Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

forbes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

601–610 of 969 posts

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#601

Post by scott_w »

bartread wrote: post #595
scott_w wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I'm contending against is not cycling as a mode of transport, but the assumption that with greater adoption of cycling comes greater safety. The Netherlands has a massive cycling uptake and has some of the safest roads in Europe. What you say simply doesn’t hold water. Cyclists are simply not killing in the numbers that car drivers are.

Yeah, but The Netherlands isn't Cambridge, UK. For one, The Netherlands has great cycling infrastructure, at least places where I've been: Cambridge, UK doesn't. Again, from what I've seen, cyclists in The Netherlands tend to behave quite a bit better than they do here in the UK (drivers too, for that matter). Moreover, what condition is the infrastructure in? I don't know about The Netherlands but I can tell you tha…

That’s partially true but you said “cycling isn’t safer” when the available evidence is that it is. Even in the UK, you’re more likely to be killed on the pavement by a car than by a bike. Say what you like about numbers but cars aren’t supposed to be there. That fact alone should tell you something about the difference in danger.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#602

Post by locallost »

chroma wrote: post #562
f_devd wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bicycles are somewhere from 3x to 11x more dangerous than cars. In the US, where there is effectively no bicycle infrastructure. In the Netherlands it seems to be about 1.18x (or 1.1x if you include trucks) [0]. [0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/523310/netherlands-numbe...

The important metric is fatalities per distance traveled, not absolute numbers. In the Netherlands, bicycles have 11 fatalities per billion kilometers traveled. Cars have 1.6.

By that metric, walking is the most dangerous mode of transport. Somehow seems illogical.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#603

Post by novok »

gambiting wrote: post #561
novok wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 specia…

Mate there is no other group campaigning harder to relax building requirements in London than the elites. There are so many rich people complaining they can't add another conservatory or floor or dig up a basement in their Victorian mansion in London. If you made it easier to build you'd basically hand a giant fat present to the hands of the elite. The idea that the elites keep the status quo by making bureocracy com…

Your looking at the wrong "elites". Look at who is preventing 30 story apartment buildings and then you'll know who actually runs the city.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#605

Post by bartread »

scott_w wrote: post #284
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 -…

I live in Newcastle and the VAST majority of dangerous road usage I see comes from drivers. Just yesterday I watched a driver pull out of a junction straight into a cyclist because he wanted to rush out instead of checking. When cyclists kill or maim 5 people per day, I’ll be the first calling for regulation. Until that day comes, the focus needs to be on the most dangerous mode of transport: private cars.

I don't disbelieve you but I'll bet you any amount of money that the number of cyclists per capita is far higher in Cambridge than it is in Newcastle.

That disparity in itself will change the behaviour of motorists: I'm used to checking every single direction for cyclists before I make a move, even as a pedestrian, because there are just so many of them everywhere.

It's also why you see "Think Bike!" signs along routes popular with motorcyclists. Lots of places in the country there just aren't that many of us compared with car drivers, so people become unused to looking out for us, with sadly predictable consequences.

That's not to excuse drivers in Newcastle, by the way. It's just to point out that you probably see more drivers behaving badly compared with cyclists because of the differences [apologies, my bet on the differences] in the numbers (which I did do a search for but couldn't find anything useful or authoritative).

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#606

Post by matsemann »

slothtrop wrote: post #578
hgomersall wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was recently obliged for the first time to drop my son off at school by car. It took 50% longer than cycling. I can't understate the temporal dimension of using a car. When dropping and picking up a kid at school...etc etc

You're not representative of how this usually works, and you know it.

You mean the long rows of cars queueing one constantly see outside US schools aren't representative? I'd say it takes far longer to pick someone up in a car than a bike..

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#607

Post by tfourb »

ars wrote: post #539
uoaei wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we taxed suburbs what they actually cost us as a society, no one would want to live in suburbs. The land use is abysmal compared to cities. Suburbs are effectively subsidized by the cities they are near, and those living in suburbs get off way too easy. That's a good thing if you have an extractivist, individualist mindset, but if we are to continue functioning as a whole society, something needs to give. We love…

If we actually tax them, it would be a negative tax. So many people don't seem to realize that without suburbs you don't have farms. Suburbs and farms produce all the things that cities rely on. You don't see heavy industry in the middle of a city. So we actually wanted to do your plan then cities should cough up way more money than they currently do.

Farmlands and suburbs are completely different things, especially in the context of urban development.

Industrial zones are also a completely different category entirely.

Living in Germany, most German cities do not have anything that is comparable to a U.S. "suburb". Building codes demand a quite high density, even for single family homes for new developments and older developments have the tendency to get denser as the demand for housing in a city rises.

German planning law specifically aims to concentrate development as much as possible, to limit encroachment on agricultural lands and nature. Doesn't always work out, but we have very little of the "urban sprawl" that is so characteristic of U.S. urban planning.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#608

Post by matsemann »

holoduke wrote: post #227
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…

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…

Yes I am, but you're similarly in a suburbian bubble, where you get the benefits of living remotely (silence, big house, lawn etc), but also expect to get easy access to everything by driving everywhere. The latter of great cost to society both in dollars and other external factors.

All your usecases could be served with a rental. Where I live I can rent cars on hour basis with an app. Need to haul something big? Rent a van for a few hours. Want to visit family in a remote city? Rent a sedan for a day or two. Need to get a cat to the vet? Rent a small city car for two hours.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#609

Post by tfourb »

lenlorijn wrote: post #402
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,…

I see lots of folks in the comments assuming what would happen when you bike drunk, seemingly not ever having done so themselves or seen it. I live in a student city in the Netherlands (Groningen), where most students go out on the town by bike. It's really not much more dangerous than walking drunk. And it's very much preferable to driving drunk. Thousands of students park their bikes in the city's central undergrou…

A friend of mine in college drove down a (very) long flight of stairs with his bike while being (very) drunk. He was severely injured and I very much doubt based on his recollection of what happened that he would a) have injured himself at all if he was on foot and b) even if he had fell on those stairs, he would have had much less serious injuries.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#610

Post by ryankshaw »

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…

what do people do that have kids between the "too big for cargo bike" and "too young to drive their own car" category?

I used to take my kids all the time on my e-bike with a burley bike trailer. Now I have a 13 year old and a 10 year old. I'm pretty sure the middle schooler would get made fun of if his friends saw him showing up to school or soccer practice in the cargo bucket of my bike.

For people that have hit that milestone before me, what do you guys do for your older kids?

Post reply on HN