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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

#691

Post by Rebelgecko »

ryankshaw wrote: post #610
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…

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 th…

When I was in middle school my friends who lived close to school used their own bikes

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#692

Post by trgn »

britzkopf wrote: post #131
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…

Don't have to worry about theft?! Wow, Europe must be so different than North America. I'm much more worried about my biker being stolen (has happened about a dozen times in my life) than my car. If the former happens you get absolutely zero support, while if the latter happens the police will actually try to do something.

lol yeah. I live in a city where practically nobody bikes, and bikes get stolen frequently. Nowhere near as bad though than European city.

Bike theft is so rampant. It's just so easy, throw it in a truck, or pedal away with it. Since I live in a redneck place, I ride a step-through woman bike in pastel color now, after two previous ones got stolen, and that genuinely helps. People may make snarky comments, but the bike has remained untouched for a decade now.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#693

Post by tasuki »

jwr wrote: post #347
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…

Very similar impressions after years of biking (and having switched to an E-bike about 2 years ago). I bike year-round in Warsaw, Poland, even though most people consider winter to be "off-season". Don't really understand why — they do go skiing after all, so cold must not be the problem? The only days I don't bike is when it's raining heavily or when it's really slippery (lots of snow, freshly frozen sleet, etc). Th…

Apart from the air quality, Warsaw is great for cycling. It ain't hilly and there's enough bike lanes. Also Veturilo is pretty good with its dense network, especially in Spring before the bikes start breaking :)

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#694

Post by soperj »

ryankshaw wrote: post #610
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…

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 th…

My kid is 7 and rides his own bike to school with me. (2.5km) At 13 I'm pretty sure they'd be good to go without you even.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#695

Post by ars »

adambard wrote: post #588
ars wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> So many people don't seem to realize that without suburbs you don't have farms. This strikes me as a bizarre take. What do you consider a "suburb"?

A place outside dense cities, somewhere not too far from farms. A place where a farmer can go for services without having to travel far.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#697

Post by ars »

bregma wrote: post #614
ars wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Suburbs are the places where what used to be productive farms are paved over with asphalt. Few cities rely on them for anything except maybe cheap labour.

> anything except maybe cheap labour.

Hmmmmm. And that labor does?

Please think about this a big more - cities do not have industry or agriculture in them. They need those suburbs to provide that. You can't just dismiss it as "cheap labor" - what exactly do you plan to eat or buy?

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#698

Post by andylynch »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #3

Note that the "City of London" is not the whole of the London built-up area, but just the financial services district, slightly more than one square mile in area. Still, it's a remarkable statistic even then.

The City is unusual in many ways well-covered elsewhere. It’s worth highlighting that this milestone is part of a long and well-planned strategy.

North Americans especially might be surprised at how aggressively they are removing motor vehicles from the district (Down over 50% since 1999). New developments are very pedestrian and cycle friendly- eg my large workplace build five—odd years ago had 500+ bike spaces, desks for 5,000 and a single digit number of car parking spaces (for VVIPs and disabled staff only) - they are also converting many streets back to vehicle-free open spaces. This is all quite popular and mostly uncontroversial.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#699

Post by Rebelgecko »

mellosouls wrote: post #281
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…

significantly faster if parking is taken into account for most trips This sounds unlikely for the average cycling commuter if parking alone is making the difference- cyclists (as motorcyclists) need to change (at each side) and shower etc; I think that is often forgotten in these calculations.

I have to shower at least once a day anyways, so it doesn't really make a difference if I do that before or after my commute. In fact when I drive to work I usually spend the first couple minutes in the shower just staring at the wall waking up- when I bike to work I'm much more efficient.

The only downside is that on warmer days if I have something going on in the evening I'll sometimes need to shower again when I get home, but IMO it's still worth it considering that my roundtrip commute is maybe 60 minutes by bike vs 50 minutes by car, and if I commute by car I don't get the free workout

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#700

Post by ars »

tfourb wrote: post #607
ars wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And Germany is tiny compared to the US.

A farm in Germany is how far of a drive from the nearest city?

In the US you could drive 10 hours from a farm to get to the nearest large city. Suburbs and tiny cities are what farms need to survive.

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