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

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

#281

Post by occz »

Steltek wrote: post #96
ab111111111 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What major investment would be required from the city or developers to set up cycling infrastructure? Painting some cycle lanes onto the roads? Marking a few car parking places as bike parking places? That's all that cycling infrastructure really is, so it's super cheap. A lot cheaper than, say, building charging stations for electric cars.

From personal experience in town meetings: * City roads are narrow and don't have empty space just waiting to be painted green. Bike lanes will cost you parking spots or a car travel lane. This gets huge pushback. * Dangerous drivers must be removed from roads. You can be hit, killed even, with video evidence and the driver may escape punishment entirely. * Cities (or specifically NIMBY residents) must stop resisting…

>City roads are narrow and don't have empty space just waiting to be painted green. Bike lanes will cost you parking spots or a car travel lane. This gets huge pushback.

Both should be sacrificed in order to break the car-infested cities. I imagine the pushback must be annoying to deal with, yes, but there's just no way you're going to be able to reconstruct your cities to be safe with this absurd amount of space dedicated to cars in cities of all places.

I suppose we might be on the same page here, though it's not entirely clear to me at the moment.

100% agree with the rest of your comment.

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

#282

Post by upofadown »

closeparen wrote: post #185
stfp wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it doesn't require major investments. It's really minor investments compared to other infrastructure projects. The issue is taking away even a tiny fraction of car space basically triggers some kind of political road rage.

Cycling is suited to distances of a few miles. Within a few miles of a sprawl house there are only other sprawl houses. The mix and layout of buildings and uses also needs to be overhauled so that putting reasonable numbers of hours/calories into a bike gets you somewhere useful.

Walking is only suited to distances of a few miles. People walk at 3 mph. Bikes are 4-5 times faster than walking.

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

#283

Post by aeturnum »

africanboy wrote: post #269
aeturnum wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're approaching this from the wrong direction (the article's framing doesn't really help). It's about how we allocate funds at a high level, not that every city needs to have an equal amount of cycling. From a climate change perspective, we care little about where we take cars off the road. So while it's true that Siberia won't ever be bike-first, we should understand that each person we can get to transit…

> we care little about where we take cars off the road. as someone who almost completely abandoned the car, even though I live in Rome, one of the most car crowded cities in the West (and probably the World), if we care about taking cars off the road, we need to make cities walkable Many areas of Rome already are and have been by design, because pedestrians and cars don't compete for the same space and there are larg…

> if we care about taking cars off the road, we need to make cities walkable

I couldn't agree more! IMO increasing walkability will be key to both increasing density and decreasing carbon impact.

The point I was driving at when saying we don't care where we take cars off the streets is that taking 100 cars out of, say, Rome, has about the same impact as taking 10 cars out of 10 other cities. There are places which are more interested in moving away from cars today than others and, while we eventually want to get all of them, we can start where resistance is lowest.

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

#284

Post by lillecarl »

colpabar wrote: post #251
moistbar wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spoken like someone who's never driven in a city. City streets are narrow and extremely uncomfortable to drive on as it is.

> City streets are narrow and extremely uncomfortable to drive on as it is. I agree. I live in a city and am constantly afraid of all the gigantic cars that fly by me whenever I walk anywhere. I'm also constantly (albeit much less) afraid of someone stepping out onto the street when they're not supposed to and not being able to stop in time. But maybe, just maybe, the cars (that get bigger every year) are the problem…

In Stockholm, Sweden there's 36 cars to a 100 people, the rest use a combination of walking, cycling, electric scooters, taxis and public transport.

There are still jams in Stockholm, but only for people who chose to ride by car, their problem!

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

#285

Post by dfgdghdf »

kgwgk wrote: post #28
vinni2 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t get it where is the emission coming from bicycle trips?

The bike does need energy to move.

True, but adults need around 30 mins exercise per day anyway so we can take the carbon budget from that.

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

#286

Post by occz »

saiya-jin wrote: post #124
ab111111111 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What major investment would be required from the city or developers to set up cycling infrastructure? Painting some cycle lanes onto the roads? Marking a few car parking places as bike parking places? That's all that cycling infrastructure really is, so it's super cheap. A lot cheaper than, say, building charging stations for electric cars.

Often in old European cities there is no space to take away from, unless you cut from pedestrian side, or rebuild whole block to have wider gap. Or you completely remove that single one way lane, and good bye resupplies for the shops/restaurants and good luck to those poor folks that will move in/away. The bigger the city, usually the older it is, and center looks like this - tons of single lane one-ways. US roads al…

>Or you completely remove that single one way lane, and good bye resupplies for the shops/restaurants and good luck to those poor folks that will move in/away.

This is not true - we have streets that have been converted to be fully pedestrian+bicycle, and resupplies/moving in is not really an issue because these vehicles get exceptions. The sign combination 'Motor traffic forbidden / Exception for authorized vehicles' is pretty damn common in my European city.

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

#288

Post by doikor »

jtdev wrote: post #68
alkonaut wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s doable in Scandinavia I’d say it’s doable in the whole US too. It’s not comfortable some days, but it’s doable (disclaimer - I don’t do it even in nice weather but I pass a lot of people with my car that do).

Short urban commutes in winter are not an issue (or shortish commutes in Scandanavian high density population areas)... it's the idea of long commutes in rural areas and/or long commutes in rural areas during winter that is not just inconvenient but actually quite dangerous.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that some farmer switches to cycling to shop. Most of these articles are talking about people living in/near the cities. The average commute is 6 miles or so which is short enough to cycle just fine.

> commutes in rural areas during winter that is not just inconvenient but actually quite dangerous.

Not if you build the infrastructure for it and maintain it.

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

#289

Post by rednerrus »

CabSauce wrote: post #10

That's great. Assuming the following: - Your commute is sufficiently short - You have facilities to shower and dress at work - You have sufficient time to shower and dress at work - You don't have to bring kids or sizable cargo - Weather is sufficiently good - You're sufficiently healthy

You can buy an electric assist cargo bike for $1,500. No car payment, no insurance, minimal sweating, etc.

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

#290

Post by Steltek »

Packofbezens wrote: post #254
Steltek wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From personal experience in town meetings: * City roads are narrow and don't have empty space just waiting to be painted green. Bike lanes will cost you parking spots or a car travel lane. This gets huge pushback. * Dangerous drivers must be removed from roads. You can be hit, killed even, with video evidence and the driver may escape punishment entirely. * Cities (or specifically NIMBY residents) must stop resisting…

Dangerous must be removed from roads. There is a non-negligible amount of bikers skipping red lights, or using the sidewalk (forbidden in many cities), or even going the opposite way on one-way streets. The rationale in most cases is that a bike is not a motor vehicle and thus should not observe the same rules. This is a problem even in a scenario without cars, as it leads to collision vs. other bicyclists or pedestr…

Not to say that behavior is okay but you're comparing apples and oranges. Drivers kill tens of thousands of people a year. Bikes are responsible for Meanwhile, the driver who hit me (in a bike lane) defended himself to the cop by saying "it's hard to not hit bikers". He was not even given a warning. I had video evidence from a helmetcam.
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