351–360 of 756 posts
Would anyone here like to recommend (or disrecommend) any e-bike models?
There are other good ebikes, but if you don't already know them you also don't know how to service them and so they won't last long.
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I take you don't have kids to take to school and you get all your groceries delivered to your door by someone on an e-bike?
I take it you didn't bother to read the words commute and job, which implies travel to a workplace to conduct work. While you can combine a commute with a trip to buy groceries, if it happens to be on the way, and drop off/pick up kids at school, if it is on the way and the schedule works out that way, for most that's simply not reality. Note that my post said nothing about giving up one's vehicles, it only mentioned…
I am all for remote work, but even if I had to be commuting to work, I'd be doing by taking the bike, bus or train like I've done my entire life.
I know these exist, but I don't think they've caught on for whatever reason.
I would be cool to see some kind of federal incentive to buy a super small electric car instead of a full-size EV.
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Link (to REI gen 1.2 ebike): rei.com/product/190640/co-op-cycles-generation-e12-electric-bike How fast'll this lil'baby go, for a fat 250lb'er like me?
> a fat 250lb'er Honestly, I'd worry more about that seat. Bike seats can pinch nerves even if you're not a big guy, and if you are, you probably want to be careful with a narrow seat like that.
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Not everyone lives in a perfect temperate coastal environment that doesn't get winter. And no, European winters are not really that cold and their use of bikes is not a good comparison. Especially since the distances involved are far smaller for them. Cars are vital in many regions.
In North America, the farther north you go - and thus the colder the winters - the more people bike year round. It is a small minority for sure, but cold is not a problem on a bike as they prove. (I haven't got the guts to bike when it is -20, but that is something some do)
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That's very elitist. Not everyone lives in large cities with whole mass transit systems or works the usual 9-5. Even in large urban areas it's tricky to get around past a certain time. I remember working unexpected shifts and later staring at closed metro stations, having to walk in the rain to get home. No thanks. Also, some people like cars. Deal with it, i'm not ditching for an e-bike or whatever. An electric moto…
> That's very elitist. No, it is a fact. That it doesn’t align with the choices you’ve made in your life doesn’t change that. > Not everyone lives in large cities with whole mass transit systems or works the usual 9-5. Tell me you’ve never been outside the US before without telling me you’ve never been outside the US before. Joking aside (there are plenty of other countries with transit as bad as the US), plenty of o…
There's no reason to believe this.
Unsustainability is only ever a result of perpetually growing demand, or demand growing faster than technological innovation. Global population growth rate is projected to stagnate in 100 years, so it's a moot point, and from a purely engineering perspective, emissions are a solved problem. The real issue is that emission are poised to rise in the short-run because demand is growing so fast in east Asia (and to a lesser extent through immigration to the West).
This is a near-term problem, unsustainability doesn't belong in the conversaiton. The question is really whether we want to weather that strain with current trajectory, or spend and implement policies to mitigate the climate effects during that period.
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> average annual ownership cost of $12000 Lots of people buy luxury cars, driving up that figure, so it hardly matters when we are talking about marginal utility for someone, shall we say, disadvantaged. Which I’m guessing you’ve never been? My annual cost of ownership on my car is like $2500. I can sleep in my car too, and store clothes and food securely in it. Oh and get on demand heat & A/C access. If you don’t ha…
In "tell me you're American without telling me you're American" we have "building urban sprawl and car dependency is great because you might lose your job to at-will employment and your home to medical bills and have no social safety nets and resort to living in your car and /then/ wouldn't it be shitty if you didn't have one?". Like, maybe there's a different ... way things could be? It can go with the thread on Sig…
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I totally agree about the noise and health benefits, but to me it's more a matter of respect and safety. In the U.S., we see too many pedestrians die each year. Our roads are built for cars only, with everything else as an afterthought. When I cross the street, drivers act like it's my responsibility to stay out of their way. If some people need to use cars for mobility or business reasons, that is fine with me. But…
> If some people need to use cars for mobility or business reasons, that is fine with me. Definitely. For stuff like that, emergency services, delivery, trash collection, etc. larger vehicles on streets are totally fine and I think most would agree. I don't even necessarily think we should ban all cars, but we should definitely stop incentivizing them by heavily subsidizing car infrastructure with city budgets funded…
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Remember when 20 years ago if anybody had doubts with the way things were heading we were told "there's no war on cars you conspiracy theorist, nobody's going to come for your cars you conspiracy theorist"? After 20 years they've made enough progress shaping the narrative that they no longer need to lie and hide their agenda they can just put it in the open.
The thing that continues to happen is that people living in rural towns think that cities changing their mobility priorities to decenter cars is a personal affront. People asking to properly account for the negative externalities of car ownership can be construed as a war on cars through taxation, or as a removal of a subsidy. The only difference is framing.
Look at the context, OP at the top of the comment tree. They are explicit in asking for a ban, not merely making alternatives more attractive.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: building the future around cars of any kind is completely unsustainable. We cannot reproduce the rates of rich world car ownership in the developing world without mass catastrophe (raw materials/labor needed for construction and maintenance, raw materials/labor/space needed for roads and parking lots, literal tons of waste--batteries, tires, steel, plastic, foam--, energy ne…
That's very elitist. Not everyone lives in large cities with whole mass transit systems or works the usual 9-5. Even in large urban areas it's tricky to get around past a certain time. I remember working unexpected shifts and later staring at closed metro stations, having to walk in the rain to get home. No thanks. Also, some people like cars. Deal with it, i'm not ditching for an e-bike or whatever. An electric moto…
Have you been to the suburbs of Japan? Or France? Towns created before cars were invented. Lots of single family homes, and a smattering of small vehicles used for work.
It can work, but we've built huge car-required cities and towns and lifestyles and it's a sunk cost fallacy. And it feels "normal" to us, but it's not. It's bad for the environment, and it's bad for us.
Hours spent in a car is directly related to obesity. Exhaust fumes and tire particulate matter is directly related to asthma and cancer. Your car is killing you.