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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

#281

Post by stinos »

ido wrote: post #193
anyzen wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I regularly ride my "normal" bicycle (including 2 little kids in a trailer) in the rain in Berlin (where it rains for 167 days per year on average, which is ~45% of the year). You just need the appropriate clothes & gear.

where it rains for 167 days per year on average, which is ~45% of the year

Well, neighbouring country in which it rained on 199 days on average in the past 20 years or so, but since it doesn't rain all 24hrs of those days, a more interesting figure would be that it apparently only rains about 10% of the time here. Meaning about 90% of the whole time there is no rain.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#282

Post by sunstone »

YawningAngel wrote: post #243
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…

I'm not sure this is true. I average faster than the maximum speed of electric bikes cycling my commute, and I do not feel remotely safe in city traffic. Drivers don't have a problem with slow cyclists, just cyclists in general.

At different times I've been in all these roles, motorcyclist, cyclist, car driver and e-biker. As a driver I find e-bikes much less frustrating than pedal bikes because they keep up with traffic when the light turns green. As an e-biker I also feel safer because I stay fully in the traffic lane (at intersections), I don't have to always have one eye out for passing cars while I'm also changing gears and watching out for getting doored by parked cars. That's my experience.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#284

Post by PeterisP »

dcolkitt wrote: post #145
socialist_coder wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A mom with three young kids in tow Ha! Go see how they do it in Europe. Bike trailers, extra seats in the front & back, built in cargo decks, longer bikes; there are lots of fancy ways to load a lot of kids & cargo onto your bike. And don't forget that kids can ride their own bikes too! My kid was riding a bike with me to daycare at 3-4 years old. Your thinking is too car-centric!

Europe does not have some magical equation for drastically reducing car use. The number of cars per capita in the EU is only about one third lower than the United States. That's nothing to sneeze at, but it certainly means that the sizable majority of Europeans are still car-centric. And even then that's mostly a function of lower incomes (vis-a-vis the US). The high-income European states of Luxembourg, Switzerland,…

The difference of car usage between USA and Europe should be much larger than the difference in car ownership. A car is useful for many things other than the daily commute, someone who mostly bikes to work is still rather likely to own a car but contribute much less to the traffic and pollution.

[edit] looking at random stats such as http://internationalcomparisons.org/environment/transportati... seems to confirm that - the vehicle ownership rates are just a bit lower, but annual distance driven per capita in European countries is twice less than USA.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#285

Post by swebs »

cgrealy wrote: post #3

I live in Christchurch, NZ. After a massive earthquake in 2011, I had high hopes that we might redesign the city for the next 100 years instead of the previous 50 (i.e. for people, not cars). Instead the city council built a few bike lanes and even then people lost their goddamn minds. "You're taking away parking space!" "All these bike lanes are slowing traffic" "No one wants to bike into the city" Meanwhile, cyclis…

>"You're taking away parking space!" "All these bike lanes are slowing traffic"

Just put the bike lanes on the sidewalk instead of in the street then. That's how it's done in Finland and it seems much safer for everyone involved.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#286

Post by sunstone »

saiya-jin wrote: post #229
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…

Many issues with this approach - for example back home roads are frozen with snow +- 4 months per year. Often heavy rains outside this period. There are no 2 lanes - only one, so your approach would be blocking rest of the traffic heavily (even e-bikes are much slower than most cars FWIW, maybe people are just lazy and don't use the potential, don't know). People simply don't have 2000$ for an electric bike, thats su…

The Dutch are finding that e-bikes are more of a substitute for a car than they are for a pedal bike. That should play even better in lower income countries. Time will tell.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#287

Post by Kaiyou »

I'm always wondering why it is the environment that has to change. I'm also living in a city and I neither own a car, nor a bike nor am I using public transport. I just walk everywhere I have to go.

Think about why you can't just walk everywhere and if the answer is that you don't have the time, maybe you should consider just taking that time or reconsider life choices. Why can't you live near the things you need to regularly visit? There's nothing really preventing you. You just don't want to, right?

So maybe everyone should think hard about themselves first, before dreaming about remodelling the environment.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#288

Post by koyote »

missosoup wrote: post #54
donjoe wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yah... Bad weather isn't an argument though. I'm faster with my bike no matter the weather. Especially when it's snowing outside. Gosh, snow slows cars down massively. I love this time of the year: no one tends to speed any more since drivers are afraid of crashing their cars.

Try riding to work on a 45 degree australian summer day when the UV index is so high that 5 mins is enough to get serious sunburn.

You ride to work in the middle of the day?

As someone with very fair skin I check the UV index meticulously: there is no day in the year that I would be riding to or back from work with a UV index higher than 3 in Sydney.

Now if I was cycling at 2pm on a summer's day I would use SPF50 sun cream or wear a UV shirt, just like I do when I walk outside at 2pm.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#289

Post by ralfd »

Kaiyou wrote: post #287

I'm always wondering why it is the environment that has to change. I'm also living in a city and I neither own a car, nor a bike nor am I using public transport. I just walk everywhere I have to go. Think about why you can't just walk everywhere and if the answer is that you don't have the time, maybe you should consider just taking that time or reconsider life choices. Why can't you live near the things you need to…

Or maybe this may work for you, but it doesn't scale.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#290

Post by adrianN »

swebs wrote: post #285
cgrealy wrote: post #3

I live in Christchurch, NZ. After a massive earthquake in 2011, I had high hopes that we might redesign the city for the next 100 years instead of the previous 50 (i.e. for people, not cars). Instead the city council built a few bike lanes and even then people lost their goddamn minds. "You're taking away parking space!" "All these bike lanes are slowing traffic" "No one wants to bike into the city" Meanwhile, cyclis…

>"You're taking away parking space!" "All these bike lanes are slowing traffic" Just put the bike lanes on the sidewalk instead of in the street then. That's how it's done in Finland and it seems much safer for everyone involved.

Sidewalks are often not wide enough for 2m of bike lane and pedestrians. Bike lanes on side walks also make intersections more dangerous for cyclists.
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