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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

#501

Post by Mashimo »

nomel wrote: post #433
rickydroll wrote: post #376

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. Magical thinking will not make it so. My partner and I moved further away from the city where she works because we wanted to move in together and we can't afford rent or property where either of us used to live. I work from home so most the time my car sits charging the driveway. However, a…

> we can't afford rent or property where either of us used to live. I’ve never seen this not be the case. Are European cities organized differently or something? I’ve never see affordable living within biking distance of a business district, in the US. Prices are usually double.

Some European cities with millions of citizen can have a similar footprint of North American cities of just hundreds of thousand of people. It's more dense.

Sprinkle a bit of mixed used zoning, bike infrastructure and public transport on top.

I live in the outskirts of a city of almost 300 000, and can be in city center by bike in 20 minutes. I'm at work in 10 minutes.

Copenhagen: • City 183.20 km2 (70.73 sq mi) • pop 1,366,301 • Density 4,417.65/km2 (11,441.7/sq mi)

Kansas City, Missouri: • City 318.80 sq mi (825.69 km2) • pop 508,090 • Density 623.31/km2 (1,614.38/sq mi )

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#502

Post by ClapperHeid »

rootusrootus wrote: post #447
ClapperHeid wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As a tip for dealing with cyclists: continue your movement as a pedestrian: they'll go around you. Most pedestrians have headphones in/little awareness of their surroundings, and as a cyclist I always assume I'm invisible to them and to cars... This! I used to do a 10 mile commute to work through several areas that were designated as shared cycle lane / footpath. Every trip was a slalom of avoiding pedestrians dawdl…

You could just about rewrite this and substitute car for bike and bike for pedestrian, and have it still be true. It's like there is a hierarchy based on speed, and everyone thinks the level below them is a bunch of twats ruining their commute.

I was going to reply and say "You wouldn't see a cyclist riding down the road with headphones on, blissfully unaware of what's around them..." but then I thought back to my cycle commuting days and remembered a fair few examples of seeing just that. And anoher one in similar vein; the cyclist who swerves out into the road to avoid a puddle at the kerbside --without so much as a rearwards glance to see if any cars are coming up behind.

No. Pedestrians don't have a monopoly on obvlivion. But neither do cyclists. Some of the things I saw people doing behind the wheel of their cars or lorries, as I cycled past them would put you off going out on a bike for life.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#503

Post by sofixa »

Maxburn wrote: post #393

I haven't done my research but from what I've gathered from news over the years hasn't London had very high car tax, tolls, super expensive gas, and just outright closing streets and eliminating parking? So with a big enough stick and very little carrot anything is possible? Is that a win? Aren't we hearing that actual residents really don't like these "15 minute" cities?

> with a big enough stick and very little carrot anything is possible

Yep, so all those complaining that nothing is being done or can be done about climate change are wrong. There are tools, they just need to be used.

> Aren't we hearing that actual residents really don't like these "15 minute" cities?

We're also hearing that Zuckerberg is a lizard and the Earth is flat, so fucking what? London is a major metropolis, rather dense, and with very relaxed and mixed zoning (you can have a 13th century "Church of X Girls School" next to a Tesco store in a glass skyscraper. It already does everything a "15th minute city" is about, apart from being "15 minutes big" - commute times are usually bigger, and somewhat concentrated to City and Canary Wharf, but there's work, leisure, shopping, housing to be found all around. Idiots who rage against a concept they couldn't begin to comprehend because toilet paper quality "journalists" make money that way aren't concerned residents of London, they have nothing to do with the city, and their opinion is best ignored.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#504

Post by carschno »

glacials wrote: post #450
nomel wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we can't afford rent or property where either of us used to live. I’ve never seen this not be the case. Are European cities organized differently or something? I’ve never see affordable living within biking distance of a business district, in the US. Prices are usually double.

Yes. European cities were, in general, well-developed before the car was invented. US cities are built around the car. This means more space dedicated to parking, which means less space for homes and businesses, which means things are farther apart, which means people need cars. It’s a negative feedback loop.

You can observe this very well in Germany. You have many cities that were destroyed during World War 2, and rebuilt around the car. You can compare them to the cities that were built before, and not destroyed. Nowadays, the latter are typically those cities popular with tourists and inhabitants due to their lively and walkable city centers, while city centers of the further category are oftentimes abandoned and avoided areas during the evenings and weekends. Impressive to see how the car-based city concept has failed for the inhabitants, and how hard it is for those cities to adapt to the post-industrial era.

Of course, failure is subjective: car-based cities have been essential for the car industry because many inhabitants are completely dependent on having a car.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#505

Post by Mashimo »

loeg wrote: post #355
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…

Unfortunately the big front-loaded cargo bikes are, well, big. Almost as long as a car, if not as wide. You need to park them somewhere and they're definitely too big and heavy to carry up any stairs. They're also expensive, like mid 4 figures USD. This starts to look like a similar problem to car ownership and parking. (I say this all as an avid cyclist -- my household has four bikes and one car.) Rentals seem like…

They are quite large, but not any where near as long or wide as a car.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#506

Post by gambiting »

novok wrote: post #497
gambiting wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but like.........people always say that (for example) in London you can't live closer to work because houses/flats are too expensive. Ok, I mean that's true, but how are you going to solve that? It's a gigantic city which is already full to the brim, with literally 1000+ years of building on top of every single square inch of land available. You would probably have to demolish large areas of London and replace t…

Lol Tokyo and many other mega cities in the world are great examples how none of those things are actual barriers. London's issue is political will, because too many wealthy and politically connected people currently profit from the current status quo at the expense of the exploited supermajority.

Just saying "look at Tokyo" doesn't mean anything.

How exactly would you change London to be more like tokyo? As the simplest question - which areas of London would you demolish to make room for high density Japanese housing? Alternatively, if you're going to build wide, how would you connect those areas with the centre, if building new metro lines is pretty much impossible in London for historical reasons?

"London's issue is political will, because too many wealthy and politically connected people currently profit from the current status quo"

That just sounds like saying "it's the elites fault, dude". Like, sure, but please propose any actual solution.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#507

Post by gambiting »

hnlmorg wrote: post #488
gambiting wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but like.........people always say that (for example) in London you can't live closer to work because houses/flats are too expensive. Ok, I mean that's true, but how are you going to solve that? It's a gigantic city which is already full to the brim, with literally 1000+ years of building on top of every single square inch of land available. You would probably have to demolish large areas of London and replace t…

London has really good public transportation and, as this article mentions, lots of people in London do cycle to work (half of all the offices I’ve had in London has had an on-premises bicycle “shed”). In fact I’ve met so many Londoners who never even bothered to learn to drive. In my experience, it’s generally American cities that require a car rather than European cities. Generally speaking of course, you get good…

of course, which is why a staggering 1 million of people commute in and out of london every day. But again, I'm just asking how exactly can we address the high price of housing near workplaces in London specifically, if London is already full to the brim and new housing isn't happening not because of regulations or lack of political will - there's just no space to build any more.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#508

Post by Mashimo »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #405
InitialLastName wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally just being drunk enough can end up in you being dead or maimed. From a harm reduction perspective, Drunk Driving -> Drunk Bicycling feels like it reduces the capacity for damage roughly proportionally to Drunk Bicycling -> Drunk Walking. At a critical level, the speeds you can comfortably achieve are reduced at each step, thereby increasing the amount of reaction time available to avoid an incident, reducin…

one major difference is that someone who is incredibly drunk can still drive a car at 100kmph, but they can't balance well enough to ride their bike.

You have to be really plastered to not ride a bike any more. Like a lot, a lot.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#509

Post by dsfyu404ed »

rickydroll wrote: post #383
KptMarchewa wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's _very_ american assumption. All good schools are "inner" city in my country.

A bit of refinement on that thought. In America, inner-city schools are mixed bag. If you live in someplace like Cambridge, schools tend to be good. Boston is a mixed bag. Same is true for other adjacent cities. However if you go to places like Westford, Newton, Wellesley which are very high earner high value properties, the schools tend to be consistently very good. Then you start moving into more rural places in Ma…

>A bit of refinement on that thought. In America, inner-city schools are mixed bag. If you live in someplace like Cambridge, schools tend to be good. Boston is a mixed bag. Same is true for other adjacent cities. However if you go to places like Westford, Newton, Wellesley which are very high earner high value properties, the schools tend to be consistently very good. Then you start moving into more rural places in Massachusetts like Pepperell, Townsend, Athol and again the schools are more like inner-city schools, underfunded and not very good quality.

How much of that is the quality of the schools and how much of that is just richer parents who can/will pick up the slack in the event that the school system doesn't do the job as well as they want it done?

If stats on median and per capita income are to be believed then the kid from Wellsley has a huge leg up on the kid from Athol even if you assume they get the same education.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#510

Post by plugin-baby »

gambiting wrote: post #506
novok wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol Tokyo and many other mega cities in the world are great examples how none of those things are actual barriers. London's issue is political will, because too many wealthy and politically connected people currently profit from the current status quo at the expense of the exploited supermajority.

Just saying "look at Tokyo" doesn't mean anything. How exactly would you change London to be more like tokyo? As the simplest question - which areas of London would you demolish to make room for high density Japanese housing? Alternatively, if you're going to build wide, how would you connect those areas with the centre, if building new metro lines is pretty much impossible in London for historical reasons? "London's…

> building new metro lines is pretty much impossible in London for historical reasons

Didn’t they open a new one last year?

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