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Twike

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Re: Twike

#71

Post by CodeGlitch »

el_nahual wrote: post #12

Another example of how, if you had to design a vehicle for passenger city/suburban use, you would never ever ever come up with an ICE sedan, or to be honest even an electrical vehicle of "normal" proportions. Pretty sure the car is the most harmful invention of the 20th century. The damage it has done to the environment, our health, and social fabric is hard to grok. A couple edits for clarification: - I'm talking ab…

I hate owning a car. It's expensive, sits on my driveway 90% of the time doing nothing and takes up loads of space. However our society is built around car ownership, and the same problem, plus a few others, occurred when we all used horses.

I always liked the personal transport tubes in Futurama

Re: Twike

#72

Post by pqs »

Faaak wrote: post #39
pqs wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you have it anymore?

I moved and lived closer to the city than before (where i had 14km of "Straight road"). I bought an electric bicycle instead :-)

Thanks! :-)

Re: Twike

#73

Post by raverbashing »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #62
raverbashing wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For real, I'm all for alternative modes of transportation, but some people seem to really do think that their groceries and the stuff they buy on a pedestrianized high-street appear there by magic.

The way this works in many places with pedestrianised centres, is that it is open for goods traffic from 05:00 - 07:30 for example. Or, there will be some loading bays for goods vehicles to park nearby, with cycle wagons to take the goods the last 100 metres or so to the actual storefront. It's all about reducing the impact of motor vehicles. They do have benefits, nobody is arguing that all motor vehicles should cea…

Oh I know. But the carrot works better than the stick in this case.

> nobody is arguing that all motor vehicles should cease to exist. But we should limit the pollution, noise, danger, space used up.

There is some antagonism, especially unhelpful antagonism. Because what works for a city-center dweller might not work for a rural area inhabitant.

Reminds me of the activists that pushed for nuclear power plants to close. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Re: Twike

#74

Post by yetihehe »

CodeGlitch wrote: post #71
el_nahual wrote: post #12

Another example of how, if you had to design a vehicle for passenger city/suburban use, you would never ever ever come up with an ICE sedan, or to be honest even an electrical vehicle of "normal" proportions. Pretty sure the car is the most harmful invention of the 20th century. The damage it has done to the environment, our health, and social fabric is hard to grok. A couple edits for clarification: - I'm talking ab…

I hate owning a car. It's expensive, sits on my driveway 90% of the time doing nothing and takes up loads of space. However our society is built around car ownership, and the same problem, plus a few others, occurred when we all used horses. I always liked the personal transport tubes in Futurama

It would be nice if I had other options, but for now ALL other options are more expensive when considering time or money. That is reality for too many people, so we are where we are.

Re: Twike

#75

Post by agent008t »

benrbray wrote: post #49
el_nahual wrote: post #12

Another example of how, if you had to design a vehicle for passenger city/suburban use, you would never ever ever come up with an ICE sedan, or to be honest even an electrical vehicle of "normal" proportions. Pretty sure the car is the most harmful invention of the 20th century. The damage it has done to the environment, our health, and social fabric is hard to grok. A couple edits for clarification: - I'm talking ab…

For anyone who has trouble understanding this perspective because they've lived in car-dependent hell their entire lives, I recommend the Not Just Bikes channel. He does extremely detailed comparisons of US cities vs Netherlands and other places. Here is a recent one [1]. For me, I always felt that something was wrong about American cities / suburbs but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Then, I spent a few months…

There could be some 'grass-is-greener' effect in play here as well though. Many that grew up having to use public transportation would see being able to use a private car as very appealing. I think everyone hates commutes regardless of whether they have to stand in a packed train car next to sweaty people, or sit in an air conditioned comfortable car listening to music but stuck in a traffic jam.

That's not to say that I like the American design of where you have to drive everywhere. I like living in a town where you can walk to shops and cafes. But I also like the freedom and the comfort and the fun of being able to get into a car and drive out.

Re: Twike

#76

Post by Hamuko »

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #44

> Pedaling warms the user, making electric heating in winter unnecessary Well that's one way to spin a missing feature ;)

Too bad it doesn't really work. Winter biking is still cold as shit and breathing in -20°C air is not fun.

Re: Twike

#77

Post by usrusr »

faeyanpiraat wrote: post #43
nondave wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had to do all of those things, and still agree that towns and cities being designed with cars as the default mode of transport is insane

It's fine, the main problem is that 90% (imaginary data) of the cars in cities are not used. If all "normal" people used car sharing services or taxis, then a lot of roads could have 1 more lane (where parking normally occurs), which would increase the throughput of the streets. All the peak hour traffic circling around their destination struggling to find a parking spot would also disappear. This would reduce the ov…

One problem is that there's a long tail of car use cases that are served terribly by things like car-sharing. For example if you rent a car for a few hours of driving, two weeks of parking at some trailhead or remote resort and then driving back it's inevitably priced for the wear and tear that would happen if you spent the entire two weeks doing nothing but sleeping and driving. Rentals that aren't dead-set on the pattern "a few days of driving between arrival and departure" exist, but they have terrible discoverability and that implies that prices fell arbitrary ("is this close to the price I would get in a market with full visibility or are they just taking advantage of nonstandard needs?")

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's still plenty of room for innovation in the non-owned car market.

Re: Twike

#78

Post by dkdbejwi383 »

raverbashing wrote: post #73
dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way this works in many places with pedestrianised centres, is that it is open for goods traffic from 05:00 - 07:30 for example. Or, there will be some loading bays for goods vehicles to park nearby, with cycle wagons to take the goods the last 100 metres or so to the actual storefront. It's all about reducing the impact of motor vehicles. They do have benefits, nobody is arguing that all motor vehicles should cea…

Oh I know. But the carrot works better than the stick in this case. > nobody is arguing that all motor vehicles should cease to exist. But we should limit the pollution, noise, danger, space used up. There is some antagonism, especially unhelpful antagonism. Because what works for a city-center dweller might not work for a rural area inhabitant. Reminds me of the activists that pushed for nuclear power plants to clos…

> Because what works for a city-center dweller might not work for a rural area inhabitant

Well, I don't think that anybody is proposing that we pedestrianise someone's farm, because we're also pedestrianising town centres. I'm not sure I understand the comparison here, really.

Re: Twike

#79

Post by trabant00 »

el_nahual wrote: post #12

Another example of how, if you had to design a vehicle for passenger city/suburban use, you would never ever ever come up with an ICE sedan, or to be honest even an electrical vehicle of "normal" proportions. Pretty sure the car is the most harmful invention of the 20th century. The damage it has done to the environment, our health, and social fabric is hard to grok. A couple edits for clarification: - I'm talking ab…

> if you had to design a vehicle for passenger city/suburban use, you would never ever ever come up with an ICE sedan

I use a motorcycle 90% of the time in the city. But there's a lot of problems with any specialized transport like this:

- parking multiple vehicles per person

- learning to drive multiple type of vehicles

- bicycle/scooter/Twike can't be used for serious shopping

- safety. From the time electric scooters caught on I have numerous examples of people getting seriously hurt with permanent quality of life affecting injuries.

- taking passengers on anything other than a car is non trivial

- most alternative forms of transport require good physical health and skills

I'm sure I could think of more but these are enough to explain why having a do it all vehicle (even if poorly and costly) makes sense for the majority of people.

Re: Twike

#80

Post by raverbashing »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #78
raverbashing wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh I know. But the carrot works better than the stick in this case. > nobody is arguing that all motor vehicles should cease to exist. But we should limit the pollution, noise, danger, space used up. There is some antagonism, especially unhelpful antagonism. Because what works for a city-center dweller might not work for a rural area inhabitant. Reminds me of the activists that pushed for nuclear power plants to clos…

> Because what works for a city-center dweller might not work for a rural area inhabitant Well, I don't think that anybody is proposing that we pedestrianise someone's farm, because we're also pedestrianising town centres. I'm not sure I understand the comparison here, really.

> I'm not sure I understand the comparison here, really.

Look up what motivated the (initial) Gillets Jaunes protests in France

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