Great!
Now fix London's massive crime issues, thanks.
Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London
331–340 of 969 posts
Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
> > "[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 w…
> 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 You'll no doubt be able to point to the statistics that back up these very real safety concerns. You could start with the number of KSI caused by cyclists compared with motor vehicles
> You could start with the number of KSI caused by cyclists compared with motor vehicles
Cyclist involved KSIs, 2013-2020: 1123 (30 + 1093)
All road KSIs, 2020: 24989 (1460 + 23529) (and this was a quieter than normal year on the roads)
I make that a factor of 8 * (24989 / 1123) or 178x difference.
Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London
#333both equally horrible, from the perspective of a pedestrian. the only two people i have ever punched with intent in my life were these witless nincompoops that drive around the city and into you - if you don't work there, you have no idea how dangerous these assholes are.
easy solution: compulsory lisencing and insurance
Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London
#334Didn't they make it very, very expensive to drive in the City of London?
Space is expensive in city centers. Cars take up lots of space.
Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in big-ish EU city (Warsaw, Hamburg/Glasgow level of population) and have been cycling for 10+ years, moved to car for various unrelated reasons. But car commute is still faster. I can get from home to work in ~35 minutes at lower traffic (say 10AM, blessed be flexible work hours) and in MAX hour in more of a rush traffic. Best time by bicycle is around 1h10m. I do park at work building so that's 5-10 minutes…
1:10h on bike in Warsaw is like 20km, it's pretty much whole city in straight line length: https://i.imgur.com/21GFPI1.png You just live very far from your job.
It takes longer than continuous biking in a city would make one think, for the same reason driving does: you have to stop at red lights, yield, wait in traffic.
Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London
#336I 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…
I live in the Boston exurbs. There used to be two passenger rail stations on a Boston & Maine RR line back when the town consisted almost entirely of farms.
Cars killed those services. Nothing about that was "natural." Cars need to be contained to uses where they are strictly needed in order for such services to come back.
With work-at-home as a new norm there is much less need for commuting. With delivery there is much less need to drive from store to store on shopping trips. The American "geography of nowhere" is a blight to be eradicated.
Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London
#337Earlier 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…
You live in a city bubble. I have three kids and live in a suburban town about 40km away from the nearest big city. No way i can live without a car. I do have bikes and use them often to bring kids to school. But many friends and family are scattered arround the country. Many places i go to with my kids can only visited by car. And i find a car often very useful during a period of reconstruction of my house or garden…
40km from the nearest city should still provide lots of public transport options.
Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London
#338Somewhat 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; Wow. After a family member of mine being injured by a cyclist crashing into them, reading something like this is quite infuriating. If you drink, don't drive, even if it's a bicycle.
Not to mention, you could easily kill yourself. If you're biking on the roads (especially in the UK where they're extremely narrow), you better recognize you're partaking in a dangerous activity and take it seriously. At least wear a helmet.
Also, cycling drunk is illegal in many jurisdictions and can get you a DUI in the same way as drunk driving a car. If you're on an e-bike, it's almost certainly illegal, since you're driving a motorized vehicle.
Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London
#339Somewhat 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…
You can also just put seats on a normal bike. I have two kids seats on my bike, front and back, and take my 3 and 6yo to kindergarten that way. It's cheaper than a cargo bike, and much less likely to get stolen.
Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you live within London transport zone 1, it's quite likely to be a zero-car household, simply because of the difficulty in keeping the car somewhere.
That doesn't quite make sense, "it's difficult to avoid having a car because you can't store it"? Can you elaborate? I'm interested what life is like in these cities that charge drivers so as to reduce cars in the road.
It's expensive to have a car in central London because of the cost of parking. It has basically been unbundled from housing; garages sell for upwards of £100k, guaranteed parking spaces somewhat less, on-street parking is either banned, charged for, or very heavily competed over.
As a resident you get a 90% discount on the congestion charge, so driving it will cost you £1.50 per day. I'm not quite sure whether that applies to parked cars as well.