Meanwhile, another city with iconic horse-drawn carriages, Vienna (where the carriages, unlike in New York, actually use city streets), is debating whether the horses should get a day off if temperatures rise above 30° C (currently it's 35°), and only a few officials are meekly suggesting that a complete ban might be considered at some point in the future.
Viennese Fiaker horses are limited to 18 working days per month and there's already temperature limits. Whether those should be lowered further is up for discussion. the current limits for horses are already lower than for outdoor laborers in Vienna.
IMO completely banning horse carriages in Vienna is overshooting.
I was a bit surprised to see quite so many when I was over last August and it was well north of 35°C - you'd think with the water-bottle and sprinkler stations everywhere they'd also throw out a couple of troughs of water for the horses.
They all seemed to be in good health, from what I saw, but horses are pretty finicky creatures - we humans domesticated the horse about 20,000 years ago, breeding the strongest healthiest creatures we could, and they're still a bit shit - and I wouldn't be surprised if a less attentive driver is going to end up killing one.
Good. We (Montreal) did that some years ago and nobody misses it - tourists, operator, citizen and very likely the horses too. You think it's a staple until it's gone, then you realize it was just animal abuse for profit.
Also, it is a lot better for tourists than having horses faint or die on the pavement in front of your kids - which is bound to happen more frequently with the weather becoming warmer.
Humans adapt. Even if people miss them they get over it quickly. You get a lot of (social)media articles for a couple of months but after that everyone moves on.
This is a bigger deal than it might sound. Despite lots of consensus that the horse carriages are bad, it has taken years to get this done. It infamously stalled during De Blasio's mayoralty too, for example.
This is also an L for the TWU, and I suspect there will be more of those to come in the following months.
It seems kind of strange that the entire meat industry exists and is tolerated, yet a few horses in Central Park are making people so angry. Surely these horses have far better lives than the cows did that everyone's tucking into over lunch?
They're in proximity to people that run on a progressive threadmill.
When it became socially opportune to so i've seen city folk elsewhere shift their animal rights stance to defend halal slaughter laws deeming it to be progressive because it's tied to a group lower on the proverbial ladder.
But the activists are not the point. Animal rights activists are a minority, things change because the majority or a significant share of people backs them.
In this case this large group that backs banning horse drawn carriages is very likely eating industrially produced meat. That’s the inconsistency, 95% of Americans eat meat and a substantial share cause far greater inhumanity on animals through their diets which are completely optional (as in, they could vote with their mouth and stop it), than these horse drawn carriages which they want to ban.
I think if a bunch of horses were dropping dead in my city from heat exhaustion, and the only upside to having them was that they congested the roads and left shit everywhere, then I would weigh the two and probably say better to not have them. Turns out 78% of registered New Yorkers agree. Maybe they are all massive hypocrites and should actually support this, since they also eat meat.
I do not know. I have not looked into this issue on the merits. I have just observed the gridlock and status-quo bias around it.
I suspect though that mandating better conditions would have the same effect --- the horse tourism business probably stops penciling out if they have to make the required changes. And given that, TWU would fight it just as hard --- a de jure or de facto ban has the same effect as far as they are concerned.
If that's the reason, then the solution sounds like a typical bad bureaucratic government - instead of fixing the problem (improved treatment for horses), ban the whole thing.
There is no business here that can afford any capital outlay, this is a bunch of mom-and-pop shops that rent stable slots (I think) and own medallions. No capital outlay -- nothing can really change.
The city could also spend money on the stables. And NYC NYS have spent money propping up stupid small businesses unable to take care of themselves before. But I do not endorse that outcome at all.
He's doing this because an Indian tourist was killed by a horse - they are quite notorious for being hit by trains, jagannatha etc.
Some people say that it's because forcing horses to work in a dense, heavily polluted urban environment is cruel, but I don't see these rules being applied to Sarah Jessica Parker.
India averages 20,000 deaths by train every year. About 16 deaths per 100,000 people.
Compare to 40,000 vehicle deaths in the US (and 960 train deaths, 2.8 deaths per 100,000 people), and 177,000 vehicle deaths in India.
But India only has 1 death per _4.1 billion passenger-miles_. The US is 1 death per 2.33 billion passenger-miles.
Anecdotally, there's a _lot_ of Indians-walking-near-trains-and-getting-hit-posting-them-doing-it videos on reddit.
In any event, the OP is way off target anyway. The poor kid was in a carriage with his mom, the horse got spooked, she fell out and he leapt out to try to save her but hit his head and died.
I guess "deaths per billion passenger-miles" is not a good metric if you want to compare the US and India, because travelling by rail is simply not that popular in the US (I assume the statistic does not include metro systems?). But if you get run over by a train, it doesn't really matter if it was a freight train or a passenger train (<5% of train casualties are actual train passengers).
> I mean the part about Indians being notorious for being hit by trains.
I'm genuinely surprised we don't see more Indian tourists getting hit by cars, at least here in Scotland. There's a bit of a trend on social media over there, where you'll get an Indian couple on holiday in Scotland taking photos of themselves sitting in the middle of a road.
Roads here are often narrow, twisty, fast, uneven, and extremely busy, so it's quite possible if you do this that the last photo ever taken of you will be the frame juuuust before the dashcam triggers.
If you look at the bush on the right of the road here just as the road curves (we drive on the left; this is looking from the back of the Streetview car heading south), when I was up a few weeks ago there was an Indian couple in wedding clothing sitting cross-legged in the middle of the road right at that bend taking a photo. I should actually pull the dashcam footage of that!
Anyway, that's a 60mph road. Do not sit in the middle of busy 60mph roads, no matter how cool the photo is. That was nearly a very short marriage, "until death do us part out into a thin smear with small chunks in for several hundred metres"...
Horses only know a human world and removing them from it is wrong, very very wrong, if they have any right, it is to stay.
Horses KNOW there purpose , and ENJOY there work and those who are part of that also know and enjoy there co joined lives, which at times is as close to magic as to be found.
But let me fuck right off, and may the sterilisation bring you some sort of shiny
comfortable pristine experience.
https://www-ganz--wien-at.translate.goog/wien/news/pro-contr...
IMO completely banning horse carriages in Vienna is overshooting.
They all seemed to be in good health, from what I saw, but horses are pretty finicky creatures - we humans domesticated the horse about 20,000 years ago, breeding the strongest healthiest creatures we could, and they're still a bit shit - and I wouldn't be surprised if a less attentive driver is going to end up killing one.
Also, it is a lot better for tourists than having horses faint or die on the pavement in front of your kids - which is bound to happen more frequently with the weather becoming warmer.
This is also an L for the TWU, and I suspect there will be more of those to come in the following months.
What's objectionable about halal?
In this case this large group that backs banning horse drawn carriages is very likely eating industrially produced meat. That’s the inconsistency, 95% of Americans eat meat and a substantial share cause far greater inhumanity on animals through their diets which are completely optional (as in, they could vote with their mouth and stop it), than these horse drawn carriages which they want to ban.
I suspect though that mandating better conditions would have the same effect --- the horse tourism business probably stops penciling out if they have to make the required changes. And given that, TWU would fight it just as hard --- a de jure or de facto ban has the same effect as far as they are concerned.
The past four mayors have all tried to end the practice but the jockeys (drivers?) are part of a powerful transportation union.
There is no business here that can afford any capital outlay, this is a bunch of mom-and-pop shops that rent stable slots (I think) and own medallions. No capital outlay -- nothing can really change.
The city could also spend money on the stables. And NYC NYS have spent money propping up stupid small businesses unable to take care of themselves before. But I do not endorse that outcome at all.
Some people say that it's because forcing horses to work in a dense, heavily polluted urban environment is cruel, but I don't see these rules being applied to Sarah Jessica Parker.
I'll get my coat
Is that real or just a meme? I mean the part about Indians being notorious for being hit by trains.
Compare to 40,000 vehicle deaths in the US (and 960 train deaths, 2.8 deaths per 100,000 people), and 177,000 vehicle deaths in India.
But India only has 1 death per _4.1 billion passenger-miles_. The US is 1 death per 2.33 billion passenger-miles.
Anecdotally, there's a _lot_ of Indians-walking-near-trains-and-getting-hit-posting-them-doing-it videos on reddit.
In any event, the OP is way off target anyway. The poor kid was in a carriage with his mom, the horse got spooked, she fell out and he leapt out to try to save her but hit his head and died.
I'm genuinely surprised we don't see more Indian tourists getting hit by cars, at least here in Scotland. There's a bit of a trend on social media over there, where you'll get an Indian couple on holiday in Scotland taking photos of themselves sitting in the middle of a road.
Roads here are often narrow, twisty, fast, uneven, and extremely busy, so it's quite possible if you do this that the last photo ever taken of you will be the frame juuuust before the dashcam triggers.
If you look at the bush on the right of the road here just as the road curves (we drive on the left; this is looking from the back of the Streetview car heading south), when I was up a few weeks ago there was an Indian couple in wedding clothing sitting cross-legged in the middle of the road right at that bend taking a photo. I should actually pull the dashcam footage of that!
Anyway, that's a 60mph road. Do not sit in the middle of busy 60mph roads, no matter how cool the photo is. That was nearly a very short marriage, "until death do us part out into a thin smear with small chunks in for several hundred metres"...
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/opinion/carriages-belong-...