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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

#731

Post by bee_rider »

rootusrootus wrote: post #434
bee_rider wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is really tempting when on a bicycle to think of yourself as being able to pick and choose rules to follow, magically switching from “more like a car” to “more like a pedestrian” as needed. The rule that I personally follow: always behave like a car (albeit one that rides far over to the side of the road most of the time), and if I really feel an overwhelming urge to act as a pedestrian, time to fully dismount and…

> It is really tempting when on a bicycle to think of yourself as being able to pick and choose rules to follow, magically switching from “more like a car” to “more like a pedestrian” as needed. As someone who walks a lot, I find this very frustrating, as a lot of cyclists think it's okay to ride on the sidewalk at road speeds. My ideal world would have the urban core be restricted to pedestrians only. Or at the very…

Not sure where you are from — in the US at least, most urban cores already have a bunch of space wasted on roads. If we just cut those out and split the recovered space, it should be fine. Bikes only need a couple yards or meters of width devoted to them.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#732

Post by pharmakom »

aisengard wrote: post #147
zimpenfish wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "[whatabout cyclists who break the law]" I can stand at my local crossing on Old Kent Road and there'll be non-zero cars jumping the red light (often accelerating from a good ways back) or entering the junction without a safe exit blocking the crossing, a bus lane, and another junction (in peak time this will often get into double figures). Multiply that by all the crossings and you'll absolutely dwarf the amount o…

Or, you know, we can do both at the same time? Also, once police are no longer occupied ticketing motorists, I hope cyclists are prepared for actually being held accountable to laws. The police budget isn't going to refill itself.

> I hope cyclists are prepared for actually being held accountable to laws

What percentage of cyclist do you think are breaking the law?

> The police budget isn't going to refill itself.

Ticketing is not the main source of revenue for policing (thank goodness)

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#733

Post by pharmakom »

phpisthebest wrote: post #379
zimpenfish wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or, you know, we can do both at the same time? Or maybe we prioritise the class of vehicles responsible for almost 5 fatalities and 75 serious injuries a day[1]? For comparison, [2] says that 30 pedestrians were killed and 1093 serious injuries involved cyclists in eight (8) years. In 416 weeks, that's less than one (1) week of car deaths (0.2% ratio) and two (2) weeks of serious injuries (0.4% ratio). Anyone that…

[flagged]

Your username says it all :)

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#734

Post by agilob »

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…

In any city I lived in in the last 10 years ebike would be stolen or at least the battery would be, in minutes.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#735

Post by DoingIsLearning »

uoaei wrote: post #702
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually this is not accurate and somewhat bad advice. A normal bicycle frame is designed for... normal use. No need for ebikes but child seats should be used on reenforced frames such as what the Dutch call "Moederfiets", you can also use a 'Transportfiets' frame. You are adding an extra 5 Kg to your front steering tube and another 20 kilos to your back cargo loader. That is not what most frames were designed for. S…

I regularly load 40kg+ on a steel touring frame (a remarkably "normal" bike by all accounts) and it's lasted 12 years so far. Yes, you shouldn't use a department store bike. I (mistakenly?) assumed this is obvious to this reading crowd. You sound like you have never worked on a bike before. It is not difficult to add different kinds of kickstands to existing frames. I believe you are quite under-informed on bicycle c…

Your regularly sounds like something that happens on the weekends. My regular is taking 2 kids to school everyday and leaving my bike parked out in the rain year round. Not all bikes have enough trail room to fit a double legged kickstand and I have never seen a stem lock fitted on anything other than a moederfiets/transportfiets (not a lock smith 'key and lock' but a 'twist' lock to lock the stem to take your kid out of the front seat without the front wheel spinning around on you).

My point is just that if you're planning on replacing a car with a bycicle there are already solved problems for kids transportation.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#736

Post by milkytron »

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?

I live in what would be called a 15 minute city, but we don't really call it that.

I just bring a bag or two and ride my bike to the store. Or if I'm downtown, which is a 10 minute train ride away, I'll stop by the grocery store next to the station before hopping on the train and just carry my groceries in a bag or put em in my backpack.

The only times I choose to drive are when I want to get a large quantity of something lightweight, like toilet paper or paper towels.

I typically don't buy a lot at once, I'll plan my meals for the next few days and only buy what I know will definitely get eaten to reduce waste.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#737

Post by andylynch »

qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #394
trgn wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing to see. The last ten years, the galvanizing project of every european city has been calming cars. I didn't really realize it until I was there the last few summers on vacation, and the difference is night&day with 10 years ago (Brussels, Paris big examples, many smaller ones too). Unreal, a truly positive transformation. It's one of those things, you just can "feel", although maybe hard to explain, I cer…

I wonder, why there is not dealds between land speculation and public transportation. One party buys fields from farmers, the other creates a privately financed railroad/subway out in the "new suburbs", shooting the areas value through the roof. Then build denser, better citycore, connected to the old citycore.

This is absolutely a thing. The British pioneered it with the Metropolitan line and swathes of suburban London with developed this way; they called it ‘Metro-land’.

Japan ran hard with the idea too.

A recent example would be Crossrail being partly funded by Canary Wharf, Heathrow Airport, and a large UK Housebuilder.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#738

Post by pharmakom »

chroma wrote: post #713
locallost wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that metric, walking is the most dangerous mode of transport. Somehow seems illogical.

The comparison is valid because people in this thread are saying that bikes should substitute for many car trips. If they were saying the same thing about walking then I’d make the point about waking safety. But walking can’t substitute for many car trips so it’s a non-issue. Cars have disadvantages and externalities, but they are much safer than bicycles. This is true even in the most bike-friendly countries on eart…

Well let’s make cycling safer with proper infrastructure then.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#739

Post by tremon »

b112 wrote: post #577
mjevans wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax the undesired behavior. Using housing as an _investment_ should be heavily taxed based on the behavior's negative impact to society. Live somewhere for at least 35% of a year (more than 1/3rd), then most of that tax goes away since it's a 'primary residence'. (35% to allow for moving as well as possible 'sunbird' / 'winter/summer homes', while still catching anyone who treats housing as an 'investment' (a tax upo…

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.

landlords, who provide housing for those not ready/able to buy

Why is that framing preferred over "landlords, who reduce housing supply by keeping properties off the market"?

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#740

Post by celticninja »

matsemann wrote: post #118
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…

> - might be impossible depending on work or children; The newer style of cargo bikes can for many families replace a car. Have two kids seated in the trunk of the bike and drop them off at kindergarten, then continue biking to work and pick them up on the way home. Those are a bit on the pricier side, though. Still cheap compared to a car, but people often look at them as something "extravagant" or "in addition" to…

I used a bike trailer and child seat when my twins were young, I could drop all 3 kids off at nursery, unhitch the trailer and leave it at the nursery, cycle on to work from there. On the way back I would hitch the trailer up and go in and collect them and cycle home. Trailer was around £150 and I only had to tow it when necessary.
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