In 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 are so many vehicles on the road because everyone knows it's dangerous to cycle
I think it's deeper than that -- many people still view bikes as a kid's toy. Children bike, adults drive.
You are far too certain. 70 years ago a prognosticator wouldn't be considered insane to say "the ship sailed on cities 50 years ago, Americans live in downtown and that's not changing". These things do change, often quite quickly. Personally, I think the Boomers are in for a big shock when they try to sell their homes for a "fair" price, and discover that Millennials neither want nor can afford large suburban homes.…
> Millennials neither want nor can afford large suburban homes Due to the economics of supply and demand, if the former clause is true then the latter clause cannot also be true.
There's a lag in between those things where both clauses can definitely be true.
When you cycle, you are putting a great deal of trust into each and every car that drives by you. I'll pass.
When you cycle, you are putting a great deal of trust into each and every car that drives by you.
The same is true when you drive -- when you're driving down a 2 lane 45 mph road, you're putting a lot of faith in the oncoming driver to not accidentally swerve into your lane and cause a 90mph collision.
The car gives you some extra protection, but you're driving much faster than you bike, which reduces that advantage.
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…
Expecting most people to work within walking distance doesn't seem realistic except for those with minimally specialized skills. I mean if you are lucky, sure, and it is easier if you stick with the same employer for your entire career.
A 2 key points about well designed bike lanes that aren't bought up enough are: 1. raised / structural separation between the road and bikes path. 2. bike paths can be used for just about anything that is not a car/motorbike or a pedestrian. Skaters, skate boarders, mopeds and bikes can all share a common separated path way. I have tried biking in Boston and it is a nightmare. Bike Lanes marked on the road are taken…
I think the problem is Boston is that there aren't actual bike lanes-- they just painted some new symbols on the already existing roads that were designed for cars and called it a day. Everyone would benefit from separated bike lanes, either raised up or with the white cones. It never made sense to me that a whole line of traffic should have to slow down to 12-15mph because one person wants to ride their bike. Cars and bikes mixed into the same space just seems to create chaos.
In 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..
Yeah, I too wouldn't want to cycle in that level of air pollution. There's a sweet spot to hit for level of comfort & safety while cycling. I just think safety is the bigger issue, because even if the surrounding environment is comfortable and the terrain is flat and the weather is nice, if cars are making it unsafe to cycle, you're not going to cycle. And further, if we solve safety, that might actually help the environmental side of things too- less air pollution.
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.
Just do yourself a favor and think long and hard about whether or not that's going to sustain you for the remainder of your 70-80 years on this planet.
Maybe not, but having kids doesn't seem particularly more likely to sustain them, does it?
I can't afford a condo in the big cities, I'm not sure how riding a bike will change that? In fact it will probably make it worse as people move to the cities to ride their bikes, which will make real estate there even more expensive. Low density and low efficiency means low cost. Efficiency doesn't maintain itself.
One reason you can't afford a condo in the city is because you're paying for car infrastructure. Parking space and roads take up space that could be used for housing.
The 2 parking spaces and driveway included with my condo take up almost as much land footprint as my 3 story condo.
Obviously you can't get rid of all roads (or parking), but with fewer cars you don't need parallel parking spaces along the roads, and you don't need 4 or 6 lane roads in a downtown core.
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…
I agree with you, but it's significantly harder to design a city where everything you need, including jobs for you and your spouse is within a kilometer or two. Bicycles increase effective range by a factor six or so. Paired with good public transport you can reach any point in a normal city within forty minutes.
I'd add that a significantly under-discussed element of safe biking infrastructure is safer intersections. My city has lots of bike lanes that are sufficiently wide (and many that aren't) and no consideration all at for how a cyclist is supposed to safely traverse an intersection. My commute requires me to cross several lanes of traffic to get from the bike lane to the left turn lane on a road where cars go ~40mph -…
The best practice that I'm aware of is: * AT AN INTERSECTION * Dismount and walk the bike across the cross-walk, as a pedestrian. IMO we've engineered intersections all wrong to begin with. There shouldn't even be cross-walks there (they should be mid-block dedicated services, placed where pedestrians WANT to cross and __VERY CLEARLY__ marked as existing; not the dinky lights many cities go for (Seattle comes to mind…
If we actually want to encourage people to bike instead of driving, they need to be able to cover reasonable distances in a car-comparable amount of time. Expecting cyclists to dismount every block to cross on foot in a crosswalk is not the way to achieve this goal.