Justin Blinder lost his job two weeks before the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic reached New York City. To make rent, he began working as a delivery rider, cycling across the city to bring food and groceries to customers. As he rode, Blinder noticed how quickly the city’s economic landscape changed from one block to the next. Which Nome Sushi order went where—and how much did each customer tip?
“The city started to feel even more disparate, both economically and psychologically,” Blinder told WIRED. “It changed dramatically at the block-by-block level. These inequalities and demographic differences were happening remarkably close together.”
That experience inspired Ground Truth, an art and technology project designed to make New York City’s housing affordability crisis physically tangible. Using a modified Citi Bike, one of the city’s ubiquitous bike-share options, the project makes it harder to cycle through neighborhoods where rent burdens are highest.
Blinder, a Brooklyn-based artist and Meta contractor, received a $10,000 grant from the Brooklyn arts organization Idle Hands to develop the project.
Ground Truth is a small box that activates the brakes on Lyft-operated bikes, increasing resistance as riders enter high-rent neighborhoods. The device responds to areas where residents spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent. As the bike moves through more economically affluent blocks, pedaling becomes easier. Once it reaches an area where rent consumes a significant share of household income, the bike can become noticeably harder to ride.
Blinder created two versions of the device: one for standard bicycles and another designed specifically for Citi Bikes.
The box attaches to the bicycle fork and connects to the front brake cable. A battery-powered GPS component tracks the bike’s location while the device compares that position with household economic data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The American Community Survey data is stored on the device. When the bike enters a block identified as having a high level of rent burden, a microcontroller activates a small motor. The motor applies the brakes and increases resistance, making the bike more difficult to pedal.
Source: www.wired.com