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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

#211

Post by vultour »

dabeeeenster wrote: post #89
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…

"Tax on a new car is 20%" UK sales tax IS 20 for almost all goods! Why is this a reason? Can't think what other "regulations" there are in their characteristics other than emmissions?

Large parts of Europe have VAT around 20%.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#212

Post by CalRobert »

Tade0 wrote: post #198
matsemann wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - 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.

Sadly this rings somewhat true, I'm trying to make the maths work on moving from my house in the horrible Irish countryside (horrible if you don't like profound isolation and car-dependency, that is) and move to Utrecht or Houten, or Freiburg, and it is challenging, to say the least.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#213

Post by hammock »

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.

>it's a remarkable statistic

If you consider levying a $20-30/day tax to every driver,[1] plus another $12/day if your car is too old,[2] plus $200-600/year to park on public roads,[3] causing people to stop driving as remarkable, then sure.

Edit: why the downvotes?

[1]https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10279911/Sadiq-Khan... [2]https://www.carthrottle.com/post/youll-now-be-charged-extra-... [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_Excise_Duty

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#214

Post by rjmunro »

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.

There's a great video by CGP Grey about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc, and a follow up about how they elect their government: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1ROpIKZe-c&t=3s

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#215

Post by LightBug1 »

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…

>>- you will not kill someone if you ride after a night drinking;

Please don't take that attitude ...

I have a work colleague who basically had an ankle tendon sliced by just such a person.

The very likely outcome now is that they will never walk or run normally ever again.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#216

Post by ClapperHeid »

trgn wrote: post #24
nntwozz wrote: post #15

We are the cyclists, the intermediate stage between humans and pure energy. https://youtu.be/1s0XsulDXtk

Bicycles are the best machine from the industrial revolution. Quiet, healthy, efficient, harmonious with our sensibilities. I think it is precisely these aspirational qualities that is enraging the morlocks in their cars (speaking for US only now, it's better in other countries). A bicycle is a shameful reminder of the virtuous path not taken.

Remember back in the 1970s; if you ever saw anything on the news about China, it would feature rank upon rank of cyclists pouring through Peking's great thoroughfares, with nary a motor vehicle in sight. We all laughed at how backward they were.

Now we'd view a similar scene from any major city in the world as signs of a great environmental advance.

Funny how times change, isn't it?

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#217

Post by CalRobert »

mikepurvis wrote: post #203
matsemann wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - 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…

As a parent myself who has always had a car but has aspired at times to go car-free, I think the whole "semi-frequent short term car rental" thing only really gets realistic when the kids are old enough to just need those tiny Mifold booster seats / seatbelt adjusters. Conventional UAS-attached car seats are just too bulky and troublesome to be installing and uninstalling all the time in cars you only rent for a few…

I think the key there is "all the time" - when we lived in the middle of a European city we used car-share, and the car seat was a bit annoying but since we were using it maybe once or twice a month tops it just wasn't that big a deal. Though we were using the seatbelt mount, and not ISOfix.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#218

Post by Rendello »

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…

I had my mind blown about Dutch-style cargo ebikes, bakfietsen. The cool thing is that you can use the bikes to haul cargo, or put three kids in the front in special harnesses when you need to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQhzEnWCgHA

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#219

Post by usrusr »

bowsamic wrote: post #125
fipar wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

It's also very illegal to bike when drunk where I live in Germany

Correction: it's illegal to bike when very drunk. In the moderately drunk range, German law is surprisingly reasonable in acknowledging that drunk driving would have been much worse.
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