Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities
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Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities
#2Until you get hit by a car.
Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities
#3Until you get hit by a car.
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Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities
#4Nice article, but I fear North Americans just don't care by and large.
I've had some passing involvement with bike advocacy and have been a bike commuter in Los Angeles for the past six years. My impression is that in the early 2000s, there was a flowering of bike advocacy and infrastructure.
But now we've reached the point of resistance where other transport modes are pushing back against any more consideration for bikes. In short, cycling is now big enough to matter but not big enough to win.
I've often wondered if there was an approach other than the incrementalist, go-along-get-along approach that most bike advocacy has taken. The electric scooter startups have changed the transport landscape more quickly than anything else I've seen.
Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities
#5In most cities, especially in America, there's a vicious cycle:
0) Cycling is dangerous because there are too many vehicles on the road
1) There are so many vehicles on the road because everyone knows it's dangerous to cycle
2) Go to 0
Breaking out of that loop requires building safe infrastructure for cycling, like indestructable cement dividers between bike lanes and vehicle lanes or no-vehicles-allowed-in- days
Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities
#6My wife has been biking to work for a couple of years now (I work in an industrial zone - I don't trust the awareness of large truck drivers - so I don't follow suit) and it's really revitalized her joy for the city. Her commute has become something she loves. Because of this new found passion we've both bought new bikes, have started passing our weekends by experiencing the city from the view of a bicyclist, and while it can be frustrating finding a place where you're bike can go (our city has been building bike lanes and mixed use paths like crazy which help a great deal), it's been incredibly enjoyable to bike to those places one normally wouldn't go due to the car traffic and the pain of parking. Last weekend we put 100 km on over a days travel just getting out and enjoying the city, we've also taken day trips out to neighbouring municipalities to better explore.
The problem with all this of course is that it snowed here yesterday, and that's just the first sign of a trend that's going to last until April.
Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities
#7I’d love more bikes in our town, but it’s not very flat. Is there some data on how much flat does the town have to be to get around on a bike? (I guess electric bikes change that equation a bit, but they’re still quite expensive.)
Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities
#8In most cities, especially in America, there's a vicious cycle: 0) Cycling is dangerous because there are too many vehicles on the road 1) There are so many vehicles on the road because everyone knows it's dangerous to cycle 2) Go to 0 Breaking out of that loop requires building safe infrastructure for cycling, like indestructable cement dividers between bike lanes and vehicle lanes or no-vehicles-allowed-in- days
There’s more to it than that. China was a cycling nation for most of the 20th century. They went from safe cycling nation, to now, where the most populous cities with good mass transit are clogged by cars and some motorcycles.
Affluence is a factor. Later on post-affluence may permit a social signal to again take up biking becuase it’s a choice of the upper middle class and become aspirational..
Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities
#9Anyone who's believed that the key to sustainable futures is simply swapping out ICE for electric motors simply is being wishful at best, willfully difficult at worse.
The biggest problem I have with electric cars is that they continue to encourage low density low efficiency suburbs with hours long commutes into the high density cities. This is economically unsustainable, roads are expensive, and will only get worse as EVs pay no gas tax and weigh more than their ICE cousins. Considering that America's road system is in bad need of repair and we don't have the will or funds to fix it, doubling down on them is not a wise call.
Also, it's not like producing an EV is a carbon neutral act.
Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities
#10I’d love more bikes in our town, but it’s not very flat. Is there some data on how much flat does the town have to be to get around on a bike? (I guess electric bikes change that equation a bit, but they’re still quite expensive.)
San Francisco is a big biking town and is very much not flat. You can get around on a bike in a hilly city, it's a combination of learning slightly longer but flatter routes to where you're going and getting used to the hills as you get in better biking shape.