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Protesting technology by battling bikes and coning cars
Munich is gearing up to host a trade fair on the topic of mobility. Part of the city center has been blocked off for trade fair events and to make space for trying out e-bikes and e-scooters, as anyone who has walked past Odeonsplatz lately will know.
Germany, with its heavy-hitting automotive industry, is an obvious candidate to host the IAA Mobility trade fair this coming week to showcase all kinds of ways of getting around. It will focus especially on sustainability and cutting-edge technology with futuristic electric cars, e-scooters, and e-bikes to admire and test drive.
But Munich has a fraught history with such modes of transportation. The city got its first taste of e-bikes in 2018 with the O-Bike. Actually, it would be more accurate to say the city was force-fed with this bike, because overnight, thousands of these orange two-wheelers appeared on sidewalks, at train stations, and somehow also appeared on balconies, in garages and even bathtubs. All right, I got carried away here, but it is true that all of the sudden, the city was blanketed with them. But it turned out their Singaporean operator did not have a permit.
