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We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

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Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#71

Post by paganel »

flexie wrote: post #62
glangdale wrote: post #46

I'm curious as to what planet you'd have to be living on to think that if we have billions of dollars to spare on huge transport infrastructure projects that aren't cars, that it should go to bikes and not public transport + walkability. I'm guessing it's a special magic planet with startlingly good weather year-round, without disabled people, where everyone gets to age into spry Euro-oldsters. Not wanting to kick of…

I don't mind the weather in Copenhagen where the amount of people who bikes every day exceeds the amount of people who take public transportation every day by around 50% (1). Weather in Copenhagen is rarely very cold or very warm. But Copenhagen weather is not "startlingly good all year-round". It rains quite often and temperatures are often close to zero or sub zero. And it's windy all the time. It even snows a few…

Copenhagen doesn’t have 40 degrees Celsius heatwaves in the summer nor winter blizzards that make you feel like you’re in Siberia, while places like the US East Coast (and I guess even the Chicago area in the Midwest) have them both.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#72

Post by kruczek »

jalgos_eminator wrote: post #11
smt88 wrote: post #2

> Cars are the slowest, lowest-bandwidth forms of urban transportation. This is the kind of thing I read a lot in micromobility advocacy articles, but it seems like it can't be true. How can a bike, scooter, or moped be either faster or higher-bandwidth than a car? Also, serious question: if electric SDCs became widespread, would it still make sense to advocate things like bikes? You can't transport a family of three…

The key word here is "urban". I ride my bike around the city core sometimes just for fun and I can easily keep up with cars because they are going so slow. Now imagine how many bikes you could fit on a two lane road vs how many cars. Obviously if the car is coming from the suburbs its going to be faster. > Also, serious question: if electric SDCs became widespread, would it still make sense to advocate things like bi…

> Now imagine how many bikes you could fit on a two lane road vs how many cars

No need to imagine:

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_9F9_RUESS2E/S7tbclwxiPI/AAAAAAAACmw/uI...

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#73

Post by Kiro »

glangdale wrote: post #46

I'm curious as to what planet you'd have to be living on to think that if we have billions of dollars to spare on huge transport infrastructure projects that aren't cars, that it should go to bikes and not public transport + walkability. I'm guessing it's a special magic planet with startlingly good weather year-round, without disabled people, where everyone gets to age into spry Euro-oldsters. Not wanting to kick of…

> startlingly good weather year-round

In Sweden people take the bike even when it's minus 20 degrees and snow everywhere.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#74

Post by mytailorisrich »

missosoup wrote: post #54
donjoe wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yah... Bad weather isn't an argument though. I'm faster with my bike no matter the weather. Especially when it's snowing outside. Gosh, snow slows cars down massively. I love this time of the year: no one tends to speed any more since drivers are afraid of crashing their cars.

Try riding to work on a 45 degree australian summer day when the UV index is so high that 5 mins is enough to get serious sunburn.

That's because Australia is populated by Northern Europeans who follow a Northern European lifestyle. This is completely as odds with the climate in most of the country.

In turn this partly explains Australia's high emissions.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#75

Post by ericd »

smt88 wrote: post #2

> Cars are the slowest, lowest-bandwidth forms of urban transportation. This is the kind of thing I read a lot in micromobility advocacy articles, but it seems like it can't be true. How can a bike, scooter, or moped be either faster or higher-bandwidth than a car? Also, serious question: if electric SDCs became widespread, would it still make sense to advocate things like bikes? You can't transport a family of three…

Assuming you’re talking about two adults and one kid, two bikes? You can easily transport two kids and an adult with a bike+trailer. Alternatively, in the Netherlands, you see bikes being used as school busses, with 4-6 kids in a big bucket in front, and an adult pedaling it around. You can buy them from various importers elsewhere.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#76

Post by kqr »

smt88 wrote: post #2

> Cars are the slowest, lowest-bandwidth forms of urban transportation. This is the kind of thing I read a lot in micromobility advocacy articles, but it seems like it can't be true. How can a bike, scooter, or moped be either faster or higher-bandwidth than a car? Also, serious question: if electric SDCs became widespread, would it still make sense to advocate things like bikes? You can't transport a family of three…

> You can't transport a family of three or a baby as safely in a vehicle smaller than a car (as they lack things like walls and air bags)

Most families of three can drive their own vehicles, though. And air bags are really only necessary because of... you guess what.

The "not everyone can ride a bike" argument is vastly overplayed. Not only can almost everyone ride a bike -- but even the ones that can't get a better road environment if fewer people go for the single-occupancy personal automobile as the default. It just occupies so much space that is 99% completely unused.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#77

Post by hannob »

glangdale wrote: post #46

I'm curious as to what planet you'd have to be living on to think that if we have billions of dollars to spare on huge transport infrastructure projects that aren't cars, that it should go to bikes and not public transport + walkability. I'm guessing it's a special magic planet with startlingly good weather year-round, without disabled people, where everyone gets to age into spry Euro-oldsters. Not wanting to kick of…

This "good weather" argument against biking is so bizarre and disconnected from reality... Have you ever noticed that the most biking friendly places in the world are in middle-to-northern europe? Copenhagen isn't a particularly sunny place. Many people don't care, if you give them good infrastructure they'll cycle with every weather.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#78

Post by inertiatic »

enriquto wrote: post #68
inertiatic wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My car gets parked across the street from my apartment building. Doesn't get stolen and doesn't care about rain. My bike spent a single winter out on my balcony after we needed the space inside the apartment for baby stuff. It's now rusty in multiple spots. My previous bike, I left on the small back yard of my last apartment, locked up. It got stolen a few months after I started doing that. So again, this is not feas…

> My car gets parked across the street from my apartment building. Offtopic, but this has to end. I do not understand how it is socially acceptable to put huge pieces of your private property on the public streets. You cannot just put your washing machine on the street because you have nowhere else to put it! Why can you do that with a car?

Are you complaining about the public using public space intended for that usage?

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#79

Post by vincnetas »

paganel wrote: post #71
flexie wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mind the weather in Copenhagen where the amount of people who bikes every day exceeds the amount of people who take public transportation every day by around 50% (1). Weather in Copenhagen is rarely very cold or very warm. But Copenhagen weather is not "startlingly good all year-round". It rains quite often and temperatures are often close to zero or sub zero. And it's windy all the time. It even snows a few…

Copenhagen doesn’t have 40 degrees Celsius heatwaves in the summer nor winter blizzards that make you feel like you’re in Siberia, while places like the US East Coast (and I guess even the Chicago area in the Midwest) have them both.

But that does not mean that parts os US that have favorable conditions should not improve bike infrastructure. You are comparing one city (88.25 km²) to a country (9.834 million km²)

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#80

Post by dvdkhlng »

missosoup wrote: post #64
urban_winter wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UV issue is a red herring. There are many reasons why people need to be outside and cycling is only one of them. UV is a manageable problem for walkers and outdoor workers, cyclists are not a special case. I guess that you've never been on a bike on a very hot day. It's much, much more pleasant to be ventilated by your self-created airflow on a bike than it is to to have sweat pouring down your back as you walk a…

I guess you've never experienced a 40-45c day. You sound like one of the regular tourist types we get who dismiss how seriously we take summer conditions and then end up with heatstroke and skin peeling off from sunburn. The 'self-created airflow' INCREASES the rate at which you gain temperature. Windchill is only 'chill' when the ambient air temperature is lower than your core temp. To cycle on a summer day, you nee…

To counter that: windchill also works at air temperature above body temperature due to evaporative cooling [0], as long as relative humidity does not reach extreme levels. Proper sports clothing (allowing good moisture transport) and sufficient drinking help with that.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler#Physical_pr...

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