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Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

forbes.com

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Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#191

Post by acomjean »

fipar wrote: post #96
raphaelj wrote: post #36

Somewhat unrelated to the article, but I live in a mid-size EU city and dumped my car for an e-bike a few months ago. Surprisingly, it hasn't been that hard (my GF kept her car, and I have a car-sharing subscription): Pros: - Immediately stopped having insomnia. Better feel overall; - about €300/month in additional disposable income. That's basically a free lunch everyday! - significantly faster if parking is taken i…

About not killing someone if you ride after drinking, Obviously it is ver difficult for a bike to directly kill someone other than the rider (as opposed to a car, where this is very easy), but a drunk cyclist can still hurt other people directly or indirectly (causing a bigger accident by forcing someone to avoid them). Even on a city free of private cars, you’d still share the road with pedestrians, other cyclists,…

Don't drink and ride.

We a friend do this, they didn't hurt anyone but themselves, and not too badly. And they did hit their head when they fell off , but were wearing a helmet (thus becoming a advocate for helmets..). Still pretty scraped up.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#192

Post by sharkweek »

matsemann wrote: post #118
raphaelj wrote: post #36

Somewhat unrelated to the article, but I live in a mid-size EU city and dumped my car for an e-bike a few months ago. Surprisingly, it hasn't been that hard (my GF kept her car, and I have a car-sharing subscription): Pros: - Immediately stopped having insomnia. Better feel overall; - about €300/month in additional disposable income. That's basically a free lunch everyday! - significantly faster if parking is taken i…

> - might be impossible depending on work or children; The newer style of cargo bikes can for many families replace a car. Have two kids seated in the trunk of the bike and drop them off at kindergarten, then continue biking to work and pick them up on the way home. Those are a bit on the pricier side, though. Still cheap compared to a car, but people often look at them as something "extravagant" or "in addition" to…

In upfront transparency to avoid sounding like I have a superiority complex based on just how much I love my cargo bike, our family does still have a car.

Okay that being said… our cargo bike has replaced 90% of our “last mile” driving here in the city. We take the kids to school on it, we do grocery runs, we take it to the park, out to dinner, just about anywhere we can. In the first two years we’ve put at least 2k miles on it.

When we first bought it, I thought “okay when my wife rides the ebike with kids, I’ll just ride behind on my road bike.”

It took all but a week for us to go buy a second ebike because of how failed my idea was. The guy at the bike shop, same that we bought the cargo bike from, laughed and said that happened all the time.

While we have always been big into bikes, we’re on another level now. I always feel sorry for the poor suckers at the park who ask me how we like the bike who have to listen to me rave about it for 20 minutes when a “we love it” probably would have been enough.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#193

Post by stcroixx »

fipar wrote: post #96
raphaelj wrote: post #36

Somewhat unrelated to the article, but I live in a mid-size EU city and dumped my car for an e-bike a few months ago. Surprisingly, it hasn't been that hard (my GF kept her car, and I have a car-sharing subscription): Pros: - Immediately stopped having insomnia. Better feel overall; - about €300/month in additional disposable income. That's basically a free lunch everyday! - significantly faster if parking is taken i…

About not killing someone if you ride after drinking, Obviously it is ver difficult for a bike to directly kill someone other than the rider (as opposed to a car, where this is very easy), but a drunk cyclist can still hurt other people directly or indirectly (causing a bigger accident by forcing someone to avoid them). Even on a city free of private cars, you’d still share the road with pedestrians, other cyclists,…

Pretty sure it’s illegal to operate any kind of vehicle on a public street while over the limit in the US. No different than a car. Except, if you get in a wreck you’re almost surely dead.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#194

Post by dukeofdoom »

sunbum wrote: post #158
dukeofdoom wrote: post #65

biking is great except for ball cancer due to sitting postion

you sit in a car as well

Not quite the same. The problem with a bike seat is the bike seat cuts off circulation in point where a lot of blood vessels pass through, riding has been linked to cancer. Along with the more common city riding hazards like car passangers opening doors, falling over and you breaking bones, getting run over, or even directly breathing in exhaust fumes from trucks.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#195

Post by benhurmarcel »

britzkopf wrote: post #131
raphaelj wrote: post #36

Somewhat unrelated to the article, but I live in a mid-size EU city and dumped my car for an e-bike a few months ago. Surprisingly, it hasn't been that hard (my GF kept her car, and I have a car-sharing subscription): Pros: - Immediately stopped having insomnia. Better feel overall; - about €300/month in additional disposable income. That's basically a free lunch everyday! - significantly faster if parking is taken i…

Don't have to worry about theft?! Wow, Europe must be so different than North America. I'm much more worried about my biker being stolen (has happened about a dozen times in my life) than my car. If the former happens you get absolutely zero support, while if the latter happens the police will actually try to do something.

I have a nice ebike I use daily in Europe, and I'm also much more worried about getting it robbed than my car.

I only park it in fairly secure locations if it's for more than a few hours (ie. not in the street), and I put 2 of the most secure bike locks I could find, 1 wheel lock, secure bolts on wheels and saddle, and light locks on big accessories like the child seat. Plus an Airtag hidden somewhere.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#196

Post by Jochim »

TexanFeller wrote: post #51

I would celebrate if this happened naturally, but this seems more a case of if you punish driving enough you get less drivers. When I was in London over a decade ago they already had restrictions on car traffic into certain parts of the city and additional fees to go there. Tax on a new car is 20% and lots of regulations on their characteristics. Large taxes on petrol which is already much more expensive than in the…

What's natural about the provision of tens of thousands of parking spaces, dedicated carriageways, tunnels, bridges, signalling infrastructure etc.?

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#197

Post by worik »

mnd999 wrote: post #59
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #3

Note that the "City of London" is not the whole of the London built-up area, but just the financial services district, slightly more than one square mile in area. Still, it's a remarkable statistic even then.

I think most of the commenters missed this. It should also be taken in the context of the city not being an area many people drive to anyway. Many of these cyclists will have switched from the tube, and many of them will have taken a train to a terminal station and biked from there.

Does the London tube have good facilities for carrying bikes?

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#198

Post by Tade0 »

matsemann wrote: post #118
raphaelj wrote: post #36

Somewhat unrelated to the article, but I live in a mid-size EU city and dumped my car for an e-bike a few months ago. Surprisingly, it hasn't been that hard (my GF kept her car, and I have a car-sharing subscription): Pros: - Immediately stopped having insomnia. Better feel overall; - about €300/month in additional disposable income. That's basically a free lunch everyday! - significantly faster if parking is taken i…

> - might be impossible depending on work or children; The newer style of cargo bikes can for many families replace a car. Have two kids seated in the trunk of the bike and drop them off at kindergarten, then continue biking to work and pick them up on the way home. Those are a bit on the pricier side, though. Still cheap compared to a car, but people often look at them as something "extravagant" or "in addition" to…

> So I think we will see a shift in where people settle, where they will no longer base their lives around owning multiple cars.

Not if real estate in cities remains as expensive as it is now. That's one of the main reasons why so many people move out and choose to spend so much time commuting.

Cars are just a means to an end, which is not living in a one-bedroom apartment as a family.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#199

Post by MengerSponge »

mjhay wrote: post #179
sandworm101 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> As the Dutch like to say: there is no such thing as bad cycling weather, only bad cycling clothes. Easy to say in a country famously flat, small, and with a relatively narrow weather window. I welcome any Dutch person to attempt a 15+km commute during a rocky mountain winter. I know of driveways in US/Canada with more vertical than any Dutch commute.

Minneapolis is one of the top US cities for cycling mode share. You can bike in snow+ice with proper studded tires. With a fat bike, you'll do better than any car or truck in deep snow.

It's implied, but to be clear: ebikes make it comfortable to ride with 4+ inch tires for absurd distances. An ebike with studded fat tires will make you feel like Legolas in LoTR.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#200

Post by flanbiscuit »

throwaway_ab wrote: post #171
raphaelj wrote: post #36

Somewhat unrelated to the article, but I live in a mid-size EU city and dumped my car for an e-bike a few months ago. Surprisingly, it hasn't been that hard (my GF kept her car, and I have a car-sharing subscription): Pros: - Immediately stopped having insomnia. Better feel overall; - about €300/month in additional disposable income. That's basically a free lunch everyday! - significantly faster if parking is taken i…

Did you put theft under the wrong heading? I've had many bikes stolen and everyone I know who rides has at least one bike stolen. I've never had anything stolen from my car and no issues with car theft, and I don't know anyone who has had their car stolen. I've met two people in my life who have had items stolen from their car, and in both cases they left their car unlocked.

I was thinking the same thing when they talked about "theft".

Looks like they live in Belgium

Maybe there's less bike theft there?

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