We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes • Hacker News Board

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#41

Post by deanCommie » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:40 AM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #15

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…

The biggest counterpoint here is what about families? A mom with three young kids in tow pretty much needs a car to get around. Or elderly people? I can't really take my 90-year old grandma out to dinner if it requires her to bike her way to the restaurant. Thinking about non-car based transportation methods is great. But the reality is that large segments of society are always going to need some sort of car-based op…

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

* Trains to rural areas

* Park-and-ride garages for people to drive in, and park next to transportation hubs

* Underground parking garages at the edges of pedestrian zones, or even underneath them, coming up directly above them

* Ubiquitous bike storage and bike attachments such that yes, in fact, a mom with 3 young kids can tow them from a single bike - moms in Amsterdam and Berlin do it all the time.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#42

Post by telesilla » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:40 AM UTC

mayneack wrote: post #6

smt88 wrote: post #2

> Cars are the slowest, lowest-bandwidth forms of urban transportation. This is the kind of thing I read a lot in micromobility advocacy articles, but it seems like it can't be true. How can a bike, scooter, or moped be either faster or higher-bandwidth than a car? Also, serious question: if electric SDCs became widespread, would it still make sense to advocate things like bikes? You can't transport a family of three…

Most trips are very short. West LA where I live, biking is my fastest commute option (4 miles) because I don't get stuck in traffic. Pushing people out of cars would probably speed up the cars that are used by reducing the traffic around them. Families can handle more than you'd expect, and I regularly ride the bus with elderly and disabled people, but even if you have someone that needs a car, they don't necessarily…

LA is one of the best cities to push cycling - it hardly rains. If the city subsidized electric bicycle uptake it could be a beautiful thing. Of course, you'd had to also make car lobbying illegal so good luck with that.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#43

Post by xchaotic » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:46 AM UTC

I happen to live in an area where roads have been slightly overbuilt and there’s plenty of roads and hardly any traffic on them. I’d say the existing infrastructure is perfect for bicycles we just need to get rid of the cars.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#44

Post by donjoe » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:49 AM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #15

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…

The biggest counterpoint here is what about families? A mom with three young kids in tow pretty much needs a car to get around. Or elderly people? I can't really take my 90-year old grandma out to dinner if it requires her to bike her way to the restaurant. Thinking about non-car based transportation methods is great. But the reality is that large segments of society are always going to need some sort of car-based op…

Get yourself a Bullitt [1].

For your grandma you might consider a three-wheeled version of a bicycle.

My cousin's granddad stopped cycling in the city at the age of 94 since he had problems getting off the bike. He got himself a home trainer and is doing 10k/day at home now. He's turning 96 in a few days.

[1] http://www.larryvsharry.com/

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#45

Post by ddiq » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:51 AM UTC

Urban sprawl and planned cities are a pox on humanity. Look at this thread and tell me that these layouts don't look eminently more livable than the modern grid layout city.

https://twitter.com/wrathofgnon/status/1186129107408392194

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#46

Post by glangdale » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:57 AM UTC

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 off a unproductive circular firing squad vibe - in an ideal world, we'd do both, and more public transit frees up existing roads for cyclists. But public transport has to come first.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#47

Post by donjoe » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 6:02 AM UTC

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…

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.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#48

Post by boxcardavin » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 6:03 AM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #10

An idea i have is bike tubes.

You joke, but I’ve kicked around the idea of bike tunnels with collimated air blowing down them at 20mph to make riding at that speed more comfortable, and make loitering uncomfortable. Microautonomy might make that feasible.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#49

Post by inertiatic » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 6:03 AM UTC

socialist_coder wrote: post #33

dcolkitt wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest counterpoint here is what about families? A mom with three young kids in tow pretty much needs a car to get around. Or elderly people? I can't really take my 90-year old grandma out to dinner if it requires her to bike her way to the restaurant. Thinking about non-car based transportation methods is great. But the reality is that large segments of society are always going to need some sort of car-based op…

> 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!

I live and travel around Europe. Seeing parents riding with their very young kids is not too common a sight and every major city I've been to has traffic problems, because a whole lot of people do want to use cars and do value their convenience.

Whether that's a bad thing or not is another discussion but don't try to present Europeans as some sort of superhumans.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#50

Post by baxtr » Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 6:03 AM UTC

A bit off topic: but what I’ve asked myself since I’m biking through town daily. Is there an increased lung cancer risk for city bikers with all the car traffic out there?