391–400 of 764 posts
We also found that the average person who shifted from car to bike for just one day a week cut their carbon footprint by 3.2kg of CO₂ – equivalent to the emissions from driving a car for 10km, eating a serving of lamb or chocolate, or sending 800 emails So I can offset my car's carbon footprint by reducing my meat and sweets consumption by five servings a week? Either something's fucky with that math or cars aren't n…
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
Most of the world over the next 50 years will live in hot, big, Asian and African cities with >1M or >10M people. Vast transit networks will be the primary form of commute for those billions, not bicycles. Electric cars, vans, busses will solve the last few miles and support the cargo use cases. It's telling that the most of the examples in the article and in the comments are about tiny shrinking European towns (lol,…
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
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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.
In the US nearly 30 percent of trips are a mile or shorter, 40 percent are two miles or shorter and 50 percent are three miles or shorter.[0] These distances can be easily covered on foot or bike with minimal change in infrastructure. [0] https://www.bikeleague.org/content/national-household-travel...
https://nhts.ornl.gov/vehicle-trips
For vehicle trips:
21.4% of trips are 1 mile or less.
35.2% of trips are 2 miles or less.
45.6% of trips are 3 miles or less.
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The most dangerous part of a sidewalk for a cyclist are places where they intersect roads. Drivers just aren't expecting sidewalk users moving at bike speeds. Some areas have long stretches of sidewalk without intersections those are fine for cycling assuming they have little pedestrian traffic or are wide enough to pass safely.
This is pretty much my conception of when cyclists should be using the sidewalk instead.
Most sidewalks aren't appropriate for cycling. The exceptions I was describing are mostly found in big commercial developments, target, walmart, etc. Around me they tend to build wide sidewalks, well separated from the busy road. Here's an example:
https://www.google.com/maps/@38.9146941,-92.3196647,117m/dat...
But most sidewalks aren't like that they are crossed regularly with driveways and end at a road every block. Every driveway is dangerous because drivers just don't look for people moving at bike speeds(2-3x faster than a pedestrian) on sidewalks. I personally know two people hit while cycling on a sidewalk because somebody pulled into a driveway and didn't see them.
Imagine you're a cyclist, on the sidewalk, trying to cross a four-way stop. If you cross at the sidewalk, you're at extreme danger of being hit by a car making a right turn. This is called a right-hook.
The road infrastructure in the US was built without consideration for bikes and so it's really annoying to many drivers when cyclists use roads but that doesn't mean the right place for cyclists is on the sidewalk.
Switching from gas to electric is something I can do all on my own. Switching from gas car to cycling is something that would require major investments from my city and developers. Both are noble goals, but let's not let perfect be the enemy of good. Switch to electric now, and also encourage new roads and new developments to be bike friendly, so that switching to a bike is something that will be viable in 20 or 30 y…
1.5 miles is doable by bicycle. Bridges or tunnels can be built for crossing roads and freeways.
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The Dutch have solved the kids/cargo problem. My friend lives in a suburb of Amsterdam. She has an electric assist bike with a cargo carrier. She uses it to carry kids and cargo, like groceries and such. She used it to carry four kids (her three and one of mine) when we visited. We took the rented car and she beat us there.
How do I carry my kids and groceries in +100F(38c) or nearly freezing weather?
I bicycled everywhere with a two year old in a kiddie seat until I was eight months pregnant. In Germany, which was almost as cold as Kansas at times.
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They're minor investments practically, and major investments politically. As you say, for many motorists, giving up space on even some roads to cyclists is treated like some sort of war crime. There's very much of attitude of, "we can't just have a majority of the road space -- we need nearly all of it!"
Spoken like someone who's never driven in a city. City streets are narrow and extremely uncomfortable to drive on as it is.
Your car is too big.
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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.
More like comparing apples and shotguns.
Switching from gas to electric is something I can do all on my own. Switching from gas car to cycling is something that would require major investments from my city and developers. Both are noble goals, but let's not let perfect be the enemy of good. Switch to electric now, and also encourage new roads and new developments to be bike friendly, so that switching to a bike is something that will be viable in 20 or 30 y…
You need structural change or it all really doesn't matter. Now maybe you think that structural change is unlikely to happen, and I agree with you, but then we're in really big trouble.
> let's not let perfect be the enemy of good.
This is not the perfect vs the good, the is that meaningless versus the possibility of having an impact. We need to do so much more than have only bikes in cities that it is almost impossible to image we make the changes necessary to avoid climate catastrophe. If you think even that is out of the realm of possible, then there's no need to worry about what type of fuel powers your car, it quite literally will make no difference. The gas you don't use on your car will just be used by amazon delivery trucks to further reduce shipping costs and increase sales.