Pop op-cykelstier i en krisetid

Lokalt engagement, klimapolitik og modstand mod midlertidige cykelstier i Stor- britannien under covid-19

Resumé

Baseret på antropologisk feltarbejde blandt lokale myndigheder i Storbritan- nien i 2021 belyser denne artikel, hvordan coronapandemien blev set som en mulighed for at accelerere allerede eksisterende grønne initiativer. I 2018 hav- de seks myndigheder erklæret klimakrise, men i 2020 steg dette antal til 280 (Kandzhova et al. 2021). Såkaldte pop op-cykelstier og områder med lav trafik blev anlagt i begyndelsen af pandemien i Storbritannien i 2020, da regeringen oprettede en midlertidig pulje til finansiering. I denne periode var der en kraftig reduktion af biltrafikken på grund af diverse regler om udgangsforbud (Hong et al. 2020). Ordet krise bliver ofte brugt i en politisk kontekst med henblik på at legitimere bestemte initiativer (Roitman 2022). I artiklen argumenterer jeg for, at pandemiens alvor og ønsket om hurtig handling fra myndighedernes side blev brugt til at legitimere allerede eksisterende langsigtede klimapolitikker, der tid- ligere havde mødt modstand. Dette gjaldt blandt andet anlæggelsen af cykelstier på smalle veje, hvor fx busser, biler og ambulancer kæmpede om retten til at bruge vejen. Artiklen viser, hvordan de overlappende kriser – både coronapandemien og klimakrisen, som var blevet erklæret i 2018 og 2019 – legitimerede bestemte magtprocesser (jf. Roitman 2022), hvor sædvanlige procedurer blev sat på standby, og der blev lyttet mere til bestemte synspunkter end til andre.

English summary:

Based on ethnographic fieldwork among local authorities in the UK in 2021, this article explores how the pandemic was seen as an opportunity to accelerate already existing green initiatives. In 2018, six authorities had declared a climate emergency, but in 2020 this number rose to 280 (Kandzhova et al 2021). Pop up cycle lanes and low traffic neighbourhoods were implemented in 2020 at thestart of the pandemic when the UK government announced a temporary fund for active travel. During this period, there was a sharp reduction in car traffic due to various curfew regulations (Hong et al. 2020). The term for a crisis is often used in a political context to signal a state of emergency. Anthropological research has highlighted how crises as empirical phenomena are often the outcome of his- torical processes whereby inequalities have been reproduced, and how declaring a crisis is a political tool of power (Barrios 2017; Ramsay 2020; Roitman 2013). In the article I argue that the severity and speed of the pandemic was used to legitimise pre-existing long-term climate policies that had been resisted, such as the construction of bike lanes on narrow roads where, for example, buses, cars, ambulances also wanted to use the road. The article shows how the overlapping crises – both the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis, which had been declared in 2018 and 2019 – legitimised certain power processes (cf. Roitman 2022), where usual procedures were put on hold, and certain viewpoints were given more attention than others.