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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

#541

Post by Someone »

carschno wrote: post #504
glacials wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 avoid…

> 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.

I think that’s more likely “and rebuilt according to the old plan”. Very few German cities escaped with limited bombing damage.

https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/air-war-germany-map/:

“Of the 54 largest cities (>100,000 inhabitants) in Germany, only four survived without significant damage: Lübeck, Wiesbaden, Halle and Erfurt.”

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#542

Post by nradov »

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…

It seems so bizarre that an adult would never learn to drive. Like you might not need to drive for daily city life but it really limits your options if you ever want to travel.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#543

Post by koonsolo »

snozolli wrote: post #374
vladvasiliu wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure your friend was actually allowed to take that shortcut with an e-bike going 45 km/h? AFAIK, these are considered "light motorbikes" (or something) and require the same paperwork (aside from an "easier" license) and gear as regular motorbikes. More importantly, they are specifically not bikes and aren't allowed to ride on bike lanes any more than a fat liter+ bike is.

Are you sure your friend was actually allowed to take that shortcut with an e-bike going 45 km/h? If it looks like a bike and you ride it like a bike, you're not going to have any problems riding it where bikes are allowed. It sounds like you envision this person riding at absolutely maximum possible speed at all times.

In most of EU, are in serious trouble when they catch you riding such a speed pedilec without license and/or license plate.

Cops already had mobile stations to check the max speed of scooters, and they now just added those ebikes to the checks.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#544

Post by yohannparis »

sharkweek wrote: post #192
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…

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…

I'm on the same boat. Now I'm the proud owner of two Urban Arrow cargo bikes (His and Hers) and I don't know how to live without it.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#545

Post by SergeAx »

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;

It actually depends, but chances are better.

> do not have to worry about car maintenance, parking tickets or theft;

Isn't bicycle theft wider than car theft in Europe? Bycicle is easier to steal and easier to sell to black market resellers.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#546

Post by Someone »

loeg wrote: post #358
alkjsdlkjasd wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To quickly do the calculations: Walking: 5 km/h * 70kg = 97 kgm/s e-bike: 20 km/h * 90 kg = 500 kgm/s car: 50 km/h * 2000kg = 28,000 kgm/s

Energy is proportionate to the square of velocity. So it's: Walking: 5 km/h * 70kg => 875 (although this is a very slow estimate for a walker) (please ignore the non-canonical units) e-bike: 20 km/h * 90 kg => 18,000 (I think your estimate for ebike mass might be on the low side at 20kg, but whatever) car: 50 km/h * 2000kg => 2,500,000 (and that's a fairly low speed for cars! Drunk drivers often drive faster than is…

> Walking: 5 km/h * 70kg => 875 (although this is a very slow estimate for a walker)

In the context of this thread (a walker who’s drunk), I don’t think it’s very slow.

Also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_walking_speed:

“The preferred walking speed is the speed at which humans or animals choose to walk. Many people tend to walk at about 1.42 metres per second (5.1 km/h; 3.2 mph; 4.7 ft/s).”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S209575641...:

“The results show teenagers walk at an average speed of 1.45 m/s, young adults walk at an average speed of 1.55 m/s, middle age pedestrians walk at a speed of 1.45 m/s, older pedestrians walk at speed of 1.09 m/s, and elderly or physically disabled pedestrians walk at a speed of 1.04 m/s.”

5km/hour is about 1.4m/s; the fastest of these speeds is 5.6 km/hour.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#547

Post by tgtweak »

Works well when you don't have 3-4 months of snow and ice. This is probably my biggest gripe with the whole "change roads to bicycle paths" push that is happening in most big cities (emulating this and using it as a guiding example). That infrastructure is essentially useless for 1/3 of the year.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#548

Post by novok »

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…

You adopt the housing law of japan, which is set at the federal level and not the local level, where zoning is set in large regional areas, where if something is zoned for a 'high nuisance level' you can build anything of a lower nuisance level inside of those zones.

You don't need your neighbors permission to build, everything is basically by-right where you follow well a well defined housing code vs. needing special approval for every little thing. Just get out of the way and stop needing a license to do anything and you will see how quickly the market will sort it out in London. The people of London will decide THEMSELVES, what to demolish or not once given permission to do so, no central planning needed.

But it doesn't because the current system benefits those elites. Any time large amounts of special permission is needed to get anything done, creates the space for corruption in which a bureaucrat can benefit through bribes of one form or another.

What your basically acting like is acting like you can't exercise and eat right to lose weight while you have no mental issues, financial issues, health issues, disability or age issues blocking you from doing the basic things. London has the money, ability and ground where all this is possible. It's a form of learned helplessness in front of a system that has given you no way out.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#549

Post by tomatocracy »

pjc50 wrote: post #76
mrpopo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 car/household is still entirely feasible with children (and the norm for many lower-class in Europe). We live with 1 child and no car and it's been working fine thus far. You have to be careful about where you live and work though, but I'd say the added quality of life of living car-free (in a car-free city) is all worth it.

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.

Most councils bave residents only parking bays for this exact reason. I live in zone 1 and the permit costs somewhere between 150-200 GBP per year.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#550

Post by ausp »

nradov wrote: post #542
hnlmorg wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It seems so bizarre that an adult would never learn to drive. Like you might not need to drive for daily city life but it really limits your options if you ever want to travel.

I'm one of the no-license London populace, and travel more frequently than most. I don't find that it has limited me at all. On the occasions when I absolutely need a car instead of the existing options, taxis are available.
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