How tech revolutions happen

Trends in New York City tend to foretell trends in London, whose fashions in turn set the pace for smaller British cities. After a summer in the Apple, I can therefore provide British urbanites with a glimpse of their future.

I get around on what I newly perceive as a dumpy, sluggish pushbike. Mayor Bill de Blasio has invested extensively in the city’s cycling infrastructure — much to the resentment of motorists, and often for good reason. As London drivers will also attest, removing whole lanes from congested thoroughfares is rarely justified by the modest number of car trips that cyclists obviate. Still, given the soaring popularity of two-wheeled transport, when chugging against a headwind alongside the Hudson I ought to have plenty of company.

Indeed, I do. But although signage on Manhattan’s busy West Side cycle lane warns sternly ‘No e-bikes or e-scooters’, the advisory is farcical. Those signs might as well read ‘E-bikes and e-scooters have right of way; prehistoric dependents on pedal-power should join the 21st century’.