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Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

citylab.com

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

#191

Post by squozzer »

I live in a regular house in the burbs. Not a spring chicken age-wise. Here's what it would take to get me into denser housing -

1) Privacy - sharing a wall or floor should NOT give my neighbors privy to my arguments, love-making, or guitar playing.

2) Personal transportation != pedal-pushing. I gave that up when I turned 16. I'll take a scooter.

3) Reliable public transport for long-distance travel. Meaning well-maintained, to useful destinations, and not subject to wage strikes (probably meaning automated.)

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

#192

Post by apathymannequin »

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…

Well, can I at least have an EV on my bicycle for commuting? To me the biggest challenge once cities get cars off the road is to deal with motorcycle traffic (assuming they're not in a city where cars were always secondary to motorcycles). That allows a wider range (distance from transit) of commuters to avoid fully-powered vehicles.

Ideally I'd love to see more of these bicycle silos, both attached to transit hubs and in office environments:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X4YPRAqXnc

They help solve the safety issues with leaving your bicycle somewhere. More traditional parking is great where space and trust allows, too (say, in a private office or behind a monitored door).

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

#193

Post by [deleted] »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #163
the_gastropod wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep! This is the "smart for the individual, dumb for the group" type of a dilemma. It absolutely makes sense for you to do this, individually. As a society, it's rather undesirable for people to live this way. Your lifestyle is being subsidized by (mostly poorer) people living in dense areas [1], and by the externalities we all deal with: pollution from extra driving, lawn care (leaf blowers, gas powered lawn mowers,…

I don't disagree. Simply price what it'll cost me to live in low density housing away from other people and I'm happy to pay. I will pay whatever it costs to not live in a dense urban core (to your points about environmental impact, we own two Teslas, have solar panels on the roof, have an electric lawnmower, and consume most of our power on site). Sprawl is not unsustainable if you internalize the external costs, an…

[deleted]

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

#194

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

mjhagen wrote: post #179
jbob2000 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Amsterdam the average winter temperature is like 3 degrees Celsius. Where I live it's -10, and it can easily dip into the -20's for weeks and the -30's for days.

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

#195

Post by nradov »

modzu wrote: post #52
zoul wrote: post #7

I’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.)

hopefully carbon fiber continues to get cheaper, because having a lighter bike really does make a difference on climbs. that said, anybody can go up a hill in a low enough gear(!), but psychologically it can still feel like a lot of work to pedal so much and go up so slowly. so part of it is learning how to ride. for that reason i agree hills are a (surmountable) barrier to entry and probably hillier places have less…

Carbon fiber only makes a marginal difference in total weight. Especially when you factor in all the extra stuff that bike commuters frequently carry (laptop, lunch, lights, lock, etc).

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

#196

Post by hhmc »

toasterlovin wrote: post #159
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.

C'mon. A car is a steel cage that has been obsessively engineered to protect it's occupants in the case of a collision.

Sure the consequences might be different, but you still have to trust the other road participants just the same.

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

#197

Post by village-idiot »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #187
village-idiot wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perception of risk is why. My wife has made it very clear that I’m a single man if I ever get a motorcycle.

Only perception? I have nothing against motorcycles, but the last time I saw stats, increased risk with respect to both cars and bycicles was quite real.

Perception of risk is what drives decisions. Actual risk drives outcomes.

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

#198

Post by kcorbitt »

> On a bike, you inherently have to make a physical connection with people. In a car, you're separated by glass and steel. But when you're out on a bike, you can actually see everybody, you can say hello to the people that you meet along the way.

This is an underrated aspect of commuting by bike. I ride 8 miles into San Francisco every day, and more often then not I get a little bit of human interaction somewhere along that route. It might be waving and saying "hi" to a member of the homeless community on the side of the bike path under a freeway interchange, or another bike commuter asking me about my electric bike, or just a driver smiling and waving me through an intersection ahead of them. These small human touches bring joy to me on a regular basis and are one of several reasons why I love my commute.

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

#199

Post by refurb »

lykahb wrote: post #135
brightball wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Millennials neither want nor can afford large suburban homes I see this often. Very few people want large homes when they are either single or don't have kids. As soon as you do have kids and they start to grow to an age where they want to play outside, having space to run, play sports, be away from traffic, have their own room, etc gets a lot higher on your priority list. You can also get a suburban home without i…

The suburbs have less air and noise pollution, which is good for the children but overall it's a dull and isolated environment. Playing alone in the backyard just because that is the only place where a child can go out of the house is quite sad. In Europe the children can go to a shared park or a playground. Strolling along a street is also safe and quite pleasant when there is little traffic. There is more space and…

In Europe the children can go to a shared park or a playground. Strolling along a street is also safe and quite pleasant when there is little traffic. There is more space and things to do than you can have in your backyard. And more importantly, they get to play with other children.

This sounds exactly like the US suburbs I've been in!

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

#200

Post by liveoneggs »

brightball wrote: post #82
liveoneggs wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

locating them in random suburban office parks is much worse, except for those in that particular 'burb.

Is it? Because the traffic in the suburbs is usually nowhere near the level of traffic in the city. The commute time tends to be relative to the traffic density more than the distance. I drive to the same location, 15 miles away every day. Depending on the time of day and the traffic, the drive will take 15 minutes or 45 minutes. The commute problem is forcing all of those cars down those same roads at the same time.…

The Atlanta suburb is Alpharetta has a night-time population of about 60k people and a day-time population over 120k. Traffic during the day is bad and those office parks aren't exactly close together.

Another example with even worse traffic (but you can usually walk a little bit for lunch time) is Sandy Springs + Dunwoody.

FYI these two job centers are, easily, a 30 minutes drive from each other.

These are scattered all around the city so choosing to live in a suburbs really limits your working options if you need to get to an opposite-side suburb. (60 - 90 minutes one-way would be normal to get from Alpharetta to Marietta with any traffic)

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