Cycling is more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities

Already happened.

https://www.minnpost.com/cityscape/2020/12/after-major-upgra...

- Thanks to “mill and overlay” repaving, the city and county have added short stretches of bike lanes on: Territorial Road, Larpenteur Avenue, Fairview Avenue, Arlington Avenue, Marshall Avenue, and Tedesco Street. Together these connect bike lane gaps around the city, including a few key bridges and dangerous intersections.

- Ramsey County engineered a “road diet” on Energy Park Drive and installed a wide bike lane running for two miles between Lexington Parkway and Raymond Avenue. The new connection boosts safety for drivers and offers bicyclists a safe connection with few intersections. The result is a quick, if boring, route from the heart of the city to the University of Minnesota transitway.

- As part of the ongoing work to build off-street bike routes through downtown, the city installed its first ever concrete-protected, two-way cycle track on 9th and 10th Streets. To do this, city staff removed parking and made these streets one-way for cars, though the bike route remains a bit awkward as it navigates the Green Line station at Cedar Street.

- The generations-long debate over the future of Ayd Mill Road was finally resolved this year with a repaved three-lane freeway and a brand new off-street bike connection. It’s a lovely link for people on foot or bicycle, and now pothole-free for drivers. That said, the trail remains slightly useless as everyday transportation until (someday!) advocates figure out a way to connect the path to Minneapolis and the Midtown Greenway. If that happens, the new Greenway trail would become the best interurban bicycle route in the country.

- Using a federal grant, the city constructed an off-street, curb-separated bike trail along Como Avenue from Como Park, west past the State Fairgrounds, and to Raymond Avenue. The wide trail with tabled intersection crossings alongside a narrower roadway transforms a key street that, especially two weeks out of the year, will become a lifeline for bicycles to access the State Fair and the University of Minnesota.

- With another federal grant, the Parks Department completed a missing link in the regional bike trail along the west side of the Mississippi River. The new Piram Trail links Harriet Island along Plato Boulevard, past the St. Paul Airport, a string of industrial properties, and all the way to South St. Paul’s Kaposia Landing park. The intriguing path through the riparian woods means that cyclists and hikers can travel along a separated riverfront trail all the way from North Minneapolis to Hastings.

- With more federal dollars, the City completed the biggest link of the Grand Rounds, connecting Lake Phalen to Mounds Park along Johnson Parkway. The new path transforms East Side bicycling with a two-mile, off-street trail with tabled crossings that closes off a handful of intersections along an old frontage road. The result is a seamless family-friendly connection between two of St. Paul’s best parks.

Most Americans have only lived in places where biking is treated as a toy, and where adult biking for transport is dangerous and uncomfortable. Thus, they end up believing that it must be so everywhere, that good biking for transport is impossible.

It's an issue of ignorance. If everywhere you've lived is like that, you assume it's a law of the universe. Even if someone points out that other cities manage it fine, you're already emotionally invested, so you'll deflect (e.g. "well that city isn't identical to mine, so obviously it's irrelevant") rather than consider a different possibility.

It's absolutely true, and something that is forgotten in the rush for "green" EVs. In the long run, the fuel is not the unsustainable part of mass public car ownership, it's the rest of the car (or at least, the idea of owning a multi-ton high-speed metal box that can carry you and a large amount of your possessions as far as you like).

Using EVs to transition to something else, leaving behind craters and huge scars from mineral extraction, and huge amounts of e-waste, is just absurd on its face (but very profitable).

There's nothing like cars to lower quality of life. They are noisy, require huge areas to be paved over, thus removing prime property in cities from more useful purposes. Particulate matter emissions from the engines, but also from brake and tire wear are unhealthy[1][2]. We don't let kids play outside anymore because we are afraid they will be hit by drivers. We kill animals after they hurt one person, yet we fear to cross a street anywhere for fear of being hit by someone recklessly driving a few tons at speed and defend the right to drive as though it were primordial. And really, who finds a street lined with parked cars and stuffed with traffic inching forward esthetic. A few cars are hugely useful to grant mobility to the few people who cannot get around otherwise, provide emergency services, and move bulky goods. I'm not saying plumbers shouldn't be able to arrive with their truck full of tools, just that the overabundance of cars really lowers the quality of life of the vast majority of people.

1. https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/J... 2. https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_file_download.cfm?p_downl...

That's weird, I don't remember consenting to mind reading.

Of course I've driven in big cities. I agree that it's not great...which is why the solution is to make alternative options as viable as possible: walking, biking, transit. Then you don't have to drive in big cities, and more space on roads is freed up for those who do.

Cities are defined by their population density, and cars by their nature are geometrically inefficient. The solution is higher efficiency modes, not doubling down on something ill-suited to its environment.