Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities • Hacker News Board

Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

#91

Post by village-idiot » Fri, Sep 14, 2018, 3:48 PM UTC

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #77

village-idiot wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are absolutely correct, but there is a really weird addendum to this. There have been a bunch of studies trying to measure the relationship between commuting time and (subjective) quality of life. Most of them find exactly what you'd suspect: longer commutes reduce quality of life. The weird thing is that they found a small uptick at the absolute extreme edges of commuting, like in the 5+ hour a day range. It's s…

>"Either way, I walk to work. There are few better ways to commute, IMHO." The bicycle is one of those ways. It's faster and significantly more efficient.

Bicycling also requires more concentration. I regularly read a book while commuting, which is nice.

Personally, my commute would be too short with a bike. I like a good 20-30 minutes between home and work to clear my head and get in/out of the zone. But that's just me.

Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

#92

Post by dasil003 » Fri, Sep 14, 2018, 3:48 PM UTC

option wrote: post #40

I wonder how a bike or even public transit is going to replace a car? 1) How am I supposed ro go to the beach with two kids, stuff for picnic and surfboards on a bike or even on a bus?!! 2) Public transit is all good, but have you ever been in a PEOPLE jam during rush hour in a subway? Because I had. And I will take SV traffic jam over it any day. The truly bad things happen because of radicalism - it should not be b…

It replaces a car for daily activities, not for road trips.

Have you ever seen what happens in a Tube strike in London? Gridlock like you wouldn't believe. I was cycling to work and I saw an ambulance stuck in traffic dead stopped with sirens blaring because there was no open space for any cars within earshot to move out of the way. There were tens of thousands of people walking to work along the A3 (Northern Line corridor) into the city like refugees because it was faster than car, cab or bus.

The point is, the transit capacity of a city with a dense transit network is orders of magnitude greater than the typical American city, and SF/SV is barely a notch better.

Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

#93

Post by village-idiot » Fri, Sep 14, 2018, 3:49 PM UTC

option wrote: post #58

village-idiot wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People got along just fine before the car. And heaven forbid that you have to interact with other people on public transit. How ever will you survive?

being forced into strangers’ armpits is not the kind of interaction I am looking forward to. Of course, “happens only during rush hours”. Sorry, but I actually lived in an Eastern European city and had to commute like that to work.

Yeah, I lived in Chicago for 6 years. You're being overly dramatic.

Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

#94

Post by oftenwrong » Fri, Sep 14, 2018, 3:51 PM UTC

A city that is bike-friendly is good, but a city that is walking-friendly is better. The bicycle is a great way to exceed "walking distance", but why should that even be necessary in day-to-day life? It is easily possible to build a neighbourhood where three generations of a family can live, work, attend school, shop, and more within walking distance. Walking is the simplest, most universal, and most natural mode of human transportation. All it requires is a compact pattern of development.

Walking has low requirements for infrastructure. An uneven sidewalk is no problem. An unpaved trail through the woods is fine for most people. I have seen people posthole through blizzards in a walkable neighbourhood when nobody could bicycle or drive a car.

For the individual, there is no mechanical equipment to maintain, no parking spot to find; they just need some decent footwear.

More people can walk than can/will ride a bike. Many old people avoid biking due to poor balance and strength, but can walk without issue. People that cannot walk, such as people in wheelchairs, also benefit from the short distances between destinations. The blind can walk, but cannot ride a bike.

Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

#95

Post by village-idiot » Fri, Sep 14, 2018, 3:52 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #80

village-idiot wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You act like Millenials don't already have children, when the oldest members of that cohort are 37.

Anecdote of one. 36, wife and two kids. Have a quarter acre of land, a pool, and a 2600 sq ft house in a Tier 2 city for ~$200k. Why would I ever choose higher density and city living? I would not pay more for a lower quality of life (and distance means little to me, as I work from home and my kids don't go to school). I happily bought my suburban home instead of living close to others in a condo or a townhouse.

Buying suburban for me would replace my 30m walking commute for a 1.5h driving commute, all for a yard I wouldn't have time to use with my commute. Not a good trade for me.

I also don't have any kids and won't be having them.

Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

#96

Post by adrianN » Fri, Sep 14, 2018, 3:53 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #88

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have Yeti/Sasquatch/Bigfoot/Harry and the Henderson's type bike? Or skinny tires and determination? The commute is about 45 minutes in the summer, so in the winter that's a long time to be cold.

The only cold problems I have with long distance biking in cold weather are caused by poor circulation in my hands and feet. I inevitably get too warm in my core within 15 minutes of commencing biking and start unzipping my outer layer. To keep my head warm, a balaclava and helmet suffices. It's the cold hands that are the worst though; even in thick gloves they still get too cold. I might have to start trying chemic…

There are gloves with electric heaters that you can charge via micro usb.

Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

#97

Post by toomuchtodo » Fri, Sep 14, 2018, 3:53 PM UTC

village-idiot wrote: post #95

toomuchtodo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdote of one. 36, wife and two kids. Have a quarter acre of land, a pool, and a 2600 sq ft house in a Tier 2 city for ~$200k. Why would I ever choose higher density and city living? I would not pay more for a lower quality of life (and distance means little to me, as I work from home and my kids don't go to school). I happily bought my suburban home instead of living close to others in a condo or a townhouse.

Buying suburban for me would replace my 30m walking commute for a 1.5h driving commute, all for a yard I wouldn't have time to use with my commute. Not a good trade for me. I also don't have any kids and won't be having them.

Fair points. My commute is 20 minutes (long enough for one NPR podcast and a Dunkin Dounts coffee on the way), and I only go into the office a few days each month. My employer even installed an EV charger for me!

Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

#98

Post by brightball » Fri, Sep 14, 2018, 3:53 PM UTC

village-idiot wrote: post #78

brightball wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because it's a known trend: https://www.forbes.com/sites/josephcoughlin/2018/06/11/mille... https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/singletons/201804/sh... https://www.parents.com/parents-magazine/parents-perspective... https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/upshot/americans-are-havi...

Yeah, so that reinforces my point. Millenials aren't going to buy up those suburban homes.

Because they aren't having kids...

Not because there's a problem with the homes or the locations.

It's because somehow, an entire generation has grown up with the idea that the one biologically necessary act to further the survival of the species...is not a good idea.

Maybe it's marketing, maybe it's the message, maybe it's the intensity of school causing people to believe that workaholism is necessary, maybe it's pride that working for somebody else is more important to people than raising a family and maybe it's student loan debt making the idea of the costs of raising kids difficult to bear, maybe it's culture that has changed the relationships between potential parents enough to make them incompatible.

Whatever it is, something serious has happened to cause that many people to go against biology.

Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

#99

Post by imgabe » Fri, Sep 14, 2018, 3:53 PM UTC

jbob2000 wrote: post #33

adrianN wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other forms of electric transport, like scooters and electric bikes should be pushed more. Together with decent mass transit they solve the last mile problem quite nicely imho. But unfortunately the car lobby is extremely strong and doesn't want to lose its market.

There's this weird thing that happens in northern climates where all the bikers and scooter riders magically disappear sometime around October and don't reappear until sometime in April. I can't figure out why this happens, we should really aim to understand that before we push bikes and scooters on half the human population. I don't think it's the car lobby that causes this disappearance.

There's also these things called "clothes" humans have been using to protect themselves from the elements for quite a while. Humans walked across Siberia with little more than animal skins. I think most can handle a 30 minute bike ride when it's a bit chilly.

Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

#100

Post by germinalphrase » Fri, Sep 14, 2018, 3:54 PM UTC

jbob2000 wrote: post #59

adrianN wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Netherlands the fraction of cyclists that keep riding in Winter is much larger than in cities with similar climate. Cycling in winter is not that hard, it's not worse that going on foot. What's important is that snow is removed.

There are sooo many things that you need to do to make cycling in winter possible; snow must be cleared, you need special tires, you need extra warm weather gear, you need to wait for the blizzard to end, etc. etc. Or I could just get in my car with a light jacket and blast the heat. Rain, shine, snow, blizzard, whatever. I'm good.

It hasn’t stopped a lot of us up here in Minneapolis. Other than - possibly - a balaclava, I don’t dress significantly different for winter biking than I do for general winter weather. The effort warms me up quickly.