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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

#671

Post by treyd »

webdood90 wrote: post #435
jfim wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was fun until I got hit by a car when biking back from work. Now I just drive to work due to the risk of injury from distracted drivers and getting doored in bike lanes. It's really unfortunate because I'd rather bike, but the infrastructure in the US even in relatively bike friendly cities here is dangerous.

if you're not already, you should advocate for the infrastructure in your city. these things do not happen on their own, we must push for the future we desire.

This! Car drivers like to complain about the cost of building bike infrastructure. But if you look at the statistics, bike infrastructure is like 1/100th of the cost per mile as car infrastructure.

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

#672

Post by gpm »

nordsieck wrote: post #73
baxuz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's closer to 6x.

I mean, the number will really depend on how fast people are biking. Over 20mph, efficiency starts to really take a hit. Unless you use some sort of crazy shell.

Cycling anywhere near 20mph is beyond most peoples physical capabilities... with the small exception of steep downhills where the energy is "free" (at least compared with walking where you capture none of it) anyways.

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

#674

Post by fsckboy »

mdgrech23 wrote: post #437
kikokikokiko wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Notable exception being Tokyo" The fact that the japanese in general have no children at all makes this notable exception not be one at all. Humans are not meant to live on top of one another. To me the correlation between fertility and urbanization is a clear sign that living on the burbs is a plus for quality of life and the perpetuation of the human race. Cars are just a necessary tool for being a human in 2023.

Living in sky scrapers sucks and is not enjoyable. Same with living in suburbia. The sweet spot is densely packed urban areas that are built on the human scale.

living in skyscrapers is no different than living in any apartment building, except the larger number of apartments with nice views.

what modern skyscapers are doing wrong is putting in only large-footprint high-end retail (like department stores) on the street level, or nothing at all. A zoning change to require small retail stalls at the street level would go a long way to making cities more livable. And all those people living upstairs generate a lot of foot traffic to help all sorts of businesses thrive. (what I'm talking about overall is what makes midtown NY so unpleasant compared to other NYC neighborhoods)

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

#676

Post by hunter-gatherer »

jackson1442 wrote: post #626
vel0city wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was shocked by how walkable it was. I don't see why it would be shocking. It was a city for nearly 3,000 years before cars arrived.

People who grew up in a typical post-ww2 american suburb may not have ever stayed somewhere that doesn't depend entirely on cars to get around outside of manufactured spaces like theme parks.

The American suburbian hellscape is real. I live in one. As far as I can tell the only solution is to burn everything down and start over. I'm open to suggestions though.

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

#677

Post by CalRobert »

jfim wrote: post #651
webdood90 wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you're not already, you should advocate for the infrastructure in your city. these things do not happen on their own, we must push for the future we desire.

That's a good idea. What do you think is a good starting point for this?

Strongtowns.org has good resources

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

#678

Post by black_13 »

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…

[dead]

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

#679

Post by dreamcompiler »

I'm a big e-bike fan but they are not a universal magic bullet. To be practical for daily needs you must be

--In a city or otherwise have a fairly short commute (i.e. less than 20 miles; probably less than 10 for most people)

--Where it's usually not raining or freezing

--Where riding a bike is safe

--Where you have a way to bring the bike indoors or otherwise protect it from theft at your destination without needing a lock that weighs as much as the bike.

There are a great many places in the world that meet those criteria, but there are also a great many that don't. And a huge number of the "don't" places are in the US, unfortunately.

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

#680

Post by Qwertious »

lovepronmostly wrote: post #619
mdgrech23 wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're leaving how a key part, at least in America which is racism. Whites ran to the suburbs to escape particular groups and quite frankly still do albeit now it's more in the form of urban sprawl.

This is BS. People go to suburbs because they want a nice house, not because they are trying to run away from race. I grew up in a mix-race suburb. I loved my houses and my friends houses. We had great times on our cul-de-sac since it didn't allow through traffic it was safe to play in the street. We loved our backyard pool. We loved our garage that had a radial saw and a large tool desk. We loved our large 30x20ft f…

Historically, suburbs absolutely were motivated by racism - it's called "white flight".

Today, it usually isn't about racism, it's mostly just continuing status-quo trends without question. But it's important to not put the initial motivation of those trends up on a pedestal.

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