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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

#131

Just today I saw a crazy e-bike kid cruise down a major highway, going back and forth between the north and south lanes on the shoulder at intersections, narrowly missing several tractor trailers. And when I am in major cities I am regularly almost run down by scooter people. What are the stats on injury rates on these things?

Last week I saw an elderly driver going over the speed limit and the wrong way on a major street in London because there was a bit of traffic on the lane going his direction. Unlike your crazy e-bike kid, he could easily have killed somebody who was travelling normally.

Safety starts with car drivers.

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

#132
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

u/alwayslikethis nailed it. I'm thinking of a scooter as in "a small motorcycle", with a gasoline engine. mibe is 170 cc, and it's perfect.

I think in Europe they are defined as max of 50cc and top speed of 45. So slightly under urban speed limit. Not that lower limits aren't coming more common.

In Switzerland there are two types of ebikes:

- the usual pedal-assisted ebike which is classified as a bicycle, pedal assistance up to 25 kmh

- bikes with pedal assistance up to 45 kmh, these need to be registered and need a special licence plate, and you need a driving licence to ride them. Bonus is (compared to a scooter) that if you turn the motor off then they are treated as normal bicycles, so you are allowed on all the bike paths where regular bikes are.

These latter ones are actually fast enough to keep up with city traffic easily, even though in Zurich there is a lot of bike infrastructure, so you wouldn't necessarily need them. I think they are the best of both worlds, bicycles and mopeds.

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

#133

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…

London had a lot of these, when even after the first bigger set of infrastructure "cycle superhighways" went in.

There was a lot of outcry and fixes of some of the worst ones after various accidents.

Still a lot to do, but during COVID a lot of roads were experimentally closed, with pedestrian space increased and more cycle lanes it's been a big jump in some parts of London at least.

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

#134
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.

Don't forget to include the health benefits when weighing up risks! More chance of being flattened by an SUV now, less chance of a stroke/heart attack later.

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

#135
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…

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 want the robocars to take over for the selfish reason of being able to safely ride a bicycle everywhere without any intervening bike infrastructure campaign.

Like, the "urban traffic problem" really can be reduced in almost every respect to either "humans are unsafe drivers" or "cars take up too much space". Shrink the fleet down to robotaxis and ebikes and you've solved everything last-mile related with no streetscape changes, leaving just the longer journeys for shared modes. As a bonus, kids become much more self-mobile again.

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

#136

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've worked as a bicycle courier in Denver and DC.

Bike lanes have always felt kind of silly in my view. You're always being set up to collide with an opening car door or get T-boned by someone making a right on red. Worse yet, drivers will often try to overtake cyclists to make that right turn. Many are terrible at judging relative speeds.

Easy solution is to just skip the bicycle lanes. Move with traffic on the main thoroughfares. When possible operate on the residential side streets.

Bicycle lanes are part of the problem in that they create the wrong expectations for both cyclists and drivers. Cyclists still need to maintain just as much if not more situational awareness. Drivers expect cyclists to stick to the lane. As you approach any intersection you are going to want to move towards the center. Sure, get over to the side when it makes sense. No need to make a nuisance of yourself, but bike lanes create more problems than they solve.

Denver itself is a relatively rural area. Many drivers are unaccustomed to urban driving. On the plus side, you have extremely wide streets. I never attributed my experiences to a "lack of bike infrastructure". From my perspective the less planning, the better. Like the bike lanes, when they do build something, I doubt it would solve more problems than it creates.

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

#137
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

u/alwayslikethis nailed it. I'm thinking of a scooter as in "a small motorcycle", with a gasoline engine. mibe is 170 cc, and it's perfect.

I think in Europe they are defined as max of 50cc and top speed of 45. So slightly under urban speed limit. Not that lower limits aren't coming more common.

Not really/exactly.

The 50cc/45 kmh or 4kw/45 kmh for electric ones defines a class of vehicles (mopeds L1, L1e-b if two wheels) that have a simpler registration and need a simpler driving license.

Electric powered bikes exist (Powered cycles, L1e-a) with 1 kW/25 kmh, while electric assisted bycicles and scooters[1] are "out of scope".

It's complicated:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_category

[1] the kind of electric sccoters with tiny wheels and no seat, "scooter", at least here in Italy, is commonly used to call anything with smaller wheels than a motorbike, it is used also for (powerful) motorbikes of class L3.

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

#138

I’m not exactly sure what counts as an e-bike but here in nyc we have people riding vehicles that are significantly heavier than a typical bike, go 20ish miles an hour, and require no peddling in bike lanes. Can’t say I care for that.

In Europe they mostly solved that through regulation, ebikes can't provide power if you're not actively pedalling, they're caped to 25kph (~15mph) and can't exceed 250w, if they go faster or provide power by another mean they're considered like 50cc mopped or motorcycles depending on the speed/power which means you need an insurance and a license plate

I believe something like this is technically the law here as well. But it goes completely unenforced.
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