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

701–710 of 969 posts

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#701

Post by nec4b »

bosie wrote: post #688
nec4b wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hitting a pedestrian when riding a bike at 25 km/h has life threatening consequences for the pedestrian. Pedestrians do die when hit by bikers. Especially elderly which have worse awareness around them and are more fragile.

Not even being snarky but if hitting a pedestrian at 25kmh with a bicycle is so bad, how much worse would it be with a car/truck/bus?

I'm sure flying a plane with 300 people on board while being drunk is worse than driving a car drunk. But that doesn't mean it's now OK to drive under influence, because there is something even worse out there you could do while being drunk.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#702

Post by uoaei »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #612
uoaei wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am dismayed but not surprised at just how much money people will spend on e-bikes to avoid exercise. There are literally millions of decent analog bike frames bouncing around in various corners of . Getting one up and running, and strapping a seat to the front and back as you have done, would be about 10% the cost of a new e-bike, and maintenance would be negligible. Plus, you get to eat whatever you want guilt-fre…

Actually this is not accurate and somewhat bad advice. A normal bicycle frame is designed for... normal use. No need for ebikes but child seats should be used on reenforced frames such as what the Dutch call "Moederfiets", you can also use a 'Transportfiets' frame. You are adding an extra 5 Kg to your front steering tube and another 20 kilos to your back cargo loader. That is not what most frames were designed for. S…

I regularly load 40kg+ on a steel touring frame (a remarkably "normal" bike by all accounts) and it's lasted 12 years so far.

Yes, you shouldn't use a department store bike. I (mistakenly?) assumed this is obvious to this reading crowd.

You sound like you have never worked on a bike before. It is not difficult to add different kinds of kickstands to existing frames. I believe you are quite under-informed on bicycle capacities.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#703

Post by 988747 »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #302
hammock wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's a remarkable statistic If you consider levying a $20-30/day tax to every driver,[1] plus another $12/day if your car is too old,[2] plus $200-600/year to park on public roads,[3] causing people to stop driving as remarkable, then sure. Edit: why the downvotes? [1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10279911/Sadiq-Khan... [2] https://www.carthrottle.com/post/youll-now-be-charged-extra-... [3] https://en.wi…

All that sounds wonderful actually. Cities are for people, not cars.

[dead]

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#704

Post by uoaei »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #559
uoaei wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am dismayed but not surprised at just how much money people will spend on e-bikes to avoid exercise. There are literally millions of decent analog bike frames bouncing around in various corners of . Getting one up and running, and strapping a seat to the front and back as you have done, would be about 10% the cost of a new e-bike, and maintenance would be negligible. Plus, you get to eat whatever you want guilt-fre…

> I am dismayed but not surprised at just how much money people will spend on e-bikes to avoid exercise. I am dismayed at how much people spend on plastic coffee pods just to avoid making a proper coffee! Before I got an ebike, I didn't have confidence of riding on the road proper- > now I know I won't be slowing down to 5 MPH on an uphill, with someone behind me honking incessantly or overtaking dangerously. I insta…

There is a lot to be said for shitty bike infrastructure causing confrontations like this. Yet somehow I've never been hit except once in a right hook, so I'm sure you can pull it off too if you dedicate yourself to it.

I'd like to point out that the carbon footprint of a used bike is a negative number and the out-of-pocket cost is laughably low. I love when people can reduce their emissions by replacing a car with something with much less impact like an e-bike, but those are the exceptions statistically speaking, and it also doesn't delete that car from existence but rather brings about more demand for mining and materials. Buying used e-bikes is also a fine option.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#705

Post by jodrellblank »

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.

The poorer denser city centers (in America) subsidise the wealthier, less dense suburbs. "Suburbia is Subsidized: Here's the Math [ST07]" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#706

Post by jodrellblank »

ars wrote: post #697
bregma wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Farms aren't sub-urbs, farms are rural. Suburbia "lesser-urban" is housing estates. Nothing productive happens there.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/suburbia - "the outer parts of a town, where there are houses, but no large shops, places of work, or places of entertainment"

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#707

Post by mnd999 »

worik wrote: post #638
iams wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Non folding bikes are not allowed on most tube services in central london. The lines that do allow it don't allow it during rush hour.

So how do all the bikes get into central London?

Lots of stations have large cycle racks. They just go from office to station and back again.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#708

Post by uoaei »

mrob wrote: post #632
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually this is not accurate and somewhat bad advice. A normal bicycle frame is designed for... normal use. No need for ebikes but child seats should be used on reenforced frames such as what the Dutch call "Moederfiets", you can also use a 'Transportfiets' frame. You are adding an extra 5 Kg to your front steering tube and another 20 kilos to your back cargo loader. That is not what most frames were designed for. S…

Exactly. Weight distribution makes a big difference to how the bike handles. If you put a lot of weight on the back without balancing it with weight at the front you'll lose grip on the front wheel easily, which can be dangerous. Front wheel skids are almost impossible to control.

That would be a good example of something we call "user error". I am also not surprised that the first instinct of the risk-averse is "make it heavier", but look where that's got us with cars?

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#709

Post by paradox460 »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #466
crote wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is louder: 1 subway train, or 200 cars?

1 subway train. In real tests done in NYC, the mean dbA for subway platforms was 81.1 vs. 76.0 for buses (which, by definition, run on the roads) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2707461/

And Bart makes the NYC subway sound quiet

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#710

Post by ryukafalz »

trgn wrote: post #680
Pxtl wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a middle-ground between suburban sprawl and one-bedroom-apartments in highrises. Dense old-fashioned streetcar suburbs that predate the invention of driveways do a great job of being cyclist and transit friendly despite the fact that every home is a detached SFH.

Yeah, the american streetcar suburb truly is a gem, doesn't really exist on that scale in Europe. Lush, spacious, and verdant, but also walkable, with city feel and city amenities. Always great architecture. Mix of home sizes makes them naturally mixed income. Commercial corridors often preserved their function. So awesome, if only more newer suburbs were like that.

> Mix of home sizes makes them naturally mixed income.

Sadly, I don't think this will last if current trends continue. The town next to mine has a ton of duplexes but it's all zoned single-family now, so you couldn't build those today if you had to.

Post reply on HN