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We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

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Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#181

Post by anyzen »

sunstone wrote: post #174

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 fo…

Even electric bikes are not the solution, at least not in many parts of the world. What happens when it rains / snows? I don't know what the solution is though, maybe small electric cars, self driven, as part of public transportation service?

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#182

Post by TulliusCicero »

reilly3000 wrote: post #105

US Federal highways were built for homeland defense first, then commercial traffic, then individual automobiles. The infrastructure is built on government credit and maintained via gasoline taxes. A 50 mile segment of freeway might move more than $50 million worth of cargo and labor each hour. The same is true for city streets, on a smaller scale. Bikes, by their nature, are rather terrible at moving things around li…

Nobody's suggesting getting rid of roads for cars entirely. Munich is radically more bike friendly than any big US city, but they still have trucks and stuff. Even in the city center portion that's off limits to regular cars, businesses can get deliveries.

And you can do some deliveries with bikes, I do see people doing it for DHL here on electric cargo bikes for that last mile. Doesn't work for everything of course, but I don't think the goal is literally zero cars ever, it's reducing the unnecessary usage.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#183

Post by briandear »

Fricken wrote: post #120
fourneau wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a regional statement, not disconnected. The reality is that many people in North American live far from their workplaces and some of us live in areas of extreme cold. This is where 15m of exposed skin can result in frostbite. We bundle up, but by cycling we’ve turned the commute into an unnecessarily dangerous adventure. The same applies to cities further south: a non trivial amount of days are extremely hot and…

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.

I’m supposed to commute with toddlers in -42?

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#184

Post by DoreenMichele »

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 actually appreciate you pointing this out. I get rather tired of smug assertions that America can just do everything like it's done in Europe or something when the landscape and population density are so very different.

But I don't think that means we can't borrow any lessons at all from them. The biggest lesson we can borrow from the Dutch seems to be that they set out to intentionally make their cities more pedestrian friendly and bicycle friendly starting in the 1970s when people became extremely fed up with children dying due to being hit by cars.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#185

Post by briandear »

vhold wrote: post #98
glangdale wrote: post #46

I'm curious as to what planet you'd have to be living on to think that if we have billions of dollars to spare on huge transport infrastructure projects that aren't cars, that it should go to bikes and not public transport + walkability. I'm guessing it's a special magic planet with startlingly good weather year-round, without disabled people, where everyone gets to age into spry Euro-oldsters. Not wanting to kick of…

It's not a zero sum game. Improving bicycling also improves public transit and walkability usually because bicycles take up so much less room than cars so buses have more space, and it's extremely rare for a bicycle to injure a pedestrian, but it happens hundreds of times a day just in the US alone with cars. Also bicycle infrastructure is way cheaper to build and maintain than car infrastructure. And even when bicyc…

https://www.mountainview.gov/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx...

Most bike-car accidents are the fault of the cyclist, at least in Mountain View.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#186

Post by driminicus »

sunstone wrote: post #174

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 fo…

Note that here electric bikes are currently mostly treated like normal bicycles, and don't typically mingle with car traffic.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#187

Post by bkor »

sunstone wrote: post #174

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 fo…

> Let that sink in: The Dutch are already starting to abandon their pedal bikes.

Within Netherlands the number of accidents with bikes also has skyrocketed. That's due to often older people buying these bikes. They're more mobile, however they're slow to respond, plus not used to the speed of these bikes. As a result, more accidents plus the accidents are more severe.

The electric bikes are often restricted to 25 km/h (15.5 miles/h). That's actually too quick for most electric bike users.

It's great that older people aren't reliant on others to get around. Still, electric bikes do have a huge impact on the safety of their users, plus other people on the road.

Note that wearing a hi-viz vest can actually make you more accident prone. There's been various studies that a helmet or a hi-viz vest means other cars will pass you closer than before.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#188

Post by asjw »

vhold wrote: post #98
glangdale wrote: post #46

I'm curious as to what planet you'd have to be living on to think that if we have billions of dollars to spare on huge transport infrastructure projects that aren't cars, that it should go to bikes and not public transport + walkability. I'm guessing it's a special magic planet with startlingly good weather year-round, without disabled people, where everyone gets to age into spry Euro-oldsters. Not wanting to kick of…

It's not a zero sum game. Improving bicycling also improves public transit and walkability usually because bicycles take up so much less room than cars so buses have more space, and it's extremely rare for a bicycle to injure a pedestrian, but it happens hundreds of times a day just in the US alone with cars. Also bicycle infrastructure is way cheaper to build and maintain than car infrastructure. And even when bicyc…

In my 44 years on this planet, having traveled a lot in many biking friendly cities and living in one, the opposite is true.

Cars respect pedestrian much more than bikers do

As a walker I hate walking in Belgium or Berlin, where you have to share the sidewalks with bikes that usually go high speed, faster than the average car, don't look too much around them and treat pedestrian as obstacles (try to walk on a bike lane in Bruxelles or Berlin and wait for the biker to start a fight with you, it's not gonna take long)

If you optimize you infrastructures for basically unregulated means of transport, you're just moving assholes from cars to bikes.

At least when they are on a car they can be policed and fined.

Bikes should share roads with cars, they have wheels, they are not pedestrian friends.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#189

Post by Fricken »

briandear wrote: post #183
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.

I’m supposed to commute with toddlers in -42?

It was take your toddler's to work day on the one day it went down to -42?

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#190

Post by scrollaway »

koyote wrote: post #167
scrollaway wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

24km? What's your bike's range? Over here ebikes are just about limited to 25-30km on full charge. Do you charge it at work?

So I don't own an ebike but I've rented an MTB ebike a short while ago and was able to comfortably do 70km while still having over 1/4 battery left. That being said, I did not have it set to the max the whole way. Mostly spent in eco mode which is more than enough

Wow, 70km! Where I live that's crossing almost half the country. I didn't know some ebikes had such a range.
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