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Electric Bikes Won Over China. Is the U.S. Next?

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Re: Electric Bikes Won Over China. Is the U.S. Next?

#121

Post by khedoros »

Brakenshire wrote: post #98
khedoros wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a chicken+egg problem. I've considered riding a bicycle to work (it's only about 6 miles), but there are busy streets without bicycle lanes (or even sidewalks), and drivers in the area are known to be actively aggressive against cyclists. These things drive down the numbers of cyclists, which increases the general feeling that they aren't accepted, and that it's not worth it to cater to them. > if we could just…

I suspect a lot of it is pure population density. The US needs to make downtown areas pedestrian and bike friendly, and then allow high density development near the centre. That makes the bike lanes and the bus network self supporting. In London there was a very big push to extend the bus network about 15 years ago, by the left-wing mayor (who had been given newly created powers). He also introduced a congestion char…

If I lived in London (only part of the UK I've been to) or most cities in Europe, I doubt that I'd need to rely heavily on a car. Between the Tube and walking, we got where we wanted/needed without much hassle.

As an example closer in size to where I live right now: Heidelberg, Germany. Trains made it easy to get between nearby cities. Streetcars and such made it easy to get around within the city. Walking and biking were both pleasant and common. Population density didn't seem much higher than in my neighborhood, but useful businesses (groceries, bakeries, etc) were in easy walking distance from our hotel.

Re: Electric Bikes Won Over China. Is the U.S. Next?

#122

Post by khedoros »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #111
khedoros wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a chicken+egg problem. I've considered riding a bicycle to work (it's only about 6 miles), but there are busy streets without bicycle lanes (or even sidewalks), and drivers in the area are known to be actively aggressive against cyclists. These things drive down the numbers of cyclists, which increases the general feeling that they aren't accepted, and that it's not worth it to cater to them. > if we could just…

Meh. The streets of Beijing are even busier, the motorist even more aggressive, most of the bike lanes have become parking for cars, and it still seems to work.

A lot of people do things that I wouldn't consider doing myself and live in conditions that I'd (strongly) prefer not to, given reasonable alternatives. If my area were like Beijing, I wouldn't live here. If it were like, say, some parts of Tokyo or various cities in Europe, I wouldn't have a problem.

Re: Electric Bikes Won Over China. Is the U.S. Next?

#123

Post by Kadin »

URSpider94 wrote: post #18
rzt wrote: post #6

Pretty serious MTB/cyclocross racer here that's done a lot of trailbuilding and trail advocacy: a lot of dudes are scared that offroad ebikes are going to kill access to hard-won trails. It's a not-unfounded fear as motorized bikes are pretty dang close to motorcycles in most people's eyes. That said, I'd love to have an ebike! I have a 26 mile one-way commute (that's a 30 minute train ride) but every once in a while…

A co-worker of mine is an e-bike fanatic who builds his own hardware. He has street bikes that will go up to 40 mph. (He also does a massive trail ride on his regular MTB almost every morning, and road bikes on the weekends). Once or twice, he did the commute into work using Strava as his speedo ... needless to say, he got some fairly negative feedback when he accidentally claimed the KOM (king of the mountain) on a…

> He has street bikes that will go up to 40 mph.

In my state that's a motorcycle, and illegal to ride on the street without a license plate and insurance. It'll be the same way most everywhere soon, I expect.

Re: Electric Bikes Won Over China. Is the U.S. Next?

#124

Post by jessaustin »

Retric wrote: post #116
jessaustin wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well sure I assumed that it's actually a sidewalk, but there's no reason to be authoritarian. If there really aren't any pedestrians around then cyclists really aren't harming anyone. If one is cycling on the sidewalk and sees a pedestrian, one simply hops off the bike and walks it until the pedestrian is out of range.

Sidewalks are a lot more dangerous for bikes than you might think. The problem is cars have expectations on how fast people approach and will often assume an area is clear based on walking speed. Further even low speed collisions with pedestrians can easily send a rider into traffic.

One might err in assumptions about what I think. Parent had "seldom used sidewalk that runs for miles next to a bicycle hostile road". Obviously that is different from a regular grid of streets, where no one should cycle on the sidewalk. As soon as crosswalks appear get your ass in the street. Even in the situation the parent described, however, the presence of one pedestrian makes it a sidewalk again so no cyclist will ride and no low speed collisions will occur.

Re: Electric Bikes Won Over China. Is the U.S. Next?

#125

Post by necessity »

URSpider94 wrote: post #16

The e-bike situation in China is very different from the US. These are people who are moving UP from human-powered bikes, or walking, to their first vehicle -- not buying them so that they can leave their car at home and feel the wind in their hair. Here's a photo of a very typical Chinese e-bike: http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00zsrEyYQIYOqo/Chinese-El... As you can see, it has a second seat in the back for a pa…

Here in Brazil you see a lot of people moving from cars/bus to bicycles. I think a number of factors contributed to that:

First and foremost, following the commodities boom there was also a boom in car sales in Brazil, but not a boom in car lanes. Government is spectacularly inefficient around here, specially when it comes to building and maintaining roads. Traffic has worsen considerably in the last decade, and all attempts from most cities of creating new passageways and tunnels ended up in streets closed for construction for several years, the constructions being stagnated by the inherit inefficiency of our government and later on by the lack of money once the crisis hit. Here in Porto Alegre there are various of those constructions with no one working on them, just making traffic worse. The BRT project is half dead and buses need to get out of the bus lane where it's under reform and go in the middle of the cars then back to the bus lanes. There are at least four main access roads near the bus station closed for reform. Not to mention the new bridge of which the construction has been stopped, or the tunnels that for years do not progress. Anyway, that rant aside, the whole "green" vibe around bikes is probably a huge factor too. So you have this transportation which is clean, healthy, faster than a car in some parts of town, and relatively cheap. Then, cities started to "build" bike lanes (actually just paint part of the car lane adjacent to the sidewalk and call it a bike lane, which made traffic even worse). I think that turned what was an increase in the number of cyclists into a boom in the last years.

Re: Electric Bikes Won Over China. Is the U.S. Next?

#126

Post by duaneb »

rakoo wrote: post #77
URSpider94 wrote: post #16

The e-bike situation in China is very different from the US. These are people who are moving UP from human-powered bikes, or walking, to their first vehicle -- not buying them so that they can leave their car at home and feel the wind in their hair. Here's a photo of a very typical Chinese e-bike: http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00zsrEyYQIYOqo/Chinese-El... As you can see, it has a second seat in the back for a pa…

Another huge reason is that China outright banned the use of gasoline powered motorcycles in many big cities; since the majority of people just can't afford a car, the only replacement they could have is electric bikes. Maybe one day we'll also see gasoline powered personal vehicles be banned in the West ? I kind of doubt it, seeing how important the car is in our society, even though there is some progress towards i…

This kind of ban only makes sense with dense electrical and infrastructure penetration. Good luck convincing people in the country to give up four wheel drive and switch to a vehicle where fuel cannot be stashed.

Re: Electric Bikes Won Over China. Is the U.S. Next?

#127

Post by cb18 »

jean_claude wrote: post #103
doctorpangloss wrote: post #11

eBikes are sincerely a great alternative to cars for me. I've been using an electric bike (Stromer ST1) for about 3 years now in LA and Boston. It makes perfect sense for these cities. The total cost of ownership is way below a car, due to the low cost of Uber, other people with cars, insurance and gas. In high traffic and hard parking cities like LA and Boston, I get to my destination faster. And though a bicycle is…

What's your source on the claim that bicycling is 7x more dangerous than driving a car? Most sources put it around 2.5x more dangerous than driving, and I'd wager most of those deaths come from inexperienced riders who don't know the traffic laws as applied to bicyclists. Fatalities Per Mile Motor Vehicle Travel.................... Bicycle Travel 42,000 killed........................... 813 killed 2.56 trillion miles…

most of those deaths come from inexperienced riders

Similar things can be said for driving, in that motor vehicle accidents are concentrated in certain segments of the population, (and people having unlucky interactions with those segments.)

Though this niggle of the statistics is more of an issue with bicycling statistics because the bicyclists who know more or less what they are doing get lumped in with the accident rates of people like the "DUI bicyclist" riding home after dark with no lights into oncoming traffic, or terrible tragedies of people driving carelessly through neighborhoods and running over little kids on their bikes.

Then consider, even if we had statistics showing moderately higher injury/death rates for comparable travel styles with a bike opposed to a car, the overall mortality rates in the bike vs car cohorts would no doubt be reversed because of the physical activity vs sitting factor, and likely lower stress levels of the cyclists. Physical activity tends to reduce stress.

Re: Electric Bikes Won Over China. Is the U.S. Next?

#128

Post by dzhiurgis »

I like the idea of banning motorbikes, but it is probably impossible to ban american-freedom-harley-wake-the-whole-neighborhood lifestyle in US.

IMHO ebikes are not less safe. You can manually pedal faster than most ebikes, and just because their average moving speed is higher, that does not make them intrinsically less safe.

Re: Electric Bikes Won Over China. Is the U.S. Next?

#129

Post by intrasight »

Make it expensive to own and park a car, and make it a challenge to drive it in towns and cities, then absolutely ebikes will become popular in the USA. But if the above is true, then regular bicycles will still be MUCH more popular than ebikes - as they should be.

Re: Electric Bikes Won Over China. Is the U.S. Next?

#130

Post by WalterBright »

necessity wrote: post #125
URSpider94 wrote: post #16

The e-bike situation in China is very different from the US. These are people who are moving UP from human-powered bikes, or walking, to their first vehicle -- not buying them so that they can leave their car at home and feel the wind in their hair. Here's a photo of a very typical Chinese e-bike: http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00zsrEyYQIYOqo/Chinese-El... As you can see, it has a second seat in the back for a pa…

Here in Brazil you see a lot of people moving from cars/bus to bicycles. I think a number of factors contributed to that: First and foremost, following the commodities boom there was also a boom in car sales in Brazil, but not a boom in car lanes. Government is spectacularly inefficient around here, specially when it comes to building and maintaining roads. Traffic has worsen considerably in the last decade, and all…

> Government is spectacularly inefficient around here, specially when it comes to building and maintaining roads.

It is around here, too, it's just that people go ahead and pay it anyway. For example, the Alderwood intersection for I5 and I405 took about 30 years to complete. They'd build one set of temporary ramps, then tear them down and build another, etc., etc., etc. You had to pay attention to the signage because it changed constantly, all over the place.

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