721–730 of 764 posts
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Because cars don't suddenly appear when there is a heavy rain.
Are you still so concerned about the rain? Or is there any actual discussion or point you want to make here?
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I think you got it backwards mate. your basically asking hundreds of thousands of cars to suffer in favor of a few hundred bicyclists. Most people who bike strangely think most people want to bike but just cant. most dont want to. as an aging nation, most cant.
We can't all drive though. There is not physically enough space in an urban environment. If you don't provide good alternatives - cycling is one, trains and buses are also key - then everyone will be stuck in traffic.
Hint: I don't drive, I walk.
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Yes and you can say that a helicopter would offer you even more freedom, but does that mean we should build our cities so that everyone has there own helipad? Ironically it probably would take up less space than the infrastructure build for cars. But this is the point made by the OP, essentially for the convenience to jump into your car a couple of times a year and drive to the wilderness without having to walk or ta…
Yes, too many people can't bear making anything they sense to be a sacrifice on their part. The solution is definitely to shift the car ownership economic burden more towards car owners instead of everyone. Giant empty parking lots and huge roads are an insane cost with a terrible maintenance story. I like to think of it as moving away from a datacenter to cloud based solutions. You don't need to buy all that capacit…
Sorry but I do not live to make sacrifices for the "benefit of everyone". I already left one country because of that. It was called USSR. And the first thing I did as soon as I could - got myself a car and traveled all over the places on my own.
My small software development company does not use cloud either. Self host and rented dedicated servers. Orders of magnitude cheaper that that cloud. I prefer to feed myself rather then keep filling pockets of FAANG and the likes.
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I think you got it backwards mate. your basically asking hundreds of thousands of cars to suffer in favor of a few hundred bicyclists. Most people who bike strangely think most people want to bike but just cant. most dont want to. as an aging nation, most cant.
Imagine if we decided to completely eliminate sidewalk, how would it change traffic? It is not about forcing others, it is about freedom of choice. Bycicle is just one of the modes of transportation. People without choice have to use car.
Personally, I think subways should be the backbone of every city transportation system. But surprisingly even very environmentally conscious cities choose to forgo subway systems.
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Yea my point is that if you want to be less car centric, maybe try moving out of the big city. It's ironically easier to obtain that lifestyle in a small city in America than the "walkable urban utopias" everyone seems to desire on HN.
Mostly only out of American big cities (at least in the developed world), the point is to fix that. A lot of big cities in Europe and East Asia do fine without being car-centric.
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How many people want to live in dense cities without any means of escape? It sounds miserable to me. But I live in a really small city (< 250k) and drive maybe 3-5k miles a year (mostly to our cabin in a neighboring state) and bike a LOT. It's kind of ironic I am pretty far from your utopian dense dream yet largely living it.
I’ve never owned a car. But somehow I’ve traveled all over my country and the world. And Australia isn’t small. It’s crazy, I know.
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And while they're being trained, bicyclist get hurt. Its a difficult problem, and we're in a difficult place. I don't know of a good solution.
How does the bicyclist get hurt when the driver changes lanes to pass? Bicyclists actually get more lateral clearance when that happens compared to when they're keeping further right and the motorist tries to squeeze their vehicle between them and oncoming traffic.
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Most humans enjoy being comfortable. Costs (financial and ecological) ignored, it's safe to say that a large portion of the population would choose to proceed quickly from point A to B in the comfort of a private enclosed vehicle. Obviously this desire needs to be balanced with environmental protection, practicality and accommodation of those who legitimately want to cycle or walk. There are a few technologies coming…
People are only comfortable in cars because they've learned to be. Before I owned a car and cycled every day I didn't once think it was uncomfortable and that I'd rather be in a car. My body was used to it.
I can safely say that I genuinely didn't enjoy public transit. I wasn't "tricked" or "fooled" or "indoctrinated" by western society into envying the "holy automobile". The mere fact that you used the phrase "My body was used to it" indicates an implicit aspect of unpleasantness that one needs to trick themselves into accepting.
As an adult, I am now fortunate enough to own a vehicle, and the comfort, convenience and empowerment of owning a car is almost incomparably higher to public transit or cycling.
It seems like you are either 1) rejecting the possibility that technological innovation will allow for responsible and scalable use of automobiles and/or 2) rejecting human comfort as a valid argument for doing anything
We should be putting resources into public transit and cycling infrastructure for all the individuals like yourself who want (or need) to commute in that manner. And as long as we can do so responsibly (which I totally see humanity being able to do in the medium-term future), there's no reason not to also appease people who enjoy traveling comfortably.
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People are only comfortable in cars because they've learned to be. Before I owned a car and cycled every day I didn't once think it was uncomfortable and that I'd rather be in a car. My body was used to it.
I can offer a contrary anecdote. I grew up in a Canadian city, but my family never had a car. I spent my entire childhood bussing everywhere. It sucked. It really fucking sucked and I hated it the entire time. Most journeys across the city required waiting for transfers in temperatures ranging from -30C to +30C. Any kind of irregular or lengthy trip was always an exercise in planning and frustration when scheduled bu…
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How does the bicyclist get hurt when the driver changes lanes to pass? Bicyclists actually get more lateral clearance when that happens compared to when they're keeping further right and the motorist tries to squeeze their vehicle between them and oncoming traffic.
When they 'learn to change lanes to pass'. Because they're not doing that now, and won't all learn the same day. Until then bicyclist put their life on the line every time they go out on the road.
[1] https://iamtraffic.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/BicyclistP...