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280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

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Re: 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

#471

Post by jodrellblank »

concordDance wrote: post #304
jodrellblank wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In large part, people want what we are taught to want. A hundred billion humans lived and died without ever knowing about or wanting Coca Cola or a Ford F150s or a McMansion or a photo album of their children or a poster of Marilyn Monroe in primary colours or a Fabergé egg or a KFC bucket or a private jet or a luxury yacht. Such things didn't exist, and nobody suffered a moment for it. The things we want as animals…

This argument is overly general, allowing you to dismiss any expressed desires as "not real". There is, in a sense, genuine suffering from not having a dishwasher or a bike or a basketball or a poster of the horsehead nebula even though we lived without them for millenia.

I'm not saying they aren't real desires, I'm saying that "the future can be whatever we want it to be" is hackable by advertisers and we should want some defense against that.

Re: 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

#472

Post by JAlexoid »

j45 wrote: post #222
willio58 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fully agreed. And while everything you said is super important and true, one piece that really makes me pumped about this movement to ditch cars is more around quality of life. If you have to get in a car and drive to a parking lot somewhere to get groceries, commute to work, go out with friends, get healthcare, etc. You will obviously live a less healthy life both physically but also mentally because of it. Walking…

Too many cities have physically been designed around driving

Have you seen pictures of Atlanta from 1930ies and now?

There are two major interstates cutting thought the city. TWO!

Re: 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

#473

Post by bluGill »

cbozeman wrote: post #306
estebank wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've identified a problem: public transport in some places sucks. But then veered away from the obvious solution: invest in it to make it not suck.

Public transit does not work in a place like Montana or Wyoming. Sorry. Too large, too sparsely populated. Same reason it won't work for most of Texas either. It's fine in Dallas or Austin, parts of Fort Worth... it doesn't scale to Lubbock or New Braunfels. A lot of people have no interest in living in your concrete jungle... myself included.

Public transit would work in a lot more places than you give it credit for. Sure Wyoming isn't dense enough, but that is because nobody lives there. If your town has 10,000 or more people public transit could work and would be cheaper than cars. However it requires a large investment to make it work. (the town of 10,000 can't work alone - it needs all the other towns in an hour drive to also have transit and a network of transit between them)

Re: 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

#474

Post by KennyBlanken »

cbozeman wrote: post #306
estebank wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've identified a problem: public transport in some places sucks. But then veered away from the obvious solution: invest in it to make it not suck.

Public transit does not work in a place like Montana or Wyoming. Sorry. Too large, too sparsely populated. Same reason it won't work for most of Texas either. It's fine in Dallas or Austin, parts of Fort Worth... it doesn't scale to Lubbock or New Braunfels. A lot of people have no interest in living in your concrete jungle... myself included.

> Public transit does not work in a place like Montana or Wyoming. Sorry. Too large, too sparsely populated.

And individual car ownership only works in those places because of the massive federal welfare they receive in the form of multi-billion-dollar federal highway grants.

The federal government spends over $1800 per person per year on roadways in Montana.

Re: 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

#475

Post by shortcake27 »

obscurette wrote: post #445
shortcake27 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not quite that simple. Helmets are deterrents - Melbourne is a fantastic example where cycling is less common than it should be and public bike schemes keep failing specifically because of the requirement to wear a helmet. Companies like Lime try to solve this by attaching a helmet to the scooter. 90% of the time the helmet is missing. Yeah I could spend 30 minutes walking to every scooter in the area trying to…

Eastern Europe. My sister works at ER and they are calling cyclists without helmets "organ donor wannabes". The point is that unlike bikers, many of these cyclists don't end up as organ donors and/or "fatality" in statistics. They only manage to cause permanent damage to their head/brain.

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but people who work in ER have skewed opinions because they’re only dealing with the people who end up with serious injuries.

You need to look at the bigger picture - first of all what’s the probability of having an accident, then within that probability what’s the difference between wearing a helmet or not. That then needs to be compared against the risks of staying sedentary. It’s complicated.

Re: 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

#476

Post by k_dumez »

vikramkr wrote: post #87
k_dumez wrote: post #17

"In the United States, a staggering 60% of all car trips cover less than 10km." Being lucky enough to live in a walkable city (NYC) this is insane to me. The world is so car-brained.

Uhh, 10 kilometers is a LOT. I would not walk 6.2 miles for groceries. Or to work. Or to most things frankly

Sorry, to clarify using "walkable" as a word to encompass good public-transportation as well. I can walk to the subway, and get somewhere 6.2 miles away easily then walk to my final destination (something I do frequently).

Re: 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

#477

Post by joe_the_user »

jordanbeiber wrote: post #165
nicoburns wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should be able to get bike insurance. I pay £7/month to insure mine, which is lot cheaper than car insurance!

Bike will get stolen anyway which is really annoying no matter the insurance. Not saying bike isn’t preferred to car, it’s just something I always consider. I’ve got a bike AND a car, I still take the car on certain trips where the bike would make more sense logistically because it feels like 50/50 it’ll get stolen.

Some people "feel" like the chance of an accident driving a car is very high even when it isn't. If you "feel" like theft is very likely when it isn't, that is your problem. And I've had several bike stolen over the years (include being mugged with my bike) and it's taught me to take appropriate precautions to the point I feel fairly safe.

Re: 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

#478

Post by stetrain »

raffraffraff wrote: post #82
stetrain wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. If in the big picture we want fewer people to need to take a car for each trip, it would be a good idea to have towns and cities where grocery stores and houses are closer together. And of course not everyone wants to live in such a place, but plenty of people would. And in the US this is fairly rare compared to many other parts of the world.

Who wouldn't want to live close to the grocery store? Here in Dublin I live in a house with gardens front and back, 5km from the center of the city, with a grassy park in front of my house (football field size), yet I can walk to 4 different supermarkets. The furthest is about 15m walk, the nearest is 10m. And I've got a few small convenience shops even closer (like, under 5m walk). This is what I call "perfect", and…

Oh I would definitely prefer it. I think a lot of people would. So many Americans haven't lived that life though that it can be hard to imagine.

Re: 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

#479

Post by david-gpu »

FredPret wrote: post #440
david-gpu wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What false dichotomy? Cars, even EVs, are the main cause of small particulates in the air of our cities. Cars are the #1 cause of death of children, followed by drowning. Pedestrian deaths are actually on the rise for the past ten years or so in the US and Canada due to the increasing popularity of large SUVs and pickup trucks, which have poor visibility and blunt hoods. It's a disaster for those of us outside the ca…

If you think cars are a disaster, and that Toronto is somehow more car-centric than "most of the developed world", I think you should hop on the next bus to Pearson and go see some of the developed and undeveloped world. I've lived on three continents, and Toronto is the safest, cleanest city I've ever been in. You could totally make living there without a car work (if not comfortably). There are like 2-3 cities on t…

I have lived in three countries as well, and Toronto is neither the safest or cleanest city where I have been. So much for personal anecdotes, then.

You yourself admit that once you bought a car in Toronto "Life became 10x easier", so which way is it?

As for living there without a car, that's all I've ever done, so I'm quite familiar with the pros and cons. As I said earlier, I have no doubt that it would be convenient to live in Toronto with a car, it's just that I refuse to become part of the problem.

Also, just because it is not as bad as the worst places we can think of doesn't mean it is any good. Just look at the number of children and women riding their bikes for daily errands, as it is a good rule of thumb for how cycling friendly a place really is.

As for their economic consequences, car-centric suburbs are objectively a net drain to a city's coffers regardless of our personal opinion [0].

[0] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/14/americas-growt...

Re: 280M e-bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars

#480

Post by epistasis »

riversflow wrote: post #332
epistasis wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always hilarious to me when people driving $60k vehicles ask me how much the ebike cost and say "that's expensive". The ebike costs less than they pay in insurance a year, much less maintenance, gas, etc. Some people have weird ideas about cars being "for regular people" while any money spent on a bicycle is a luxury.

I’ve driven a $3k car for almost 15 years. It has needed 3 sets of tires, 2 sets of front struts, a brake job, new power steering lines and a timing belt. I did all of that work, less the tires, myself. I spend about $1000 a year on insurance and registration. The utility I get out of the car, in absolute terms, is incomparable to my ~$1500 bicycle(that I purchased for utility and even commuted on for several years).…

So you are not driving a $60k vehicle, living a life of luxury?

I regularly bring things with me on my ebike because it has plenty of room to strap stuff on, and baskets that are handy for throwing stuff into it. I have a cheap bike trailer for moving bigger things that would require, say, a trunk.

You were not the type of person who I am complaining about, but bikes are a great money saving device for most people, and should not be viewed as luxury items.

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