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

As a fellow swede I don't think your argument holds against the real argument they're not mentioning. People want to ride cars because they're lazy and they don't want to experience the elements, but since it's shameful to admit they'll come up with any other excuse to sit in their car, drink soft drinks, eat junk food and listen to the radio with perfectly controlled climate surrounding them.

I bought myself a Xiaomi scooter and wear a good jacket while listen to music through my Sony overears riding to work. I'll have to wait with the soft drink and junk food til I arrive though. I also wear a backpack to carry whatever.

>The issue is taking away even a tiny fraction of car space basically triggers some kind of political road rage.

I don't think that's a fair comparison. I live in what many outsiders consider a bike friendly city though in reality it's impractical and unsafe to bike most places. If you're willing to also walk/bus your bike, flout local law on bicycling in pedestrian areas, and bike on major thoroughfares without bike lanes between travel lanes and parked cars then I suppose you'll be happy. That is until you get door checked, run off the road, ticketed, or hit.

Redesigning just the main streets and their auxiliaries would require making tough choices like one way roads that you'll cause you to drive considerably further to your destination. Removing on street parking, when our city already has a parking deficit. Removing the verges where they exist to accommodate bike lanes. On the many streets without verges the options are one way traffic or no parking, mixed use lanes for truck traffic and bicycles is unsafe. I suppose the buildings on one side could be seized under eminent domain, but that just balloons the cost and time scale.

All this is too say that without widespread infrastructure, especially between cities, biking is facing an uphill climb to widespread adoption. People want to be safe on their commutes. They want their bikes and cars safe while they work and shop. Designing And building infrastructure for bikes in cities that have been maximally developed is an incredibly and wastefully expensive exercise in compromise that does little to meaningfully reduce vehicular traffic.

Maybe people should live a lot closer to their work again

Cycling is not only good for the environment, but for cities in general.

During the last confinement, when car traffic completely stopped, I realised that cars are the single biggest reason why living in the city can be unpleasant. People may not realise it consciously, but when they move out of the city, what they are looking for is a place with not as much cars driving around.

Cars destroy cities by making a vicious circle of making it unpleasant to live there, therefore enticing people to move to the suburbs and commute by car, which make the problem worse.

Setting up biking infrastructure fixes this, because it reduces the room for cars used by commuters, while creating room for bicycles used by people living in the city.

With less cars, you can make the city center where people work liveable. You can have offices mixed with housing and have people live close to their work place, further diminishing the need for cars.

If you think that your city can't possibly be a good place to cycle because weather / hills / etc, you are probably mistaken. Electric bikes and the appropriate clothes make biking pleasant in most places. IF there are not too many cars and infrastructure for the bicycle of course, which is probably the thing you don't have

> Would you consider it to be more dangerous than riding a bike?

Yes it is more dangerous, for the simple fact that falling on your back and slamming the back of your head on concrete is a very real and considerable danger, and its effects can be extremely severe. Skating helmets are shaped differently from bike helmets because of this one thing. It's not a common occurrence (I see people falling forward and injuring their knee or hip ~100x as often), but can be deadly.

For casual, daily commuting I wouldn't say it's more dangerous on average. I've had plenty of minor accidents while I was learning (I'd say first 12 months), mostly scraps and bruises, once a twisted ankle. If I compare it to how I was learning to cycle as a kid, it's a very similar experience ;)

The hardest part will come from learning to manage your front/back balance in addition to left/right. It's always safer to keep your weight forward, it will also keep you more stable at higher speeds.

Overall the longboarding community is extremely serious and conscious wrt safety, unlike some street skateboarders nobody will ever point a finger at you for casually wearing a helmet and/or pads, and if you'd ever try anything remotely related to freeride/downhill/sliding without adequate protection, you're likely to have your board taken away until you suit up. I believe natural selection had something to do with that.

> I'm always amazed by how skaters are able to stop or "hit the breaks" where there are none.

Where you see no brakes, I've counted 5 different methods to control your speed, all of them have their uses ;) In the order you'd learn/need them: bail, footbrake, carve, slide, airbrake, bail (again). Simply stepping off the board is most effective at sidewalk speeds, all you need is reflex and balance; you'd also learn to fall. At 20+kmh, footbraking (dragging your foot on the ground) becomes necessary as bails can hurt. Down a mild hill, carving (slaloming) will help you keep your speed down, without touching the ground (and grinding down your sole, foot burns are a thing lol).

At 30+, you almost certainly are going to need a helmet, it's also when sliding starts being effective (never EVER slide without a helmet). Airbraking is simply the opposite of tucking - instead of curling down to make your body shape more aerodynamic, you stand up and spread your arms, it can be the difference between going 30 or 60 down a hill. Lastly, if you need to crash safely at 40+, you learn how to ride out your speed on your gloves, pads, leather, etc.

Bonus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amb-BpA4RRI