401–410 of 599 posts
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That would be an extremely leisurely pace. If you commute regularly on a bike and are reasonably fit, you should be able to ride at about 12 mph without breaking a sweat, which gets you a time of about 25 minutes.
Sure, if you never have to wait for a stoplight.
https://www.specialized.com/ca/en/s-works-turbo-kenevo-sl/p/...
Not a criticism of e-bikes, but I discovered an unexpected danger related to e-bikes which was much less an issue with traditional bikes: when driving a car, it's now much more difficult to judge how much time you need to pass a bike. I would say without hyperbole that it's much more dangerous now, to the cars and the bikes. I currently live in a Dutch village, so bikes and cars share rather narrow roads. The roads a…
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I have been explicitly told by my local bike coalition not to stop fully for stop signs. Stopping fully is not particularly safe and local motorists don't even expect it. Given that information, what do you think is the correct behavior for a beginner cyclist like me?
I don't know about the US, but a stop sign here in Australia means complete stop. If you fail to fully stop in your driving test it's an instant fail. If you fail to fully stop and there is an accident, you will be at fault. In Australia, bikes are required to follow the same rules as cars when on the road.
If all the give way signs on my commute were replaced with stop signs, I'd sure feel like rolling through them.
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In regards to bike-rider behavior on roads, of course cyclists appear "misbehaved" on roads. The roads are not designed for cyclists, so we have to fight with the design of the transport network to get anywhere Car-oriented transport infrastructure has been a terrible mistake. Don't blame the cyclists for trying to salvage something from the wreckage.
Car-oriented infra structure was responsible for a sizable portion of the economical development for quite a while.
Strong Towns also have some good examples of how car-oriented infrastructure can also be economically unsustainable in that it encourages low-density neighbourhoods with a lot of roads, so long term cities can't afford to maintain the roads without cross-subsidising it from new developments. So if the city stops growing, it often can't sustain the infrastructure it has! Whereas somewhat more dense areas (especially where retail and small business tenancies are mixed in with housing) can have much more property tax income per unit area as well as less road infrastructure to maintain which can tip the balance to being economically sustainable in itself.
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Google maps estimates it about 35 minutes, so almost twice as long as you're thinking.
Google maps pads their bike times by a huge amount. (I just googled 8km in 35 minutes and got results asking about that as a running pace).
Google maps calculations are decided by Google and take into account padding plus some degree of inclination calculation
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And the weather is not inviting to cycle all year anyway. Maybe there are people that enjoy doing 30 km under heavy rain or negative temperatures with snow, I rather not.
it might not be inviting , but it's FINE. Biking in negative temperatures with snow is easier than heavy rain (heavy rain is the worst case). The ONLY barrier to biking in snow is whether priority is given to support the infrastructure to make it safe. Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU Answer: because Finnish people have dedicated bike paths th…
Definitely wouldn't force myself cycling with -10 degrees nowadays, when given the option.
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I have been explicitly told by my local bike coalition not to stop fully for stop signs. Stopping fully is not particularly safe and local motorists don't even expect it. Given that information, what do you think is the correct behavior for a beginner cyclist like me?
I don't know about the US, but a stop sign here in Australia means complete stop. If you fail to fully stop in your driving test it's an instant fail. If you fail to fully stop and there is an accident, you will be at fault. In Australia, bikes are required to follow the same rules as cars when on the road.
At the same time, it takes a cyclist far longer to start off from being stopped, so every time they stop when they didn't really need to, it puts them in a vulnerable position for much longer time than was necessary. So apparently it turns out a lot safer to let cyclists slow at stop signs but not have to fully stop if it's safe to continue.
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> Public transportation and city bike rental systems should be free to ride. This would depend on first fixing the poverty and homelessness that make theft, vandalism and antisocial behaviour so common. These things cost money to protect them from the impact desperate people otherwise have on them. Now, I’d be thrilled to help pay for that to all happen, but the order should be respected; making trains and buses free…
For some reason people accept cars as the natural order. Challenge that assumption. There are lots of deficient drivers too, why do we so heavily subsidize the road system? Because it's an investment that pays back in increased economic activity. The same argument applies to public transit. In many cases it costs more to collect the fare then they ever make in fare.
Also because when you are in separate cars, you can't get sick from, or harassed by, or groped by, other drivers. If another driver is bothering you, you can usually just speed up or slow down to increase distance.
To get true mass adoption of public transit in the US, as the parent comment said, you need to fix "the poverty and homelessness that make theft, vandalism and antisocial behaviour so common," or at least work around it. Maybe trains with a hundred doors leading to a hundred isolated seating areas would convince people.
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5 miles is a very easy bike commute, not sure what you're talking about. It's about 20 minutes each way.
Google maps estimates it about 35 minutes, so almost twice as long as you're thinking.
I do a 4.8-mile trip on a class 3 ebike (28 mph) consistently in 14 minutes in San Diego north county.