For a bipartite graph $H$, its linear threshold is the smallest real number $σ$ such that every bipartite graph $G = (U \sqcup V, E)$ with unbalanced parts $|V| \gtrsim |U|^σ$ and without a copy of $H$ must have a linear number of edges $|E| \lesssim |V|$. We prove that the linear threshold of the complete bipartite subdivision graph $K_{s,t}'$ is at most $σ_s = 2 - 1/s$. Moreover, we show that any $σ< σ_s$ is less than the linear threshold of $K_{s,t}'$ for sufficiently large $t$ (depending on $s$ and $σ$). Some geometric applications of this result are given: we show that any $n$ points and $n$ lines in the complex plane without an $s$-by-$s$ grid determine $O(n^{4/3 - c})$ incidences for some constant $c > 0$ depending on $s$; and for certain pairs $(p,q)$, we establish nontrivial lower bounds on the number of distinct distances determined by $n$ points in the plane under the condition that every $p$ points determine at least $q$ distinct distances.