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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

#471

Post by nine_k »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #436

Switching to electric cars from ICE cars is continuing to do the wrong thing and make the wrong choices, but doing this wrong thing a bit better. It's still the same status quo, woefully terrible and unsustainable transportation model. Automobile oriented transportation doesn't scale, is a huge waste of resources, and perpetuates unsustainable, ultra expensive and resource intensive sprawling urban development patter…

Taxis, small delivery vehicles, utility cars, cars and trucks for countryside use, and various trucks for city and highway use can all be electric, with all the benefits of EVs.

If you want public transit be more popular, build denser cities. E.g. on Manhattan using the subway is a no-brainer, and you are rarely more than two (long) blocks from a subway station. In some more remote parts of Brooklyn, you often cannot reach the destination by subway alone, and you have to take a bus. Even further away, traveling by a bus either becomes too slow, or the bus does not come close enough, and a car is inevitable. I suppose there is no way to make public transit economical or time-efficient in agglomerations like Houston, even though LA manages a bus network somehow.

Cycling such distances us also problematic: you either have to be pretty fit and take a shower when you arrive, or you have to have all the time in the world. Cycling within a dense city is pretty practical, though.

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

#472

Post by an_opabinia »

fvdessen wrote: post #307

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 viciou…

I cycle and I agree it's a superior form of transport.

> cars are the single biggest reason why living in the city can be unpleasant

I'm pretty sure rent / house prices are the #1 negative people cite about cities. A relatively new phenomenon. In cities where prices have not risen as much, like Detroit, I doubt people say cars are unpleasant.

Ironically cars are probably depressing prices in the city significantly. For most normal people, a car lets them not overpay for land, by letting them live somewhere far away.

The pandemic changed that calculus. Normals don't work from home though. Normals were just sustained by PPP, until that ran out and they get (or already are) fired.

> infrastructure

The people living in cities with developing infrastructure change faster than the infrastructure gets built.

Let's say we're talking about a place where land values are rising despite no infrastructure changes. There, the people who want to leave rent or sell to the people who want to come, who already find the lack of infrastructure agreeable.

The people who are left over can't afford the higher rents.

So then, what you discover is situations like the Sommerville Green Line Extension. Many residents opposed it. "Gentrification" is a word used to describe the antagonist, for these people.

Why opposition to infrastructure? It raises rents.

It's a little reductionist, to make everything about dollar and cents. We're paying for the environmental and psychic impact of having cars everywhere with too few dollars.

But good luck advocating for infrastructure changes on a timeline faster than the makeup of the residents of the town.

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

#473

Post by sergeykish »

GVIrish wrote: post #409
michael1999 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be a real winner politically, depending on the electoral boundaries. Roads have such limited throughput that a new bike lane might inconvenience only a few hundred people in cars, while opening up the city to thousands of people on bikes. Once politicians figure out that calculation, it can go very quickly.

> Roads have such limited throughput that a new bike lane might inconvenience only a few hundred people in cars, while opening up the city to thousands of people on bikes. I think that is massively underselling the disruption to traffic. Depending on the city and the traffic patterns, hundreds of thousands or even millions of people could be commuting into a city on a given day. Reducing the car throughput on a signi…

Each person that's on a bike is not in a car. And bike path throughtout is much bigger.

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

#474

Post by FDSGSG »

sudosysgen wrote: post #414
moistbar wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I drive a Nissan Juke when I go to the city. If you consider that a big car, I don't know what to tell you. EDIT: Since I can't respond to the comment below me, the Juke is slightly taller than a Mini Cooper and about as long and wide. I literally can't find a smaller car that I'd be comfortable driving on the highway.

That's an SUV/crossover. Yes, it is too big. Cars got way too big since a few decades, especially in North America, and that is a huge part of why people feel that roads are too small.

Are you kidding? The Juke is smaller than a 1 series, smaller than a VW Golf and much smaller than a Prius.

Even by European standards it's a tiny car.

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

#476

Post by sergeykish »

autokad wrote: post #369
michael1999 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be a real winner politically, depending on the electoral boundaries. Roads have such limited throughput that a new bike lane might inconvenience only a few hundred people in cars, while opening up the city to thousands of people on bikes. Once politicians figure out that calculation, it can go very quickly.

I think you got it backwards mate. your basically asking hundreds of thousands of cars to suffer in favor of a few hundred bicyclists. Most people who bike strangely think most people want to bike but just cant. most dont want to. as an aging nation, most cant.

Imagine if we decided to completely eliminate sidewalk, how would it change traffic?

It is not about forcing others, it is about freedom of choice. Bycicle is just one of the modes of transportation. People without choice have to use car.

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

#477

Post by laingc »

I used to live in Europe, and a bicycle was my primary mode of transport. That was when I was a single man with no children. However, I can't see how I could possibly use a bicycle for really any transport at all today.

Advocates of cycling, I would be genuinely interested in how you would logistically achieve a typical weekend day in my life, which might consist of:

- Transporting myself, my wife, my daughter, my dog, and (say) 3 large bags full of the stuff that they require from my house at the rural/suburban boundary to the part of town where the hardware stores are - about 25km away, with about 600m elevation change.

- At those hardware and big box stores, I'll need to buy (say) 300L of sand (bagged) for the sandpit, a new powertool, a bag full of clothes, and a new bed for the dog.

- We then need to have some breakfast at a cafe, and transport the whole lot home.

- We have to do all of this in the rain or in the very high winds that my city is famous for.

- Total time to achieve all of this has to fit between my daughter's naps, so we have about two and a half hours all up.

Some version of this is my life almost every weekend.

Now, I would genuinely like to hear how I could achieve anything approaching this using a bicycle. I'm not being facetious - I don't know how it would be possible at all - but cycling advocates seem determined to assume that I somehow can, so I'd love to know how.

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

#478

Post by sergeykish »

ylhert wrote: post #78
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

nearly every one of your concerns is addressed by this wonderful youtube channel - "Not Just Bikes": https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0intLFzLaudFG-xAvUEO-A

Yes, I've found this channel few days ago and it is wonderful.

Author from Canada, and he has seen all the problems described in the thread. He is not bike promoter, just a person who wants comfortable and safe commute. So he moved to Netherlands where even commute by car is better because of the way city is organized. He describes in details how and why, and it is amazing.

Now I want to visit Netherlands.

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

#479

Post by [deleted] »

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

[deleted]

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

#480

Post by freddie_mercury »

laingc wrote: post #477

I used to live in Europe, and a bicycle was my primary mode of transport. That was when I was a single man with no children. However, I can't see how I could possibly use a bicycle for really any transport at all today. Advocates of cycling, I would be genuinely interested in how you would logistically achieve a typical weekend day in my life, which might consist of: - Transporting myself, my wife, my daughter, my do…

I live in a developing country. There are 13 million people in the city I live in. While it is starting to change, effectively nobody but the pretty rich owns a car. (A car is $20,000 and up, whereas average annual salaries are more like $7,000.)

Yet somehow those millions of families get by just fine without cars. I'm not sure why you think it is complete impossible.

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