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

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

#591

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Nov 17, 2023, 10:07 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #520

camgunz wrote: post #83

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…

I think the hardest thing to get across is that _LIFE IS BETTER_ this way. Having 2,000 kgs of metal hurtling by at 80 kph half a meter from your six your old's head while you walk to school SUCKS. It's horrible. But hopping with my 4 year old in the cargo bike and my 6 year old on her own bike is sheer, utter, bliss. Little kids ringing their bells and chatting with new friends on the way to school is a joy that I f…

[deleted]

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

#592

Post by estebank » Fri, Nov 17, 2023, 10:07 PM UTC

hot_gril wrote: post #581

ryukafalz wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And to say that "the bus should always come" is not exactly an argument in favour of transit. We all know the damn bus should come. But sometimes, it just doesn't. A big reason that the bus doesn't come is that it's gotten stuck in traffic. As in, behind cars. Give the buses their own space so they don't get stuck behind cars and they can be a whole lot more reliable. Of course, since we've handed over essentially…

SF has bus-only lanes everywhere. The bus is still very slow, even if you don't have to wait, because of all the extra stops. I'm looking at visiting parts of western Europe where supposedly public transit is good, but actually it's far slower than driving. The only way driving ever ends up being less convenient is if there's constrained parking. It's just very hard to beat a car that can go directly from point A to…

> SF has bus-only lanes everywhere.

I wouldn't say everywhere, but wherever they were introduced they reduced travel time significantly, and traffic in those corridors didn't get any worse. The 38AX became redundant after the Geary bus lane because the 38R is just as fast.

> The only way driving ever ends up being less convenient is if there's constrained parking. It's just very hard to beat a car that can go directly from point A to B.

Or if everyone else also decides to drive. Traffic continues to get worse until alternative ways to travel become faster. If there are no alternative ways to travel, traffic becomes worse and worse without bounds beyond human patience. Paradoxically it also means that improving transit travel times also improves driving times.

> What also beats mass transit is walking, if a city is laid out such that you don't usually need to walk very far.

There Venn diagram of people that want walkable cities and better transit might as well be a circle.

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

#593

Post by lotsoweiners » Fri, Nov 17, 2023, 10:08 PM UTC

Glide wrote: post #208

dv_dt wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such an interesting comment to me because it gets so much right on how to motivate ditching cars. If you were funding a campaign to eliminate cars to reduce carbon emissions I think you would meet with widespread resistance. If you promote an idea of a higher quality life that is possible w/o cars and explore that - in the end I think you'd end up removing many more cars than the first approach.

It's a positive vision of where society can go rather than having to sacrifice and buckle down. Do people not remember riding bikes as kids? Riding a bike is _still_ fun. It never stopped being fun. Now you can do that and get to work.

I remember riding a bike to go places as a kid/teen. I used to ride a couple miles to a CD store, convenience store, etc all of the time. If I had been aloud to drive a car I would have said fuck this piece of shit bike and thrown it immediately in the dumpster for the convenience of a car.

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

#594

Post by bluGill » Fri, Nov 17, 2023, 10:12 PM UTC

ryukafalz wrote: post #568

FredPret wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These problems are inherent in buses. Buses will always be open to the entire public. If "the public" includes raving lunatics, then they will find their way onto the buses. To build a better network, you need to either throw a vast amount of money at it, or have a super-dense city. The public transit in London & NYC is merely OK. In other cities, it will always be prohibitively expensive. And to say that "the bus sh…

> And to say that "the bus should always come" is not exactly an argument in favour of transit. We all know the damn bus should come. But sometimes, it just doesn't. A big reason that the bus doesn't come is that it's gotten stuck in traffic. As in, behind cars. Give the buses their own space so they don't get stuck behind cars and they can be a whole lot more reliable. Of course, since we've handed over essentially…

If the bus gets stuck in traffic that means there is enough demand to run a subway (often as an elevated train). A bus is the easy solution to routes where there isn't much traffic and there isn't as many people who want to ride. (you don't need many people on a bus to pay for it)

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

#595

Post by q1w2 » Fri, Nov 17, 2023, 10:12 PM UTC

soperj wrote: post #223

ackfoobar wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many aspects to the word "efficiency". Space efficiency - how wide it takes to reach a certain throughput - train wins Time efficiency - how much time it takes to get from point A to point B - barring traffic, car wins Energy efficiency - how much energy it takes - bike wins Your argument is just as strong without the subjective ranking of efficiency.

Majority of my time commuting the bike wins every time, mostly because I'm commuting at the same time as everyone else.

Not an option any more when you need to start dropping kids off at school first - not to mention the weather and safety.

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

#596

Post by ryukafalz » Fri, Nov 17, 2023, 10:13 PM UTC

admax88qqq wrote: post #577

camgunz wrote: post #83

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…

> start making it way way more easier to get by w/o a car. How exactly could do this by 2030/2050? So much of the existing infrastructure is built at a low density with the expectation of having a car to get around. What do we have to do? Rebuild all our cities at Japan level densities so we can have reasonable tranit options? Ban living in those cities and force everyone to move to a few high density cities? Rebuild…

Starting with the areas that already have sufficient density but don't have safe bike infrastructure: build a network of safe bike infrastructure.

The area I live in is like this. Philly and its surrounding suburbs are absolutely already dense enough to make cycling a practical way to get around, but it's not particularly safe or pleasant to do so.

So there's a lot of low-hanging fruit in places that are already pretty dense. But in addition to that, upzone broadly and remove parking minimums. I think there's a good chance that leads to higher densities pretty quickly in areas with high demand.

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

#597

Post by topaz0 » Fri, Nov 17, 2023, 10:15 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #566

willio58 wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually on board for this! If you want to live that way you should be able to. But, you should be held responsible for paying your share of the infrastructure required to support such living. As long as that is understood, I don't really think there's anything inherently bad with what you describe. But I doubt people who love living the suburban car-centric life would like to see their taxes for infrastructure d…

Those costs aren't really all that high, and are easily outweighed by the dramatically lower costs in the suburbs. Everything is cheaper there, land, buildings, repairs, goods and services. Cities might look good in this narrow measure, but costs are higher and wages are higher, which means cities consume far more goods. Suburbs also tend to produce more thing in real (i.e. not monetary) terms. They have far more man…

I think you might be using a very narrow definition of "city". There are tons of small cities around the country where you can choose between a downtown apartment, a townhome in a development, separate small house on a half lot in a canopied neighborhood, or a big house with a half acre of land, all within easy biking distance of the city center. And even those 1000 sq ft houses on half lots can and do hold the old car that you want to be able to wrench on.

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

#598

Post by zimpenfish » Fri, Nov 17, 2023, 10:16 PM UTC

Rebelgecko wrote: post #442

zimpenfish wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They tend to be rather heavy That's my problem - I need an e-bike because my knee is shattered but there's nowhere to store one safely outside and we live on the 3rd floor. Even my previous 10kg normal bike (with working knees!) was a faff getting up the stairs. A 20-25kg e-bike is an absolute no-no.

Not sure if it's an option for you, but some people in my complex put little sheds in their parking spots that can fit a bike

Alas, parking spots are a) only assigned when you have a car (gotta love UK bureaucracy!) and b) hugely wait-listed around here. There are garages and little locker things but, again, hugely wait-listed. Some estates around here have installed those green corrugated metal bike mini-sheds but, annoyingly, the people in charge around here seem to hate the idea.

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

#599

Post by hot_gril » Fri, Nov 17, 2023, 10:17 PM UTC

estebank wrote: post #592

hot_gril wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SF has bus-only lanes everywhere. The bus is still very slow, even if you don't have to wait, because of all the extra stops. I'm looking at visiting parts of western Europe where supposedly public transit is good, but actually it's far slower than driving. The only way driving ever ends up being less convenient is if there's constrained parking. It's just very hard to beat a car that can go directly from point A to…

> SF has bus-only lanes everywhere. I wouldn't say everywhere, but wherever they were introduced they reduced travel time significantly, and traffic in those corridors didn't get any worse. The 38AX became redundant after the Geary bus lane because the 38R is just as fast. > The only way driving ever ends up being less convenient is if there's constrained parking. It's just very hard to beat a car that can go directl…

> Paradoxically it also means that improving transit travel times also improves driving times.

This is part of what I'm saying. If mass transit is improved, more people use it, so driving is still faster.

> There Venn diagram of people that want walkable cities and better transit might as well be a circle.

Walkable city works well with public transit along longer and simpler routes, like between cities or cross-town express. I'm not interested in public transit that stops every 2 blocks.

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

#600

Post by Gud » Fri, Nov 17, 2023, 10:19 PM UTC

patagonia wrote: post #530

Gud wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t need to own a car to do this. The simple fact is, public transport in most places sucks. I’ve moved to Zürich, and there is no way I’ll drive a car willingly again. Taking the tram everywhere is extremely liberating.

I lived in New York City for 5 years. I loved it. I didn't own a car. I took the subway, cabs, trains, and planes everywhere. But, I didn't go camping or own a boat. I live in South Carolina now where I tow my catamaran to different regattas or just to the beach for fun. I go camping with an amount of gear that would be completely unreasonable to take on a train. Public transportation does not allow for the same acti…

I am not saying no one will never need a car again.

What I am saying, is that due to poor planning, a lot of people need to use cars when it shouldn’t be needed.

Most European cities that I have visited kind of get public transport 80% right.