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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

#661

Post by nradov »

ausp wrote: post #550
nradov wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems so bizarre that an adult would never learn to drive. Like you might not need to drive for daily city life but it really limits your options if you ever want to travel.

I'm one of the no-license London populace, and travel more frequently than most. I don't find that it has limited me at all. On the occasions when I absolutely need a car instead of the existing options, taxis are available.

That seems like a very limited perspective. I've been to many places in the world where taxis don't run. Being able to drive is a basic life skill, like knowing how to swim or cook a meal.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#662

Post by Karrot_Kream »

ajmurmann wrote: post #160
Xylakant wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What you say would only really be true if there weren't a portion of the population - even only a minority - who are, for want of a better word, massive dickheads (or simply very inattentive and situationally unaware). Isn‘t the same statement true for car drivers? But the major difference is that a car turns a dickhead into a mortal danger for other drivers, pedestrians and cyclists alike, while a bike doesn‘t.

I'd love to see fewer cars and more bicycles. That said, at least in the US and in SF in particular, I've encountered way more blatant violations off traffic laws by bicyclists. There were so many times I had to jump back from an intersection where I had a green light as a pedestrian because a bicyclist decided to race through at full speed. They probably thought it was safe, but I certainly felled endangered. In the…

We're all primed to see conflicts more frequently when we use a mode more frequently. A lot of folks who don't bike only really encounter cyclists when they're pedestrians walking around, and so feel this fear then. In the US cyclists break rules at roughly a similar [1] rate to drivers according to an FDOT study. FWIW cyclists interact with drivers much more frequently which is why so many cyclists feel animosity toward drivers.

[1]: https://ntlrepository.blob.core.windows.net/lib/63000/63700/...

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#663

Post by matsemann »

mellosouls wrote: post #281
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…

significantly faster if parking is taken into account for most trips This sounds unlikely for the average cycling commuter if parking alone is making the difference- cyclists (as motorcyclists) need to change (at each side) and shower etc; I think that is often forgotten in these calculations.

My guess is that even if you drive to work, you shower at home in the morning. I instead shower at the office when biking. So same amount of time use.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#664

Post by dan-robertson »

novok wrote: post #603
gambiting wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mate there is no other group campaigning harder to relax building requirements in London than the elites. There are so many rich people complaining they can't add another conservatory or floor or dig up a basement in their Victorian mansion in London. If you made it easier to build you'd basically hand a giant fat present to the hands of the elite. The idea that the elites keep the status quo by making bureocracy com…

Your looking at the wrong "elites". Look at who is preventing 30 story apartment buildings and then you'll know who actually runs the city.

This seems pretty silly to me. 30 story blocks of flats tend to be prevented by the planning permission system (potentially before they are proposed as developers may know what won’t succeed) which is roughly a combination of local government and local residents. There are other things which may make building difficult – historical preservation (eg listed buildings) applies to much of the more central parts of the city, construction can be expensive, etc.

Perhaps the real London elites are the clay underneath the city which makes tall buildings more expensive.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#665

Post by matsemann »

abricq wrote: post #172

This news literally makes me so happy. I can't wait to see it propagating around the world ! Riding a bike it better for your health, for the environment, makes cities much safer places, better for your mood as well & even better for your wallet. For people who have the chance to work reasonably close to their work, it's THE perfect solution. I bike to work every day since 4/5 years, in Switzerland. Since roughly 18…

Critical mass is an important factor. Previously, I've been biking almost alone in the winter here in Norway. The later years we're multiple cyclists at every intersection. So I used to be the "edge case" drivers forgot about, to being one of many the drivers now have to constantly be aware of. It also feels a lot safer biking in a train of 5 people than alone.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#666

Post by Moldoteck »

antihero wrote: post #654
sharkweek wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In upfront transparency to avoid sounding like I have a superiority complex based on just how much I love my cargo bike, our family does still have a car. Okay that being said… our cargo bike has replaced 90% of our “last mile” driving here in the city. We take the kids to school on it, we do grocery runs, we take it to the park, out to dinner, just about anywhere we can. In the first two years we’ve put at least 2k…

What was the issue with the road bike idea?

Most probably it wasn't electric

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#667

Post by Karrot_Kream »

textread wrote: post #558

I was finding it difficult to stick to cycling. Hearing my plight, an avid cyclist friend of mine suggested me to try a trick:- Get a 3 way folding cycle such as the Brompton. Now, play around with hybrid modes of transport. My programmer's brain loves building abstractions neatly on top of each other. Folding my cycle and carrying it onto another form of transport brings a smile to my face every time. The biggest to…

Lol! Yeah I've carried my bike to the edge of another urban area before, parked in a garage, then used my bike to get around the urban area, because the US largely has no intercity public transit.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#668

Post by Xylakant »

bartread wrote: post #595
scott_w wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I'm contending against is not cycling as a mode of transport, but the assumption that with greater adoption of cycling comes greater safety. The Netherlands has a massive cycling uptake and has some of the safest roads in Europe. What you say simply doesn’t hold water. Cyclists are simply not killing in the numbers that car drivers are.

Yeah, but The Netherlands isn't Cambridge, UK. For one, The Netherlands has great cycling infrastructure, at least places where I've been: Cambridge, UK doesn't. Again, from what I've seen, cyclists in The Netherlands tend to behave quite a bit better than they do here in the UK (drivers too, for that matter). Moreover, what condition is the infrastructure in? I don't know about The Netherlands but I can tell you tha…

Cyclists behaving better in the Netherlands than in Cambridge is likely true, but at the same time a statistical bias: In places with bad road conditions, only the die-hards cycle. Those tend to contain a larger share of assertive or aggressive cyclists. Bad road conditions also force cyclists into pedestrian spaces, onto pavements etc. I can observe that here in Berlin as well - places with good infrastructure see little to no conflict, but there are some spaces with frankly brain-dead planning where almost every cyclist cuts through the pedestrian space.

And that‘s where the Netherlands differ: Everyone cycles. You get a better cross-section of the population, kids, families. The infrastructure is much better, all around. It’s designed to reduce conflicts. And it‘s very likely that you‘d see similar effects in Cambridge as well. Build safe infrastructure and the normal people will show up.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#669

Post by _dain_ »

Maxburn wrote: post #596
sofixa wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with a big enough stick and very little carrot anything is possible Yep, so all those complaining that nothing is being done or can be done about climate change are wrong. There are tools, they just need to be used. > Aren't we hearing that actual residents really don't like these "15 minute" cities? We're also hearing that Zuckerberg is a lizard and the Earth is flat, so fucking what? London is a major metropolis,…

Do you live there? In a utopian ideal it seems kind of nice having "everything you need" close by. Thinking about it critically I currently live in a 15 minute city, but there is a car involved. I'm kind of confused about how people living in mass transit even get groceries, can you take your own cart on the train?

"but how do you get groceries???" is such a common bad objection it's become something of a meme to make fun of it. don't want to pick on you but getting food is really not that hard to do. you just do smaller shopping trips more often.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYHTzqHIngk

what self-proclaimed "15 minute city" are you living in where this is hard? genuinely curious. wondering if the phrase is getting diluted for marketing reasons. I've lived in totally ordinary neighbourhoods of English cities where all this was possible and easy, I never heard them flaunting their "15 minute city"ness, even though they met and exceeded the technical definition.

like I'm just confused that people are calling "utopian" the rather unremarkable reality I've lived for 25+ years. it makes me suspect ppl are using the same words to mean very different things.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#670

Post by dan-robertson »

mjevans wrote: post #641
b112 wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So landlords, who provide housing for those not ready/able to buy, now raise rents dramatically? So the end result, the poor pay more? Instead, what Vancouver did was simply tax empty housing.

Hotels, apartments, etc; things designed for such rentals should be in an entirely different category than (intended as single owner / dwelling) housing.

So a block of flats should be intended to be either be all-renters or all-owners?
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