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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

#241

Post by Tade0 »

CalRobert wrote: post #212
Tade0 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Good luck - I have a friend in Utrecht and he's happy there but IIRC he's renting and will do so for the remainder of his life.

I was priced out of the city where I grew up, so going somewhere more expensive is out of the question.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#242

Post by CalRobert »

afavour wrote: post #116
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…

I live in NYC and love being car free. But with two kids that within a few years will be attending two different schools the pull of car ownership gets stronger and stronger. It’s depressing, especially as there is so much the city could do to encourage bikers but never does.

For being America's flagship city it's insane how car-choked and human-hostile NYC is.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#244

Post by iams »

worik wrote: post #197
mnd999 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No. Non folding bikes are not allowed on most tube services in central london. The lines that do allow it don't allow it during rush hour.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#245

Post by idopmstuff »

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.

Yeah, unfortunately it seems very much like we're heading the opposite direction. People largely congregated in cities because of proximity to work, but as remote work increases that's becoming less of a factor. As people try to find cheaper property and more land, they're going to end up in places where bikes are a whole lot less practical.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#246

Post by trgn »

ClapperHeid wrote: post #216
trgn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes! Can't believe we thought car-clogged city streets were actually aspirational. Truly mass delusion.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#247

Post by bartread »

zimpenfish wrote: post #57
bartread wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whilst I'm overall in favour of promoting cycling as a way of getting around, in preference to motor vehicles, I'm not sure I entirely agree with "safer". I live in Cambridge and have lost count of the number of times I've had to contend with cyclists blowing through pedestrian crossings on a red light (or zebra crossings at any time) when I'm trying to walk over them, or cycling the wrong way down a one-way street -…

> "[whatabout cyclists who break the law]" I can stand at my local crossing on Old Kent Road and there'll be non-zero cars jumping the red light (often accelerating from a good ways back) or entering the junction without a safe exit blocking the crossing, a bus lane, and another junction (in peak time this will often get into double figures). Multiply that by all the crossings and you'll absolutely dwarf the amount o…

> > "[whatabout cyclists who break the law]"

Your attempt to classify my post as whataboutism is in incredibly poor faith.

I'm very pro-cycling, but it would be foolish to ignore the very real and observable safety concerns that occur because of factors such as poor behaviour (and also, although I didn't mention them originally, issues like infrastructure and quality of road surfaces).

You cannot simply assume that within a particular context or location that more peope cycling equates to greater safety. There are too many other factors at play, and those need to be addressed in order to ensure that cycling is a safer option for everybody.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#248

Post by jjgreen »

alkjsdlkjasd wrote: post #112
ajmurmann wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While much more rare than with cars, biciclysts still sometimes fatally hit pedestrians.

Some numbers from 2021 in the UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua... > Chart 4 shows that, again, in terms of absolute numbers, cars are the vehicle type most often involved in fatal collisions when others are killed, followed by HGVs and Light Goods Vehicles (LGVs). Very few other road users are killed in collisions with pedal cyclists or pedestrians (5 and 6 respectively in 2021).

I wonder if "road accident" includes incidents on the pavement? Not clear from that document.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#249

Post by trgn »

testybesty2 wrote: post #188
trgn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

100%, but you missed FUN. On another note, Ran Prieur has some interesting thoughts on bikes as a mode of transport. https://www.ranprieur.com/tech/trans.html

Thanks for the link! Looking forward to dive into it.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#250

Post by sandworm101 »

CalRobert wrote: post #233
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.

The trick is to build your towns and cities such that 15km is longer than most people would need to commute by bike, except perhaps as part of a bike->transit mixed-mode commute. There are places with wintry weather that are good for biking! Oulu comes to mind https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-64354089 And as explored in this video, if the weather is too bad to bike safely in, it's probably too bad to drive sa…

>> it's probably too bad to drive safely in.

Ya, well one still has to get to work. "Safe driving" is slow but unless the roads are actually closed then most of us still have to get to work.

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