Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

citylab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 382 posts

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

#171

Post by borkt »

WoahNow wrote: post #124
brightball wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pr…

Or maybe people realize the raising kids is an enormous cost from both money and time. Maybe it's selfish, but myself and many of my millennial friends would rather spend their prime earning and health years doing what they want rather than what they "have to" do for kids.

Yeah, also costs are rising at an insane rate. Health care and college are both an order of magnitude higher than they were when millenials were children, and even then many of us saw our parents work hard and still not build any savings until their kids were on their own. I haven't bothered looking for it but it would be interesting to see the difference in cost of raising a child over the past century

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

#172

Post by marssaxman »

enobrev wrote: post #90
chrissnell wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ship sailed on low-density suburbs 60 years ago. We're past the point of return on those. Outside of San Francisco, Manhattan, and downtown Chicago, most people live in the 'burbs and that's not changing. We will be living with this housing stock for decades--if not centuries--to come. It's best to engineer around that reality, not to daydream of an Amsterdam-like utopia that will never happen for 99% of this cou…

Are you saying Brooklyn, The Bronx, and the neighborhoods outside of downtown Chicago are suburbs? If so, we may have vastly different ideas about the definition of a city. Also, Seattle, Philly, Boston, Miami, and lots of other smaller cities are very much unlike living in the suburbs.

I know nothing about the latter three cities, but most of Seattle is made up of low-density, residential-only neighborhoods, very suburban-feeling to my sensibilities - and I'm talking about the city proper, too, not including all the even-more-suburban areas surrounding.

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

#173

Post by btrettel »

lr4444lr wrote: post #120
village-idiot wrote: post #9

Anyone 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…

There are problems with cars, but returning to the bicycle, an 18th century city technology, is regressive, not the way forward. The car was a great liberator from the congested and dirty density of the city which was once the luxury of only the rich to escape with their estates and private coaches. Make the suburbs more energy efficient, and figuring out an innovative and fairer way of financing roads is the progres…

> returning to the bicycle, an 18th century city technology, is regressive, not the way forward

Just because something is old does not mean it is a bad idea. By the way, bicycles were first developed in the 19th century (not 18th) and have been continuously improved since then. And motor vehicles are not much newer, anyway. The Benz Patent Motor Car was sold in the 1880s. For comparison, the most popular type of bike sold today, the "safety bike" became popular in the late 1880s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_bicycle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_bicycle

I've explained cycling to high-tech types as taking advantage of the literal nanotechnology the human body uses. Bikes make use of the human body much more than cars in my view.

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

#174

Post by RightMillennial »

adrianN wrote: post #89
fipple wrote: post #57

I’m simply never going to support any policy framework that would require me to cycle in Chicago in the winter. I know it’s possible but I’m not doing it.

Think of it this way: The more people you can convince to cycle, the fewer cars are ahead of you in a traffic jam.

Have you lived in Chicago during the winter? It gets quite cold and windy. I couldn't imagine willingly commuting there on bike even if adequate infrastructure existed.

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

#175

Post by adrianN »

dhnsmakala wrote: post #142
hhmc wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same argument applies to driving any vehicle. e.g. When you're driving a car and you cross a junction/intersection - you're trusting the stopped drivers to not run a red.

No, not the same level of trust. Fender bender vs crippled.

You never use highways either?

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

#176

Post by village-idiot »

jbob2000 wrote: post #42
village-idiot wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low density does not mean low cost if you actually factor in the cost of public infrastructure, which we do not currently. Suburbs require much more miles of pipe and road per person, all of which must be funded by local taxes and federal subsidies. Most of them only appear cheap because the initial setup is funded by developers and federal grants. There are "cheap" suburbs in the US that wouldn't be able to meet the…

I don't live in the US so those aren't really concerns for me. My quiet suburb has been able to keep the roads and pipes maintained while also keep property tax low. I think it's actually easier (read: cheaper) to maintain infrastructure in low density areas because there are less complications. Laying pipe through an open field is easier than laying it under 100+ years of city development. Distance isn't the big cos…

Complexity matters, but gets swamped when you start talking about increasing infrastructure per person by an order of magnitude.

Keep in mind that spread out suburbs also produce less tax revenue per acre, and thus less revenue per public dollar spent. There are “rich” suburbs in the US where a 100% tax rate wouldn’t cover future maintenance obligations.

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

#177

Post by adrianN »

RightMillennial wrote: post #174
adrianN wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of it this way: The more people you can convince to cycle, the fewer cars are ahead of you in a traffic jam.

Have you lived in Chicago during the winter? It gets quite cold and windy. I couldn't imagine willingly commuting there on bike even if adequate infrastructure existed.

Maybe not you, but there probably are at least some people who would if there were proper infrastructure.

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

#178

Post by martythemaniak »

village-idiot wrote: post #9

Anyone 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…

Think about this: How long is the new-to-trashed cycle for phones? for cars? for homes? The answers are, approximately: 4 years, 16 years and 100 years.

The problem with your top-down utopian "we shall raze and rebuild our cities" rhetoric is that it always crashes against the massive inertia of the existing built-up landscape. No to mention that people genuinely like their houses, but we don't even need to bring that up.

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

#179

Post by mjhagen »

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.

No one in Amsterdam has special tires on their cycles during winter and everyone here has a winter coat, it really is not a big deal.

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

#180

Post by Reedx »

village-idiot wrote: post #9

Anyone 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…

> Anyone 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.

Hopefully people aren't literally thinking that, considering that cars are only one piece of the carbon problem. It's not even the biggest piece.

Post reply on HN