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Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

forbes.com

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Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#301

Post by pclmulqdq »

scott_w wrote: post #298
pclmulqdq wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who dick around like that in a car find themselves in jail really quickly. People who do it on a bike wave self-righteously at the police while flagrantly violating the law, and get away with it.

I watched a car drive straight into someone yesterday. The police refused to come out. I don’t see how that squares with your statement at all.

That's because an accident and a traffic violation are different. Minor accidents are usually handled without police intervention, and this is by design.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#302

Post by Ar-Curunir »

hammock wrote: post #213
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #3

Note that the "City of London" is not the whole of the London built-up area, but just the financial services district, slightly more than one square mile in area. Still, it's a remarkable statistic even then.

>it's a remarkable statistic If you consider levying a $20-30/day tax to every driver,[1] plus another $12/day if your car is too old,[2] plus $200-600/year to park on public roads,[3] causing people to stop driving as remarkable, then sure. Edit: why the downvotes? [1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10279911/Sadiq-Khan... [2] https://www.carthrottle.com/post/youll-now-be-charged-extra-... [3] https://en.wi…

All that sounds wonderful actually. Cities are for people, not cars.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#303

Post by newaccount74 »

ClapperHeid wrote: post #134
afavour wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concern I have (in NYC FWIW) is that someone will see they can’t steal the bike and will instead just trash the thing while it’s still locked. Maybe I’m too pessimistic.

That's pretty much my experience in the city where I used to live. I'd regularly pass bikes securly locked to some post or other but with the front wheel stoved in and bent. I always assumed a would-be thief had done it in a fit of pique, after failing to get the lock open.

Drunk assholes smash random stuff all the time without first trying to steal it.

Bicycle wheels are unfortunately easily bent by kicks from the side.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#304

Post by blitzar »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #300
blitzar wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Schools inner city are (typically) terrible.

That's _very_ american assumption. All good schools are "inner" city in my country.

I like in the UK, and find any suggestion that I have even a thought in common with Americans offensive.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#305

Post by ilyt »

GoToRO wrote: post #152
onpensionsterm wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>- Immediately stopped having insomnia. Better feel overall; It's interesting you mention that. When I took up cycling to work in Manchester, I started struggling to fall fully asleep because I'd have short pseudo-dreams about the POV of cycling on wet, dark, busy roads & jerk awake, scared that I was falling asleep at the handlebars.

It goes away after some time. It's almost as if you unlock a lot of stored energy just by moving. After a while the extra energy is gone and you will sleep right away.

I just... got more fit and stopped being all that much tired after the trip so it stopped helping for sleep.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#306

Post by johannes1234321 »

mrpopo wrote: post #239
lrem wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it a bit funny you mention "lower-class" here. Of the seven first software engineers with kids I thought of, six have one car and one has none.

From my limited knowledge and viewpoint, there is a generational divide, a regional divide, and a class divide. When everything is averaged though, the household income is still the strongest indicator of how many cars you own, and most national statistics prove it.

True, class divide is a real factor: The upper class doesn't own cats (aside from "fun" cars for collecting) but leases them.

Somewhat more serious: Especially here in Germany there is a strong incentive to give cars as a job benefit instead of a pay rises as there is less social insurance to be paid. Thus there is a strong motivation for anybody in a well paying job to get a car. This directly leads to that class divide.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#307

Post by adam-a »

jefc1111 wrote: post #127
fipar wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About not killing someone if you ride after drinking, Obviously it is ver difficult for a bike to directly kill someone other than the rider (as opposed to a car, where this is very easy), but a drunk cyclist can still hurt other people directly or indirectly (causing a bigger accident by forcing someone to avoid them). Even on a city free of private cars, you’d still share the road with pedestrians, other cyclists,…

I am on board with this. You can do someone a serious injury while cycling. Also, you might kill yourself by drunk cycling. And that is likely to have a huge effect on lots of people you care about. It's just a bad idea all round...

If you kill yourself while cycling then you were almost certainly hit by a car, which is probably more likely if you are drunk cycling. But this is also the fault of bad cycling infrastructure and arguably the driver who cannot avoid another road user.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#308

Post by inpdx »

Zigurd wrote: post #267
toss1 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice suggestion, but drunk-cycling is self-limiting in a way that drunk-cycling is not. Drunk-driving you are seated, and only need to be barely conscious. for drunk-cycling, you still must be sufficiently functional to balance on a bike, which puts a bit of a floor on the level of perceptual and cognitive function available, in addition to the far lower bike vs car ceiling on available momentum to do damage. Not rec…

That's correct. Drunk drivers are frequently completely unconscious by the time they crash a car, and can have been for quite a distance down the road. Can't happen on a bike.

One could envision that last beer or shot not having taken full hold when the cyclist gets on the bike. One could also envision balance being sufficient but reaction time not.

Have I crashed my bike at the bottom of a hill while drunk? Yes, yes I have.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#309

Post by KptMarchewa »

ilyt wrote: post #265
raphaelj wrote: post #36

Somewhat unrelated to the article, but I live in a mid-size EU city and dumped my car for an e-bike a few months ago. Surprisingly, it hasn't been that hard (my GF kept her car, and I have a car-sharing subscription): Pros: - Immediately stopped having insomnia. Better feel overall; - about €300/month in additional disposable income. That's basically a free lunch everyday! - significantly faster if parking is taken i…

I live in big-ish EU city (Warsaw, Hamburg/Glasgow level of population) and have been cycling for 10+ years, moved to car for various unrelated reasons. But car commute is still faster. I can get from home to work in ~35 minutes at lower traffic (say 10AM, blessed be flexible work hours) and in MAX hour in more of a rush traffic. Best time by bicycle is around 1h10m. I do park at work building so that's 5-10 minutes…

1:10h on bike in Warsaw is like 20km, it's pretty much whole city in straight line length: https://i.imgur.com/21GFPI1.png

You just live very far from your job.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#310

Post by flir »

CalRobert wrote: post #212
Tade0 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So I think we will see a shift in where people settle, where they will no longer base their lives around owning multiple cars. Not if real estate in cities remains as expensive as it is now. That's one of the main reasons why so many people move out and choose to spend so much time commuting. Cars are just a means to an end, which is not living in a one-bedroom apartment as a family.

Sadly this rings somewhat true, I'm trying to make the maths work on moving from my house in the horrible Irish countryside (horrible if you don't like profound isolation and car-dependency, that is) and move to Utrecht or Houten, or Freiburg, and it is challenging, to say the least.

I like profound isolation... what's the bandwidth like? (The other thing that ties a lot of us to cities).
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