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Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips

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Re: Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips

#111

Post by rootusrootus »

aimkey wrote: post #57
flyingpenguin wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you noticed how few sedans are on the road? I recently considered switching from a sedan to a cross-over... the sticker shock was upsetting. I make 2x as much as most of my friends and I absolutely refused to buy a cross-over, they all have cross-overs or trucks. Ended up with a Hundai hatchback for 15k less, and bought a roof rack for 1k. When the 4 of us go snowboarding we use my small car instead of their hug…

Three specific demographics prefer the (from the factory) higher ride height of SUVs: 1) Women 2) The elderly 3) The overweight Women have a say in over 70% of vehicle purchases in the US. So even if the vehicle is for dad, mom (who is 5’4” on average) preferring the higher ride height of the SUV will influence the purchase if she has to drive it occasionally. The elderly and the fat have a harder time getting in and…

This whole thread is just hilarious. All sorts of assumptions, rationalizations, and derogatory assessments of why other people don't make exactly the same car buying choice. And of course a very heavy dose of virtue signaling.

Re: Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips

#113

Post by mjmsmith »

Scubabear68 wrote: post #83
avianlyric wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I get that. But those are cars generally driving at highway speeds, and there is a lot of safety built it. Tell that to 40,000 dead pedestrians every year. > These e bikes and scooters are going quite fast in urban environments with more or less zero protection for the cyclist/scooterist, and who are closer to pedestrians. And e-bike or scooter with a human weighs at most 200kg total. That 20% of the weight of smal…

So asking for stats on e-bike injury rates is wrong?

Not wrong, just mostly irrelevant, like being "almost run down by scooter people".

Re: Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips

#114

Post by adam_arthur »

d_sem wrote: post #4

When you factor in the reduced capital costs, carbon emissions, noise pollution, traffic, wear on infrastructure, health benefits, etc of electric bicycles the opportunity cost of car ownership over e-bike adoption is tremendous. The average cost of owning a car in 2022 is $10,728 per year: a figure which blows my mind.(edit: Source bankrate.com, the top hit on google) As a personal anecdote, my household has gone fr…

That doesn't account for the increased chance of death, unfortunately.

I'd ditch 90% of my car use for a bike if I felt safe doing it... but most places in the US you really aren't. A quick google search shows bikers are 2-10x more likely to die per mile, though I didn't delve too deeply into it.

Re: Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips

#115

Post by PpEY4fu85hkQpn »

chitowneats wrote: post #97
ultrarunner wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the comment you encourage others to disregard is pointing toward intentions and the implementation of design. What about the age of a city dictates that there is a point it must choose to dedicate 100% of available space to cars? Amsterdam wasn't as navigable by bicycle only 20 years ago. I live in Phoenix, which is even more sprawled than Denver. I have a grocery store less than a mile from my house, and a…

Yet another person who's never been to any part of Denver outside downtown. The bikeability of Phoenix is atrocious. The two cities are not even comparable in this regard. Denver, like most places in the U.S., discovered bikeability in the last couple of decades. Meanwhile, Phoenix has maintained or even exacerbated the status quo. Denver has invested tens of millions into becoming a denser, more bikeable locale. It…

Tens of millions?

You're gonna have to educate me on the projects you're talking about. It's taken them 7 years to put a bike lane down Broadway and it isn't even gonna be that fantastic.

The safe streets program created some wonderful spaces and routes, so of course they dismantled them for no reason.

Cap Hill, the most densely populated area of the city has no north-south bike route that I would ever dream of taking my children on. The East-west route on 11th is a death trap that cuts in and out in order to maintain a few car storage spaces.

The crown jewel, the I-25 for bikes in Denver, the Cherry Creek Trail requires users to play frogger across Speer, a 4 lane highway, in order to access much of it.

We can go on and on with these.

DOTI is an organization that is 100% dedicated to moving cars, every bike and pedestrian project is implemented with the first goal being to not inconvenience drivers.

That being said, you are right that it's light years ahead of Phoenix.

Re: Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips

#116

Post by turdprincess »

adam_arthur wrote: post #114
d_sem wrote: post #4

When you factor in the reduced capital costs, carbon emissions, noise pollution, traffic, wear on infrastructure, health benefits, etc of electric bicycles the opportunity cost of car ownership over e-bike adoption is tremendous. The average cost of owning a car in 2022 is $10,728 per year: a figure which blows my mind.(edit: Source bankrate.com, the top hit on google) As a personal anecdote, my household has gone fr…

That doesn't account for the increased chance of death, unfortunately. I'd ditch 90% of my car use for a bike if I felt safe doing it... but most places in the US you really aren't. A quick google search shows bikers are 2-10x more likely to die per mile, though I didn't delve too deeply into it.

I have bike commuted in the following places without near death: * New York City * San Francisco * Portland * Seattle * Raleigh Durham * Chattanooga TN * Salt Lake City

For sure there are some cities where biking is terrible, but I am not sure it’s a “majority”. It also takes some awareness to ride your bike safely in a city, but actually, doing anything in a city takes a bit more awareness and caution.

Is it possible that you could avoid death while cycling by improving your cycling skills a bit? You could join a group of (still alive) cyclists to learn the ropes.

Re: Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips

#117

Post by Schroedingersat »

lostmsu wrote: post #59
flyingpenguin wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of public real-estate we dedicate exclusively to enabling peoples usage of their private property in the united states (and to lesser extents all other countries really) is absolutely absurd. I have considered just walking slowly in random lanes of traffic while in downtown areas recently. On what grounds do you need thousands of acres of space? Speed limits should often be 4-5mph and space usage should be…

How would you deliver furniture and maintenance machinery to your place?

Same way they do everywhere that gives pedestrians priority. On a truck that has more room to manuever because there aren't cars parked everywhere.

Re: Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips

#118

Post by Schroedingersat »

Scubabear68 wrote: post #83
avianlyric wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I get that. But those are cars generally driving at highway speeds, and there is a lot of safety built it. Tell that to 40,000 dead pedestrians every year. > These e bikes and scooters are going quite fast in urban environments with more or less zero protection for the cyclist/scooterist, and who are closer to pedestrians. And e-bike or scooter with a human weighs at most 200kg total. That 20% of the weight of smal…

So asking for stats on e-bike injury rates is wrong?

No, bad faith concern trolling is wrong.

Re: Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips

#119

Post by bsder »

turdprincess wrote: post #116
adam_arthur wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't account for the increased chance of death, unfortunately. I'd ditch 90% of my car use for a bike if I felt safe doing it... but most places in the US you really aren't. A quick google search shows bikers are 2-10x more likely to die per mile, though I didn't delve too deeply into it.

I have bike commuted in the following places without near death: * New York City * San Francisco * Portland * Seattle * Raleigh Durham * Chattanooga TN * Salt Lake City For sure there are some cities where biking is terrible, but I am not sure it’s a “majority”. It also takes some awareness to ride your bike safely in a city, but actually, doing anything in a city takes a bit more awareness and caution. Is it possibl…

I'm glad you managed to avoid the reaper, but every single person I know who decided to commute using a bike wound up in the hospital within a year (Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego).

That's like two dozen+ people without a single exception to the contrary. Yes, it's anecdata, but it's quite a lot of anecdata with a strong signal to noise ratio.

Bike infrastructure cannot share with cars given the magnitude of the consequences when the two vehicles interact unintentionally.

Re: Denver’s e-bike subsidy program produced more new riders, fewer car trips

#120

Post by krashidov »

wonder_er wrote: post #108
rainsford wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd also argue the potential savings and advantages of e-bikes are undervalued because the bike infrastructure in even the best US cities isn't particularly great. I've spent a fair amount of time in Denver, and while there are some good spots and ongoing improvements, the bike infrastructure in the city is honestly a lot worse than you might expect. Better bike infrastructure would almost certainly increase the e-bi…

I live in Denver, and find the bike infrastructure to be criminally inadequate. The same is true for the road infrastructure, but the bike lanes are set up to ensure that there's a continuous stream of dangerous and complex interactions where bicyclists would be effortlessly killed by a driver. I ride a scooter around the city full time, like a small motorcycle, and it's so fast and easy and convenient. I used to bik…

I'm curious. Why do you think a bike is more dangerous than a scooter? I find that on a scooter I am more prone to crashing from random bumps
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