yahoo.com/news/tour-beijing-stage-slashed-ove...
I wouldn't imagine that. I'd consider two factors first:
- China isn't known for "embracing bicycles". It's known for people being too poor to have cars, such that bicycles are the fastest transportation they have. Bicycling is not a prestige activity.
- China also isn't known for athleticism. The Chinese government really likes winning medals; the Chinese people seem much less enthused. A meme went around a while ago about how China has ~20% of the world's population and ~0% of the soccer players.
There is a lower barrier to entry for running, I don't know if there are other reasons why they do particularly well though.
Not quite as nice as Germany or Sweden, but much safer to get to.
Regarding the undesirability of ending up in Israel - Israeli discrimination is mostly based on ethnicity, not on religion. Christian Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, though economically well-off, are treated by the state as security threats in a way that Muslim Eritreans aren't.
”Beta Israel (Hebrew: בֵּיתֶא יִשְׂרָאֵל, Beyte Yisra'el; Ge'ez: ቤተ እስራኤል, Beta ʾƏsrāʾel, modern Bēte 'Isrā'ēl, EAE: "Betä Ǝsraʾel", "House of Israel" or "Community of Israel"), also known as Ethiopian Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדֵי אֶתְיוֹפְּיָה: Yehudey Etyopyah; Ge'ez: የኢትዮጵያ አይሁድዊ, ye-Ityoppya Ayhudi), are Jews whose community developed and lived for centuries in the area of the Kingdom of Aksum and the Ethiopian Empire that is currently divided between the Amhara and Tigray Regions of Ethiopia and Eritrea. Most of these peoples have emigrated to Israel since the late 20th century.”
These people could easily become Israeli citizens because ”After Halakhic and constitutional discussions, Israeli officials decided, in 1977, that the Israeli Law of Return applied to the Beta Israel.” (”The Law of Return is legislation enacted by Israel in 1950, that gives all Jews, persons of Jewish ancestry up to at least one Jewish grandparent, and spouses of Jews the right to immigrate to and settle in Israel and obtain citizenship, and obliges the Israeli government to facilitate their immigration.”)
So it seems unlikely Eritrea would have a significant population.
These might be one of the competitive cyclists that have budgets and travel the world in competitions.
Theory 2:
Bikes that are expensive new don't keep their relative value on the used market very well, you can get those pretty cheap.
(Also keep in mind that you are only looking at the mark of the frame, depending on age it might not have many other original parts)
I foresee a dystopia where governments powered by internet and AI weapons will channel the world resources to a select few while the rest of humanity dies a slow death.
I expect better from the BBC!
Just because the situation in Asmara was caused by unfortunate circumstances doesn't mean the outcome isn't good, or that it can't serve as a model for other cities on how to better organise city planning.
I don't think what you call "planning" is substantially different from "make everyone desperately poor so they can't afford to own cars". Not a model many cities want.
That is true. The reason this outcome isn't good and can't serve as a model for other cities is that it is a direct result of suffering and oppression.
There's really nothing admirable in creating a desperate population, even if this leads to a different set of vehicles on the road.
What would be the takeaway here for a modern city?
Astronomy heaven: The Asian capital with ‘no light pollution’
Do I wish that weren't true and that we could all have affordable family homes to live on? Sure, but suburbia doesn't even make sense from a commuting point of view let alone environmental.
if people worked from home they could have nice amenities, space, low noise, vehicles to travel elsewhere and useless offices could be converted to something that is more useful.. otherwise people pay a lot of money to rent a space that they don't use fully...