Cycling is more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities • Hacker News Board

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

#741

Post by Ma8ee » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 10:23 AM UTC

DocTomoe wrote: post #734

Ma8ee wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The change won’t be for free (even though it probably in the end will save us all a lot of money), and unfortunately, everything that cost money will hit the poor hardest. But that is a problem that is solved with progressive taxes and redistribution, not something that should stop us from saving the environment.

The change won't be for free. But rather than lower the usefulness of cars, make sure new cars have better fuel economies (which directly translates to lower pollution). Within 10-15 years, clunkers get replaced anyways, so a general policy of "by 2027, all newly-registered cars must have a maximum amount of X litres per 100 kilometres" or a ban of Diesel engines outside of speciality markets (military, agriculture,…

You clearly don't understand the urgency of the matter. Maybe if you wrote "by 2027, all newly registered cars must have a maximum amount of 0 litres per 100 km". Cars, of all sorts, is fundamentally unsustainable in urban areas. They take too much space, they forces spread, they are too loud, they use too much energy and they polute too much (that includes electric cars). So we have to lower the usefulness of cars to make our cities more useful for the people that live and work in them.

(Electric cars might be the best alternative in rural and even some suburban areas. But they don't belong in a city.)

The reason diesel engines have been prohibited in certain city centers is because they have been shown particulary bad for people's health [0]. That is usually also something that hits the poorest people hardest. Rich people choose to live somewhere else.

Your last paragraph is just non sequitur. If you want to, you can try to explain why you think that would be the case.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/15/diesel-e...

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

#742

Post by badthingfactory » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 11:19 AM UTC

mrshadowgoose wrote: post #728

globular-toast wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I had a choice when I was 16 years old. I could take a 45 minute bus ride to and from school every day for free; or I could get a job, purchase my own vehicle, pay for my own gasoline and insurance, and drive to school in 15 minutes. I did the second option and never regretted it.

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

#743

Post by m463 » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 11:21 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #81

burlesona wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, no. Surprisingly, telecommuters appear to drive more than office workers: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09658...

I'd like to dig into that study, because it feels impossible to me. Whether I work at home or an office, I have the same errands to run. Either way I'm going to plan my trip. The only thing I can think of is that I might spread out the errands more across the week since I don't have to do it after work. But anecdotally, my wife and I both started being home full time six years ago, and despite have kids since then (w…

yeah, I think it's not right.

There are plenty of studies that show all resource use has dropped with the pandemic, including lots of delivery traffic.

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

#744

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 11:59 AM UTC

rtlfe wrote: post #372

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The issue is taking away even a tiny fraction of car space basically triggers some kind of political road rage. I don't think that's a fair comparison. I live in what many outsiders consider a bike friendly city though in reality it's impractical and unsafe to bike most places. If you're willing to also walk/bus your bike, flout local law on bicycling in pedestrian areas, and bike on major thoroughfares without bike…

> Removing on street parking, when our city already has a parking deficit. Building free/cheap parking spaces creates a dependency spiral where there's never enough. Counterintuitively, the best way to meet parking demand is to start reducing the number of spaces and charge more for them. https://mobilitylab.org/2017/07/19/voxmobility-lab-video-hig...

I'm not disagreeing with that. What I'm saying, because my city has tried this, is that removing parking pushes people into residential neighborhoods and illegal parking.

Despite spending a lot of money of adding bike lanes to a few roads the number of bikers in my city remains flat. To change this we'd need to massively expand public transportation and convert all non-residential roads into dual use vehicle and bike divided roads. It sucks but people don't change easily.

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

#745

Post by FpUser » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 12:40 PM UTC

cycomanic wrote: post #735

FpUser wrote: post #723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Yes, too many people can't bear making anything they sense to be a sacrifice on their part." 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…

But you are expecting everyone to make sacrifices for your benefit, because non-car drivers are significantly subsidising car drivers. Lets make car cost exactly what they should be then, things like lets make real-estate used for roads in cities go into rental costs for those roads (via taxes, road tolls etc.), lets price the environmental costs appropriately, including the health cost from noise etc. If you still w…

>"But you are expecting everyone to make sacrifices for your benefit, because non-car drivers are significantly subsidising car drivers."

You are making off base assumptions. I am not expecting anything. If they sell cars I'll buy one. If they don't I'll get busy with something else. I am not the one deciding government policies.

As for subsidizing - I fucking work all my life and I pay taxes. I do not decide how my taxes are spent. Go complain to your corporate fat cats who own the government. Do not expect me to line up and follow your recommendations.

Also get out of HN and hi tech industry in general. It is "subsidized" in exactly the same way so some people can make more money than the others and live in a way they see fit for themselves.

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

#746

Post by JoeAltmaier » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 12:43 PM UTC

u801e wrote: post #730

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you have any statistics to back up your assertion that faster traffic does not change lanes to pass a cyclist taking the lane where taking the lane is defined as riding between the center of the lane and left your track? One experiment [1] demonstrated that motorists consistently changed lanes to pass when cyclists rode in the position I described. [1] https://iamtraffic.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/BicyclistP..…

Do you ride a bike? You wouldn't say such total nonsense if you rode a bike.

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

#747

Post by veggieburglar » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

u801e wrote: post #537

cogman10 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My near misses have never been at intersections or due to missing hand signals. My near misses have been because some idiot decides to hug or even drive in the cycling lane (usually while texting) or when someone parks a car in the cycling lane forcing me to move into the road (with cars being incapable of waiting for me to get around the idiot that decided to park in the cycling lane). Those are instances of followi…

Cyclists encounter problems at intersections because they're in the wrong position. They should be in the lane that serves their destination so that same direction traffic didn't have to cross their path when making a turn. For example, when proceeding straight through an intersection, the cyclist should be to the left of right turning traffic and directly in line with traffic going straight.

While this is correct, people often make outrageous last minute decisions in cars because they’re not paying attention. If you’re not taking the time to really look at your mirrors and blind spots you’re not going to see a cyclist. This is common behavior that I witness as both a driver and a cyclist.

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

#748

Post by d10r » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 2:59 PM UTC

nightski wrote: post #583

patrickyeon wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you bike for most of your transportation in your city? That's what "anti-car" people (speaking as one myself) want: to emphasize infrastructure that enables and encourages that. The "anti-car" thing isn't "ban cars entirely in all cases", just "stop assuming everything needs to be car-first at the expense of every other modality".

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.

Here in Europe it's often the opposite. E.g. in Austrian cities you have decent bicycle infrastructure and everything in reach in the cities while in rural areas that's often not the case.

I've been in the US once, 13 years ago, and it was pretty shocking for me to experience the concept of "car centric" in its full glory for the first time. I was at CES in Las Vegas and went to some club one evening with a friend. At some point I left and wanted to walk to the Hotel alone in order to calm down and enjoy the nice climate. Turned out, there was simply no walkable connection between the 2 locations. I couldn't believe it, but - being stubborn - walked anyway, in the dirt along some highway, a bit scared of being picked up by the police, not even sure if walking there was even legal.

Later that week I moved to LA and first saw the endless suburbs of an American city, from the air.

I don't know how representative those 2 places are for the US, but having seen that, I can totally understand why many Americans have a very hard time imagining life without a car.

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

#749

Post by phpsuks » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 3:57 PM UTC

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…

Thats a very level-headed take.

I can already see this happening in San Francisco. With the market street being closed to cars before pandemic hit. During pandemic, a lot of streets were marked "slow", so no entry to cars there and city plans to keep it that way. Some good hangout spots like JFK drive in GGP and Great highway are also marked car-free, I also heard something similar about Embarcadero in planning. City is also moving to make outdoor dining parklets permanent. All these moves discourage car ownership in every way and when you also consider transportation services like Revel scooters, Lyft electric bikes and Lime scooters, you can start seeing SF as a leader in USA. Not to mention, it is impossible to buy a used bike on CL at a reasonable price last entire year.

Let's keep putting in the work SFians!

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

#750

Post by geoduck14 » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 4:14 PM UTC

megablast wrote: post #568

geoduck14 wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen various threads promoting bicycles - and my life style is SO different that I can't conceive of using bikes and getting rid of my cars. I drive 6 miles to church. My kids are in the minivan and can't ride bikes yet. We also have stuff with us: diapers, water cups, snacks. My work (before WFH), is about 7 miles away. I could bike - but I take kids to day care, and they can't bike. Also, I can't wear "athleti…

Yes there are people with kids who don’t own a car. Madness. I guess they just don’t make excuses.

Well, of course there are. My mom used a bike for her first borne. She was poor. She had a lady in her apartment complex watch her daughter during work. She didn't really go out.

As soon as she could afford a car, she got one and her life expanded.

What do other families look like who have multiple kids and no car?