Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theconversation.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 764 posts

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

#331

Post by dublinben »

closeparen wrote: post #185
stfp wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it doesn't require major investments. It's really minor investments compared to other infrastructure projects. The issue is taking away even a tiny fraction of car space basically triggers some kind of political road rage.

Cycling is suited to distances of a few miles. Within a few miles of a sprawl house there are only other sprawl houses. The mix and layout of buildings and uses also needs to be overhauled so that putting reasonable numbers of hours/calories into a bike gets you somewhere useful.

In the US nearly 30 percent of trips are a mile or shorter, 40 percent are two miles or shorter and 50 percent are three miles or shorter.[0]

These distances can be easily covered on foot or bike with minimal change in infrastructure.

[0] https://www.bikeleague.org/content/national-household-travel...

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

#332

Post by kenned3 »

closeparen wrote: post #185
stfp wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it doesn't require major investments. It's really minor investments compared to other infrastructure projects. The issue is taking away even a tiny fraction of car space basically triggers some kind of political road rage.

Cycling is suited to distances of a few miles. Within a few miles of a sprawl house there are only other sprawl houses. The mix and layout of buildings and uses also needs to be overhauled so that putting reasonable numbers of hours/calories into a bike gets you somewhere useful.

in the summer i commute to/from work 3 times a week on my bike. It is 50km (31 miles) one way. So i ride to work monday, home wednesday, to work friday type of thing.

This trip takes me around 2 hours and people think i am crazy for doing this.. but those same individuals will spend an hour commuting and then go to the gym for an hour?

Cycling isnt suited to a few miles.. I have never been "athletic" and can do a 50KM ride with a bit of training.

If the ground is fairly flat i'd say 10 miles is reasonable.

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

#333

Post by obmelvin »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #104
kalenx wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting up a cycle lane in place is cheap, but not easy (at least in North America, people will always complain about the "war on cars"). Also, setting up a good cycle lane can be more expensive than you think. If you have a nice bike lane that spreads over 5 km but there's a 200 meters gap in it because of a bridge which was too narrow to keep the bike path, then you don't have a nice lane at all.

I've never understood why bicyclists can't just use the sidewalk for most of the commute. I get that it becomes impractical in dense areas where people are actually walking but most of the roads I travel along have vacant sidewalks.

Riding on the sidewalk is dangerous. Cars do not look for you when moving between the street and a parking lot/driveway/etc.

I have had more close calls with cars riding on at most 10 miles of sidewalk (and that's being generous to be honest) in the past decade than with ~6000mi riding in the road.

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

#334

Post by bww »

vishnugupta wrote: post #236
stfp wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it doesn't require major investments. It's really minor investments compared to other infrastructure projects. The issue is taking away even a tiny fraction of car space basically triggers some kind of political road rage.

> But it doesn't require major investments. Having lived and cycled in Amsterdam to me it did seem like a major investment. Sure if one were to design a greenfield city then it’s not a big deal. But to pivot a car centric city to safely accommodate cyclists is a major change. The city residents have to go through the transition process which isn’t going to be fun. I’ve seen it done half ass way in India and US which…

The second part there is the key. Bikes work just fine on roads built for cars and building bike lanes is dirt cheap compared to pretty much any other kind of infrastructure project. You do, however, need the political will to actually take that space from cars and reallocate it to bikes and pedestrians.

In urban areas that are already dense this can be done without any significant infrastructue investments by simply changing how the traffic patterns work on existing roads.

A good example of this is Barcelona's "superblocks": https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/4/9/18300797...

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

#335

Post by monkmartinez »

jedberg wrote: post #57
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 have solved the kids/cargo problem. My friend lives in a suburb of Amsterdam. She has an electric assist bike with a cargo carrier. She uses it to carry kids and cargo, like groceries and such. She used it to carry four kids (her three and one of mine) when we visited. We took the rented car and she beat us there.

How do I carry my kids and groceries in +100F(38c) or nearly freezing weather?

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

#336

Post by nitrogen »

dublinben wrote: post #331
closeparen wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cycling is suited to distances of a few miles. Within a few miles of a sprawl house there are only other sprawl houses. The mix and layout of buildings and uses also needs to be overhauled so that putting reasonable numbers of hours/calories into a bike gets you somewhere useful.

In the US nearly 30 percent of trips are a mile or shorter, 40 percent are two miles or shorter and 50 percent are three miles or shorter.[0] These distances can be easily covered on foot or bike with minimal change in infrastructure. [0] https://www.bikeleague.org/content/national-household-travel...

Wouldn't those three mile or less trips usually be for transporting cargo that wouldn't fit on a bike?

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

#337

Post by vesinisa »

jedberg wrote: post #35

Switching from gas to electric is something I can do all on my own. Switching from gas car to cycling is something that would require major investments from my city and developers. Both are noble goals, but let's not let perfect be the enemy of good. Switch to electric now, and also encourage new roads and new developments to be bike friendly, so that switching to a bike is something that will be viable in 20 or 30 y…

Doesn't it worry you to live in a city whose infrastructure is not compatible with global emission goals? Within the next decades either of too scenarios will realize: a) your home will loose most of its market value as nobody will be able to live there, OR b) we are all royally f*ked. Neither sounds too good.

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

#338

Post by psychiatrist24 »

jedberg wrote: post #35

Switching from gas to electric is something I can do all on my own. Switching from gas car to cycling is something that would require major investments from my city and developers. Both are noble goals, but let's not let perfect be the enemy of good. Switch to electric now, and also encourage new roads and new developments to be bike friendly, so that switching to a bike is something that will be viable in 20 or 30 y…

1.5 miles is doable by bicycle. Bridges or tunnels can be built for crossing roads and freeways.

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

#340

Post by TulliusCicero »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #326
TulliusCicero wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're just used to regular US cities, this is hard to grasp. Average US cities -- even bigger ones -- the public transport is slow, sparse, and unreliable; biking is uncomfortable and dangerous; and everything is so spread out that walking is mostly impractical. When you're thinking in that context and imagine switching modes...it just sounds terrible. Because it is. That doesn't mean the solution is everyone dri…

Also cycling in 100+ degree weather is rough in Texas, Arizona, etc

Obviously it's not ideal weather, but I think people maybe exaggerate how much that matters relative to infrastructure. I haven't heard of any examples in the more southern US (or comparable parts of the world) where they built great infrastructure and people ignored it because of the heat.
Post reply on HN