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Barcelona’s Bicibús: hundreds of families biking to school together

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Re: Barcelona’s Bicibús: hundreds of families biking to school together

#161

Post by jseban »

pvaldes wrote: post #93
tjr225 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh. I doubt cycling infrastructure is even a minute fraction of the cost we put into automobile infrastructure. I have no proof but lol let’s call it a hunch. > Why should we cycle more? Only one reason is really valid: save the environment. It’s better for the environment, it’s cheaper, it’s more efficient(more bikes can occupy less space and move more people), it’s fun, it’s good for your body, it’s safer(if we don…

> it’s safer That depends. Not in a crash event. A bike can't match the safety measures that even the dumbest car has today. Hitting an obstacle in a car with seatbelts and airbags, or hitting it in a bike are totally different cases, even at a lower speed.

Yeah it's the least safe mode of transportation, driving, public transport and walking are all safer than cycling. "But it's the fault of the cars", no cyclists have tons of accidents by themselves and amongst each other, that walking and public transport completely avoids.

Re: Barcelona’s Bicibús: hundreds of families biking to school together

#162

Post by unglaublich »

jseban wrote: post #60
unglaublich wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A car in a city center, _that_ is the unnecessary luxury. > Until then, it's at the expense of general mobility which is a really big downside in cities that are already crowded and transport is slow. Automobiles are the sole reason why general mobility is so poor in cities that are crowded (with cars) and where transport is slow (due to cars). Please take a look at cities in Denmark or The Netherlands. Cycling is th…

> Cycling is the primary mode of transportation in their city centers. It's not when there's cold rain in the winter, guarantee it.

Actually, it is. It often doesn't rain for hours on end, so people work a bit longer or start a bit earlier to avoid the rain. Otherwise, there's umbrellas, ponchos and plain old acceptance of the fact that you will be a bit wet for an hour. My dad used to say when it was pouring: "You're not made out of sugar, are you?" And yes, public transport is busier on some days than on others, is that a problem? How is that any different from motorists on roads?

Re: Barcelona’s Bicibús: hundreds of families biking to school together

#163

Post by unglaublich »

jseban wrote: post #59
unglaublich wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A car in a city center, _that_ is the unnecessary luxury. > Until then, it's at the expense of general mobility which is a really big downside in cities that are already crowded and transport is slow. Automobiles are the sole reason why general mobility is so poor in cities that are crowded (with cars) and where transport is slow (due to cars). Please take a look at cities in Denmark or The Netherlands. Cycling is th…

A bike lane that's only used when the weather is nice, when you already have a subway? No _that_ is unnecessary luxury. Take the subway if you hate cars.

Why take the car if you already have a subway? What a strange statement.

> Take the subway if you hate cars.

Why do you think that preferring to ride a bike makes one hate cars?

You can be both a cyclists _and_ a motorist. It's not a competition or a cult!

Re: Barcelona’s Bicibús: hundreds of families biking to school together

#164

Post by jseban »

unglaublich wrote: post #162
jseban wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cycling is the primary mode of transportation in their city centers. It's not when there's cold rain in the winter, guarantee it.

Actually, it is. It often doesn't rain for hours on end, so people work a bit longer or start a bit earlier to avoid the rain. Otherwise, there's umbrellas, ponchos and plain old acceptance of the fact that you will be a bit wet for an hour. My dad used to say when it was pouring: "You're not made out of sugar, are you?" And yes, public transport is busier on some days than on others, is that a problem? How is that a…

I highly doubt that, it speaks completely against my lifelong experience as a cyclists. The vast majority of all people are fair weathered cyclists and bike lanes are mostly empty half of the year.

You get cold, wet and uncomfortable, and have to be very flexible with time. Even if you can "deal with it", it's still very real negative aspects, and why would you put up with that if you don't have to?

My point is that you have to have full capacity public transport anyway so the bike lanes are really redundant, a "nicety" and as such I think they should have little space and low priority, it makes perfect sense.

Why don't we have skateboarding lanes? Running lanes? Horseback riding lanes? It's fun, it's healthy, it's good for the environment! Because it's impractical, slow and inefficient, just like cycling is.

Re: Barcelona’s Bicibús: hundreds of families biking to school together

#165

Post by VBprogrammer »

ashtonkem wrote: post #135
mrexroad wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

?? I spent 3 months studying there a while back. To me, Barcelona felt safer there than most large American cities that I’ve lived in. One “problem” was petty crime that seemed to mostly target tourists—-vigilance was indeed the solution… but more of “mind your surroundings” than “war zone.”

Every city I’ve ever been to in my entire life is more dangerous for tourists than residents. They’re easy targets, since they usually have expensive gear and don’t understand the area. I wouldn’t judge a city based on the experience of tourists in it.

I haven't been to Barcelona in something approaching 10 years and I only spent a week there when I did. I had an amazing time and it was one of the most exciting cities I've ever visited.

That said, the amount of criminality on show to your average tourist was surprising. Offers of drugs and being accosted by prostitutes in the street was common place, not to mention lower level crime like graffiti and people selling beers on the street.

I think someone would be forgiven for coming away with the wrong impression of it as a city.

Re: Barcelona’s Bicibús: hundreds of families biking to school together

#166

Post by thriftwy »

darkwater wrote: post #100
thriftwy wrote: post #68

Why is their school so far that they have to bike? Ideally you should just walk.

You just uncovered one of the issues in Barcelona: getting a public school place near where you are living, especially in the Eixample district (the one where this initiative is being done) which is super crowded and with very few real estate available for public buildings.

I wonder how they managed to forget schools when building this district from scratch in the XX century.

Re: Barcelona’s Bicibús: hundreds of families biking to school together

#167

Post by noahtallen »

TomK32 wrote: post #51
inglor_cz wrote: post #3

It is my experience that two things correlate positively with widespread adoption of biking: a. Relatively flat city terrain. (Not the case in Prague, for example; a lot of the residential areas are at much higher elevation than the city centre.) b. Moderate temperatures at both ends of the summer-winter scale. Most people won't bike to work at -20 or +35 Celsius.

Ebikes are more and more common, they already make up half the sales of new bikes in many markets. That's the hills dealt with. And in regards to cold temperatures, if the only time you daily spend in the cold is the few meters from your house's door to your car's door and then to your work's door, then you just think it is cold because you aren't living it like someone who's active and raises their body temperature…

Here’s a video with more about why biking in the cold and snow isn’t as bad as we make it out to be: https://youtu.be/Uhx-26GfCBU

The gist is, like usual, biking in the snow is fine when the infrastructure is equipped to make it an effective mode of transportation. It would suck most places in North America because there is next to no dedicated bike infrastructure besides painted gutters. Those obviously don’t get plowed correctly, so it’s terrible. When the major problems like that are handled, it’s fine.

Re: Barcelona’s Bicibús: hundreds of families biking to school together

#168

Post by secretsatan »

Similar, in Switzerland they have a "Pedibus", mostly for small kids, but they walk a route accompanied by a few adults, picking up kids on the way till you get these long lines of kids walking to school> Link (In french) https://pedibus.ch/fr/

Re: Barcelona’s Bicibús: hundreds of families biking to school together

#170

Post by brailsafe »

bserge wrote: post #134
brailsafe wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have never ridden one, but I assume you could easily crash into a person, car, curb, signpost, other scooterers, hit a rock etc.. Simple instructions don't solve anything, and represent a design flaw. If the design doesn't inherently address the problem you want to solve, then text definitely won't.

Well, I'm saying that because people don't even realize they need to treat the road somewhat like a car driver. Like, literally, they install the app and get on the scooter and do 20km/h on the opposite side then are surprised that there's people and bikes coming right into them. A simple "stick to your right" would help a lot of them imo. And it's really hard to crash one ime, but then again I somehow never fell or…

Ya idk that sounds pretty bad tbh. It is arguably a result of poor road design as well, but some people will just do some bizarre stuff.
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