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We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

citylab.com

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Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#171

Post by theaeolist »

inertiatic wrote: post #66
jerven wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same way you carry your car up the stairs park it in the bike garage or your car parking spot.

My car gets parked across the street from my apartment building. Doesn't get stolen and doesn't care about rain. My bike spent a single winter out on my balcony after we needed the space inside the apartment for baby stuff. It's now rusty in multiple spots. My previous bike, I left on the small back yard of my last apartment, locked up. It got stolen a few months after I started doing that. So again, this is not feas…

I don't know... by a cover to put on it? https://www.bakfiets.com/accessoires/cargobike-long/all-over...

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#172

Post by erik_seaberg »

mdibiase wrote: post #113
paganel wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copenhagen doesn’t have 40 degrees Celsius heatwaves in the summer nor winter blizzards that make you feel like you’re in Siberia, while places like the US East Coast (and I guess even the Chicago area in the Midwest) have them both.

If the argument is that it's unbearable to commute by bike in scorching heat, I would argue you could still bike and ask your employer to install showers at your workplace. That's how it's done in the Netherlands, where most (modern-ish) offices have showers next to enclosed bike parking facilities.

When companies are leasing space and skimping on office walls, major plumbing expansions are unlikely. We can't even get more toilets.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#173

Post by jl2718 »

I love bikes. Obsessed bike commuter for many years. Anyway...

Maybe the big engineering project he's looking for is parking garages to get the parked cars off the street. Maybe also block side streets to reduce intersections.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#174

Post by sunstone »

While it sounds preposterous right now this problem will soon solve itself with already built "bike lanes". And bicycles are not the solution.

The solution, as this article touches on, is light weight electric transport using the existing road structure. There's a strong indication of this future in the fact that last year the Dutch bought more electric bikes than normal bikes in total. And they paid twice as much for their electric bikes ($2000) than they did for their pedal bikes. Let that sink in: The Dutch are already starting to abandon their pedal bikes. This is the future of urban transport: lightweight electrics.

One underappreciated, but critical aspect of electrics is their lack of exhaust fumes. This will allow much more of city roads to be covered or even inside. With electrics you could park inside almost everywhere.

Electrics will soon start to invade the "slow lane" of cities with bikes and mopeds. Even a cheap electric bike already feels much safer in urban car traffic than a pedal bike because it has super fast acceleration from a dead stop and therefore can ride in regular traffic without being an impediment or needing its own lane.

If you want to lead this revolution forget about city council; buy yourself an electric bike and ride it in regular traffic with a hi-viz vest. The more people that do this the sooner the transition will happen. The current urban roads are the 'bike' lanes of tomorrow.

(One thing city councils could usefully do right away is to immediately ban any fossil fuel motors under 125 cc from their roads.)

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#175

Post by briandear »

enriquto wrote: post #68
inertiatic wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My car gets parked across the street from my apartment building. Doesn't get stolen and doesn't care about rain. My bike spent a single winter out on my balcony after we needed the space inside the apartment for baby stuff. It's now rusty in multiple spots. My previous bike, I left on the small back yard of my last apartment, locked up. It got stolen a few months after I started doing that. So again, this is not feas…

> My car gets parked across the street from my apartment building. Offtopic, but this has to end. I do not understand how it is socially acceptable to put huge pieces of your private property on the public streets. You cannot just put your washing machine on the street because you have nowhere else to put it! Why can you do that with a car?

Because I pay taxes for those spaces — often I even pay for the parking space itself. I pay gasoline taxes to pay for those roads. What gasoline taxes are bikes paying to use the roads? Are bikes paying registration fees? Tolls? Are they getting mandatory inspections each year?

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#176

Post by TulliusCicero »

chrisco255 wrote: post #83

This article paints the interstate highway system as some sort of evil incarnation without even giving so much as a breath to the idea that the Interstate highway system is one of the largest and most successful civil works projects of all time. The Romans had their aquaducts. The Americans have their highways. Prior to the Interstate system, it would take as much as two months to travel coast to coast. Eisenhower wa…

But Eisenhower wanted the interstate system to go between cities, not through cities. And it's the latter that's the real problem.

That we have freeways between cities is no real issue for bikes, in Germany they have the Autobahn system and they still have reasonably bike friendly cities like Munich. Similar situation for Dutch cities IIRC.

But the autobahn system doesn't cut through the middle of cities in Germany nearly to the same extent as it does in the US. Actual high speed parts of the Autobahn basically stop a certain part of the way into Munich, and you have to get off onto surface streets.

But anyway, that's just one problem among many for car dominance in the US.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#177

Post by systemtest »

dcolkitt wrote: post #135
deanCommie wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask the Dutch. How do they do it? Or do you assume they do not have young kids or grandmas? Why is it that whenever people talk about designing cities for pedestrians and bikes, someone on hackernews thinks it means eliminating all cars entirely forever. For a forum ostensibly designed for entrepreneurs, it shows a tremendous lack of imagination. Answer: * Public transportation inside cities such as buses and trams *…

The difference is that Holland is entirely flat, has an average high of 71 in the summer, and rarely if ever gets icy. The Dutch experience simply doesn't translate to most of America because of the terrain and climate. Elderly people people will die if you make them walk in the Florida summer. 7 year old children lack the leg-strength to bike up California hills. Both groups are likely to slip and crack their heads…

I had no problem biking in 100+ degrees weather up a 50 meter hill. Just take a shower when you arrive at work.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#178

Post by Fricken »

fourneau wrote: post #142
Fricken wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Edmonton, North America's northernmost major city. I've been cycling year round for about 15 years. It went down to -42 in February, and I was out riding. I've never had frostbite. I've still got all my fingers and toes. Although it isn't enough fingers and toes to count all the people I've known personally who've been killed or crippled in car accidents.

It’s definitely not impossible, but it’s riskier. My point is that we default to easy and comfortable when given a choice, and cycling in -42 is neither. We won’t see mass adoption of cycling in these areas, regardless of infrastructure, unless we forced people to do it... and I don’t think pushing the majority of people towards enduring that kind of weather is something we should do, when there are alternatives.

Learning to read isn't easy or comfortable, so we force everyone to do it, because most would default to illiteracy if we didn't. Not destroying the planet is even more important than literacy.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#179

Post by code_code »

enriquto wrote: post #86
inertiatic wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you complaining about the public using public space intended for that usage?

I am complaining about the assignment for that intended usage. Why do we allow this usage? It takes most of the usable surface of the city for the storage of ugly, static objects. I would rather assign those spaces for other uses, like wider walkways, kids playgrounds, flowers, whatever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#180

Post by netcan »

Renegotiating the basics so that bicycles (and other light vehicles) get similar status to cars and buses was always going to be an uphill battle.

It's possible that a shift to driverless cars is an opportunity to do it. If driverless cars do succeed, there could be a shift away from private ownership.

At that point, there's an opportunity to be encourage much narrower, slower, lighter vehicles in cities. You don't a 2 ton car to transport one person 9km @ 25kmph. The cars we have are so big because they occasionally need to transport a whole family long distance on a highway. With self driving taxis this could (plausibly) be handled by a different car.

The conflicting road needs of bikes and lightweight vehicles (say <25kmph & <200kg) are much more manageable than bikes and pickup trucks (or buses).

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