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Cycling is more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities

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Re: Cycling is more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities

#211

Post by jariel »

vcanhoto wrote: post #32
CabSauce wrote: post #10

That's great. Assuming the following: - Your commute is sufficiently short - You have facilities to shower and dress at work - You have sufficient time to shower and dress at work - You don't have to bring kids or sizable cargo - Weather is sufficiently good - You're sufficiently healthy

The Dutch would disagree with you pretty much with every single point. Except the last one, maybe.

Until they had to bike in Canadian winter? Or on SF hills? Or 30 Km to work with 2 kids to drop of 8 Km in the other direction?

The Netherlands is nearly a perfect place for biking, which is why they bike.

Re: Cycling is more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities

#212

Post by luckylion »

estebank wrote: post #187
luckylion wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The issue is taking away even a tiny fraction of car space basically triggers some kind of political road rage. How do you take "a tiny fraction" away from a street that has one lane in each direction to build a dedicated bike lane? Make it a one-way street and just kill traffic? It's not as simple as you make it out to be. Don't infer motivations, I don't own a car and ride my bike everywhere. It's mostly a money…

In a significant portion of the US "high density" looks like this: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7474901,-122.4878233,3a,75y,...

And that looks trivial to work with. I'm from Europe where most towns have grown very organically over centuries, there are fewer multi-lane streets (and it's essentially unheard of in residential areas) and it's crowded. Quite a few people would welcome better bike infrastructure over here, but it's hard to do. The opposite seems to be true in the US.

Re: Cycling is more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities

#213

Post by m01 »

CabSauce wrote: post #10

That's great. Assuming the following: - Your commute is sufficiently short - You have facilities to shower and dress at work - You have sufficient time to shower and dress at work - You don't have to bring kids or sizable cargo - Weather is sufficiently good - You're sufficiently healthy

Combining cycling with other forms of public transport (e.g. trains) enables much longer-distance commutes, and effectively increases the "catchment area" of (e.g.) train stations. Other sibling comments have addressed the other points.

Re: Cycling is more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities

#215

Post by lovegoblin »

jedberg wrote: post #143
lotsofpulp wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lower one’s expectations of quality of life and consume less.

I don’t want to lower my quality of life so far that I can’t get an ambulance or have to be homebound once I can no longer walk.

The comment is an excellent exercise in reductio ad absurdum.

Re: Cycling is more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities

#216

Post by doikor »

garyrichardson wrote: post #122
ab111111111 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What major investment would be required from the city or developers to set up cycling infrastructure? Painting some cycle lanes onto the roads? Marking a few car parking places as bike parking places? That's all that cycling infrastructure really is, so it's super cheap. A lot cheaper than, say, building charging stations for electric cars.

I live on the west coast in Canada. We have lots of bike lines. It's 30KM of them up and down multiple hills (most people would consider mountains) for me to get to work. Realistically, you've got to convince me to leave my 3000+sqft house (with bedrooms for all my kids) and yard to move to a 1000sqft apartment in the city (and make my kids share a room) and take on a bigger mortgage so that I'm closer to work. Also…

> Also how do I get groceries for a family of 5 home on my bike?

Cargo bike. Also used for getting the smaller kids (too small to bike safely/fast enough) to daycare etc.

Or when living in a properly dense city just bring it with you one backpack at a time. This is what my mother did when I was a kid. Just stopped by the shop on her way home from work.

Re: Cycling is more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities

#217

Post by onnimonni »

sokoloff wrote: post #152
umvi wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put on a coat/rain jacket

For cold or rain? Sure. For 4-6" of snow, you're going to need a lot more than a jacket to cycle in that.

We used trucks with snow plows constantly in Finland too when it snows. The city where I'm from is called Tampere. I thought that the city used to be quite hostile towards bicycles ten years ago but since then they have built so many new biking lanes or removed lanes for the cars and replaced them for pedestrians and cycles. It was just faster to go everywhere with bicycle and with bicyclr6you don't need to spend time to search for a free parking place. If it rained a lot I used rain jacket or used the public transportation. In the winter we used tires with spikes in them (to battle the slippery ice).

Removing some lanes makes the city much more enjoyable for everyone but ofc this is harder to do in really old cities which were designed for horses or big metropolitan areas wherr extra land is scarce.

We moved to Tallinn, Estonia last year and compared to Finland the cycle lanes here are poorly designed and many local politicians still support cars over cycles which is a sad.

Re: Cycling is more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities

#218

Post by lotsofpulp »

jonvk wrote: post #198
lotsofpulp wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lower one’s expectations of quality of life and consume less.

There's nothing like cars to lower quality of life. They are noisy, require huge areas to be paved over, thus removing prime property in cities from more useful purposes. Particulate matter emissions from the engines, but also from brake and tire wear are unhealthy[1][2]. We don't let kids play outside anymore because we are afraid they will be hit by drivers. We kill animals after they hurt one person, yet we fear t…

I agree with all of that, but people mostly perceive that they can't live in a large house on a large plot of land. Spread out living with requisite car transportation also creates a stratified society where you don't have to be near those you do not want to be near, which people might also perceive as a benefit.

Re: Cycling is more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities

#219

Post by ErikVandeWater »

stemlord wrote: post #155
acwan93 wrote: post #69

There's a demonization of cyclists in general if you live in an American city. Until this stigma goes away, which will usher in infrastructure and mentality changes, this will not occur. City councils believe cycling is recreational, not for commuting or for "real" use. I mentioned this about getting my LA suburb to actually embrace Class II bike lanes previously, and there's simply no political will. Simply put, it'…

I believe a lot of bicycle hate in middle class American culture is a result of propaganda from big oil corporate lobbying. I also read somewhere recently a theory that big cars are a way of protecting (even just psychologically) wealthy people from reality as they have to travel through areas of poverty to get from one wealthy pocket to another. Makes sense when recalling Rob Moses's work with nyc

> I also read somewhere recently a theory that big cars are a way of protecting (even just psychologically) wealthy people from reality as they have to travel through areas of poverty to get from one wealthy pocket to another.

That theory seems to arise from a disgust for the wealthy (rightly or wrongly) as opposed to an earnest evaluation.

I would put money on the theory that big cars can have more nice things in them and are safer, so the rich buy them.

Re: Cycling is more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities

#220

Post by alex_g »

moistbar wrote: post #193
TulliusCicero wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're minor investments practically, and major investments politically. As you say, for many motorists, giving up space on even some roads to cyclists is treated like some sort of war crime. There's very much of attitude of, "we can't just have a majority of the road space -- we need nearly all of it!"

Spoken like someone who's never driven in a city. City streets are narrow and extremely uncomfortable to drive on as it is.

This reads like you're someone who's never cycled in a city.
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