[HN Gopher] Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London
___________________________________________________________________
Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London
Author : gcoleman
Score : 895 points
Date : 2023-03-20 13:22 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.forbes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.forbes.com)
| raphaelj wrote:
| 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 EUR300/month in additional disposable income. That's
| basically a free lunch everyday!
|
| - significantly faster if parking is taken into account for most
| trips. The bike is faster for any < 10 km / 7 mi trip;
|
| - do not have to worry about car maintenance, parking tickets or
| theft;
|
| - you will not kill someone if you ride after a night drinking;
|
| - amazing when the weather is great;
|
| - (almost) no emission.
|
| Cons:
|
| - might be impossible depending on work or children;
|
| - weather might make the ride unpleasant;
|
| - somewhat dangerous when the infrastructure is lacking.
|
| I'm pretty sure I'll never own a car, unless absolutely required
| by work. Improving the infra and the car-sharing network would be
| awesome.
| cypress66 wrote:
| > you will not kill someone if you ride after a night drinking;
|
| Wow. After a family member of mine being injured by a cyclist
| crashing into them, reading something like this is quite
| infuriating.
|
| If you drink, don't drive, even if it's a bicycle.
| Mashimo wrote:
| I drink and bike.
|
| I'm debating with myself how safe it is. Currently I'm still
| on "it's fine" side of things. I'm open the change though.
| _-____-_ wrote:
| Not to mention, you could easily kill _yourself_. If you 're
| biking on the roads (especially in the UK where they're
| extremely narrow), you better recognize you're partaking in a
| dangerous activity and take it seriously. At least wear a
| helmet.
|
| Also, cycling drunk is illegal in many jurisdictions and can
| get you a DUI in the same way as drunk driving a car. If
| you're on an e-bike, it's almost certainly illegal, since
| you're driving a motorized vehicle.
| mns wrote:
| Yeah, that's one of the big problems with bikes. People want
| all the benefits of using them everywhere (pedestrian only
| pathways, on roads, on bike lanes), but none of the
| responsibilities (don't drink and drive, right of way,
| traffic lights, traffic rules in general). People just don't
| see them as a serious thing, so they use bikes without any
| rules, getting themselves and others in danger, minimising
| the risks.
| jcul wrote:
| Cons:
|
| >- might be impossible depending on >work or children; > >-
| weather might make the ride >unpleasant; > >- somewhat
| dangerous when the >infrastructure is lacking.
|
| None of those things are so bad once you get used to them,
| except perhaps the 3rd.
|
| I've used a bike for commuting for years.
|
| Since having kids I now have a seat on the back and one on the
| front to drop them to childcare.
|
| The city I live in rains a lot! And it is quite hilly, and this
| is a normal bike, not an ebike.
|
| But I still prefer it much more than driving, I just have the
| waterproof gear at hand.
|
| The infrastructure and weather was a lot better for cycling in
| the city I just moved from, but I think even without good
| cycling lanes etc, if you are vigilant, signal well, and be
| assertive when needed it can still be fine.
| TomK32 wrote:
| > - might be impossible depending on work or children;
|
| I can only speak for Austria and Germany, two countries that
| have the Pendlerpauschale, a tax rebate for those with a long
| commute and motorists far too much from this, it's even worse
| in Austria where high-income earner profit more from this than
| lower-income earners. Would that be dropped people would
| finally move closer to work (or work closer to them) and a lot
| of traffic into the city I live could be avoided (which would
| possibly lead to city residents using their car more often...)
|
| > - significantly faster if parking is taken into account for
| most trips.
|
| Fun fact about this: If a city reduces free/cheap over-ground
| parking and builds a few more parking houses, traffic can
| increase because straight driving to a parking house makes
| parking easier because they stop bothering looking for the few
| remaining overground parking spots.
| benatkin wrote:
| In most places, not only do parents with children need to use
| something other than a bicycle _for transportation_ because
| of inconvenience, but many have to quit using them because
| the children depend on them and they shouldn 't be taking
| unnecessary risks with their lives.
| jacobr1 wrote:
| > - do not have to worry about car maintenance, parking tickets
| or theft;
|
| While significantly less of a hassle than car maintenance, if
| you are riding a bike daily, you do now need to consider bike
| maintenance. And theft remains an issue in many cities for
| bikes as well.
| eyko wrote:
| I used to cycle daily and as far as maintenance went, it was
| mostly: bike tyres once a year, valves, chain lubricant, bike
| repair toolbox (purchase once), drum brake maintenance. All
| in all it would be about PS100 per year on average and I'm
| being generous.
|
| I've never owned a car, but the cost of replacing a lost bike
| (mine cost around PS600) plus its maintenance (let's say
| PS200 per year to be generous) sounds cheaper than what I'd
| pay for car insurance, petrol, and maintenance per year in
| UK/Europe. I also live in London where public transportation,
| even with its aging infrastructure, is wonderful.
|
| I'd definitely get a car if I was living outside of a big
| relatively city, especially if it isn't planned for walking
| and cycling.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| > _you will not kill someone if you ride after a night
| drinking;_
|
| You definitely can still kill someone.
|
| In at least some countries an 'e-bike', depending of exactly
| which type it is, may be motor vehicle that falls into the
| exact same laws as drink driving a car. If not it may still be
| illegal to ride a bike on the road while drunk.
| settrans wrote:
| > you will not kill someone if you ride after a night drinking
|
| (other than yourself)
| raphaelj wrote:
| Indeed. Still better though.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| While much more rare than with cars, biciclysts still
| sometimes fatally hit pedestrians.
| alkjsdlkjasd wrote:
| Some numbers from 2021 in the UK:
|
| https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-
| casua...
|
| > Chart 4 shows that, again, in terms of absolute numbers,
| cars are the vehicle type most often involved in fatal
| collisions when others are killed, followed by HGVs and
| Light Goods Vehicles (LGVs). Very few other road users are
| killed in collisions with pedal cyclists or pedestrians (5
| and 6 respectively in 2021).
| jjgreen wrote:
| I wonder if "road accident" includes incidents on the
| pavement? Not clear from that document.
| _-____-_ wrote:
| Cyclists on the pavement make me so angry. (Also,
| "pavement" means "sidewalk," for the Americans reading.)
| emj wrote:
| Why be angry about it; they are just scared of cars like
| the rest of us, I live in a neighborhood where the
| cyclepath just merges into the pavement. The cyclepath
| actually continues on the pavement if you look at the
| papers. My point is that we have pretty heavy traffic of
| inexperienced cyclists, and I never have an issue with
| them.
|
| As a cyclist I avoid pavements, the are very seldom the
| best route anyways. I do understand the fear that make
| them seem like the best options.
| jjgreen wrote:
| I use the pavements to walk on, and I don't fear cars,
| they tend to keep on the road. In the UK it is a criminal
| offence to ride a bike on the pavement, and with reason:
| the elderly, small children should have some safe means
| of getting from A to B. If these selfish criminal
| cyclists are so scared of cars then they should get off
| their bikes and push them along the pavement.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Worth noting that most car drivers have insurance. If you
| carelessly run over a child, you'll feel bad, but the
| insurance will pay for all the court cases.
|
| If you run over a child on a bicycle, most cyclists don't
| have insurance, and there is a reasonable chance you'll have
| to sell your house to pay compensation to a child who is now
| in a wheelchair for life.
| andymcsherry wrote:
| Car insurance liability limits will be insufficient if you
| kill someone, and you'll be on the hook for the remainder.
| Umbrella will cover you in both scenarios.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| In the US.
| throw0101b wrote:
| > _- might be impossible depending on work or children;_
|
| For the latter, perhaps see "The Car-Replacement Bicycle (the
| bakfiets)":
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQhzEnWCgHA
|
| > _- weather might make the ride unpleasant;_
|
| I live in Toronto, Canada, and in the Before Times I cycled
| everday between ~April and December, rain or shine. The
| simplest solution is to just always have bad weather gear: it's
| like and doesn't take up much volume. Having it in a pannier
| means you always have it and don't have to think about it. The
| simplest solution for rain is a poncho, though I went with
| jackets and rain pants.
|
| I found the _threat of_ rain is more of an obstacle that
| _actual_ rain. If your commute is <40 minutes, odds are pretty
| good it won't actually rain during your ride. It's the
| _possibility_ of it that tends discourage people, in which case
| some gear works to counter it.
|
| That said, if you ride >80% of the time when the weather isn't
| too bad that's still a good improvement over not riding at all.
| LightBug1 wrote:
| >>- you will not kill someone if you ride after a night
| drinking;
|
| Please don't take that attitude ...
|
| I have a work colleague who basically had an ankle tendon
| sliced by just such a person.
|
| The very likely outcome now is that they will never walk or run
| normally ever again.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Biking and drinking (in excess) -- probably not the world's
| best combo in general, but on the bright side it is just your
| own life at risk, and there's a built-in coordination
| challenge, so I guess it isn't possible to get going while
| truly hammered!
| tokai wrote:
| Eh what? You can definitely kill someone with your bike. Also
| if you kill yourself in traffic you will raise the risk of
| traffic related deaths for the responders. Many places in the
| world riding a bike drunk is as illegal as driving a car
| drunk.
| passwordqwe wrote:
| In the Netherlands driving a bike under influence is
| technically illegal. But nobody gets caught for it, and
| it's the much preferred alternative to drinking & driving.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| > Many places in the world riding a bike drunk is as
| illegal as driving a car drunk.
|
| Even if you assume the the risks outlined in your comment
| as relatively high likelihood (which I don't), it still
| makes 0 sense to think it's anywhere near as serious as
| driving drunk.
| tokai wrote:
| Riding a bike drunk is asocial and a danger to yourself
| and others. You might like to think of it as less
| serious, just like people thought of drunk driving as
| okay if you were careful. It's a judgment call you make,
| but it is objectively more dangerous than when you are
| sober.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| All motion is more dangerous while drunk, but how drunk
| you are matters, how fast you're going matters, and how
| dense traffic is matters. I'm not convinced of how much
| more dangerous biking is while mildly drunk than walking,
| or biking very slowly while very drunk, especially at
| night when almost no one is walking.
| ilyt wrote:
| So is walking anywhere
| Xylakant wrote:
| It's definitely possible and happens regularly. But
| statistically speaking, it's a freak accident compared to
| car vs. pedestrian. It's orders of magnitude less likely.
| tokai wrote:
| That's besides the point. People sometimes die when bikes
| run into them - simple as.
| [deleted]
| alkjsdlkjasd wrote:
| People sometimes die due to collisions pedestrians.
|
| Should it be illegal for people to walk around drunk as
| well?
| Xylakant wrote:
| What is your point then, if not "cycling drunk is as
| likely to kill somebody else as driving drunk?" If it is
| "it's technically possible to kill somebody cycling
| drunk" - then yes, I concede the point. But it's not a
| useful point in this discussion.
| throwaway_ab wrote:
| Did you put theft under the wrong heading?
|
| I've had many bikes stolen and everyone I know who rides has at
| least one bike stolen.
|
| I've never had anything stolen from my car and no issues with
| car theft, and I don't know anyone who has had their car
| stolen.
|
| I've met two people in my life who have had items stolen from
| their car, and in both cases they left their car unlocked.
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| I was thinking the same thing when they talked about "theft".
|
| Looks like they live in Belgium
|
| Maybe there's less bike theft there?
| tempsy wrote:
| I always hear people make the argument that cost savings is the
| biggest benefit of ditching a car and living in a city with
| good public transportation.
|
| Then I look at NYC and it's $5k to rent a 1 bedroom and
| everything as soon as you walk out the door is 30-50% more
| expensive than most other cities.
|
| No one is saving money not having a car in NYC when everything
| else is so much more expensive.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| You can get paid 1000% depending on your job, so YMMV.
| dustedcodes wrote:
| I really dislike cars in cities, but equally I dislike cyclists
| and cycling myself for the following reasons:
|
| > do not have to worry about car maintenance, parking tickets
| or theft;
|
| Not sure where bicycle theft is not a thing, I've not
| encountered this, even in Vienna, one of the safest cities in
| the world. You still need to lock your bicycle safely.
|
| > you will not kill someone if you ride after a night drinking;
|
| In London I see plenty of irresponsible cyclists badly harming
| pedestrians.
|
| > amazing when the weather is great;
|
| Or you end up drenched in sweat wherever you go. Personally I
| hate cycling for that reason as a way of commute in the city.
|
| Other reasons why I hate cycling and cyclists:
|
| - Uneven roads, pot holes, getting splashed by cars who drive
| through puddles
|
| - Inflexibility. You go somewhere, meet someone or your group
| of friends now spontaneously decide to move on to a different
| place and you'll be the loner who has to split from the group
| and meet them later again or you have to abandon your bicycle
| and get back the next day to pick it up. Sod that.
|
| - Helmets. I can't stand helmet hair. Also how fucking annoying
| is it to have to carry your helmet everywhere even after
| parking your bicycle.
|
| - Dirty clothes. You always end up with muddy splashes on your
| trousers. If you cycle then better not wear nice shoes or light
| trousers, which again limits where/when you can effectively use
| a bicycle as a way of commute.
|
| - Male genitalia. Cyclists completely kill off their male
| reproductive parts. If you cycle your whole life for daily
| commuting to places then you'll certainly end up with fertility
| issues and probably require assistance to get erected in older
| age. No thank you lol.
|
| Cycling is hugely overrated and I can't find anything nice
| about it to be honest. I rather have cities be transformed into
| amazing public transport systems so that I can go to places
| without a stupid castration apparatus.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| > You always end up with muddy splashes on your trousers. If
| you cycle then better not wear nice shoes or light trousers,
| which again limits where/when you can effectively use a
| bicycle as a way of commute.
|
| Does your bike not have fenders?
| lormayna wrote:
| > Male genitalia. Cyclists completely kill off their male
| reproductive parts. If you cycle your whole life for daily
| commuting to places then you'll certainly end up with
| fertility issues and probably require assistance to get
| erected in older age. No thank you lol.
|
| This is mostly an urban legend. I am a amateur cyclist and
| during my testicles checkup I asked to my andrologist if it's
| better to stop while I am looking for a son. He replied that
| there is no any scientific evidence about damage on testicles
| by bike and that I can continue without worrying about them.
| Other factors like smoke are a lot more risky
| surfingdino wrote:
| Bikes are also good for economy.
|
| The amount of expensive add-ons I see on the bikers and their
| bikes suggest to me it's good business. Helmets, clothing, and
| electronic add-ons are likely adding around PS1,000 per annum
| to the cost of ownership.
|
| Bikes prices are a bit silly though. Expensive bikes (those in
| the PS3,000 range) are ~25% of the price of a new Dacia
| Sandero.
|
| Bike theft is rampant in London, so the insurance premiums are
| high, too. It can cost PS300 per year.
|
| Cons? Not all offices are equipped with showers.
| afavour wrote:
| I live in NYC and love being car free. But with two kids that
| within a few years will be attending two different schools the
| pull of car ownership gets stronger and stronger. It's
| depressing, especially as there is so much the city could do to
| encourage bikers but never does.
| ilyt wrote:
| It's weird dissonance, here in rural village I cycled a lot
| to school during reasonable weather (from like age of 8,
| around ~10km), and outside of that school bus. Of course not
| really a option in unsafe spaces or younger kids.
| CalRobert wrote:
| For being America's flagship city it's insane how car-choked
| and human-hostile NYC is.
| unixgoddess wrote:
| > not worry about theft
|
| How do you protect your bike? Isn't it more likely to get your
| bike wheels stolen than to get your car stolen?
|
| Also, 10eur for just one lunch?? 8D
| havblue wrote:
| "might be impossible depending on work or children"
|
| I'll note that getting rid of a lot of cars would be nice for
| safety and pollution reasons, but many proponents underestimate
| how difficult the kid situation becomes, especially after
| having more than one. People tend to move their families to the
| suburbs for a reason.
| mrpopo wrote:
| 1 car/household is still entirely feasible with children (and
| the norm for many lower-class in Europe).
|
| We live with 1 child and no car and it's been working fine thus
| far. You have to be careful about where you live and work
| though, but I'd say the added quality of life of living car-
| free (in a car-free city) is all worth it.
| lrem wrote:
| I find it a bit funny you mention "lower-class" here. Of the
| seven first software engineers with kids I thought of, six
| have one car and one has none.
| mrpopo wrote:
| From my limited knowledge and viewpoint, there is a
| generational divide, a regional divide, and a class divide.
| When everything is averaged though, the household income is
| still the strongest indicator of how many cars you own, and
| most national statistics prove it.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| True, class divide is a real factor: The upper class
| doesn't own cats (aside from "fun" cars for collecting)
| but leases them.
|
| Somewhat more serious: Especially here in Germany there
| is a strong incentive to give cars as a job benefit
| instead of a pay rises as there is less social insurance
| to be paid. Thus there is a strong motivation for anybody
| in a well paying job to get a car. This directly leads to
| that class divide.
| wiredfool wrote:
| Here, no one owns cats.
|
| The cats have servants.
| danjoredd wrote:
| Growing up my family was mostly a one-car family. I was
| homeschooled so that made it a lot easier since nobody had to
| pick me up at school, and my mom was stay-at-home. I totally
| understand why a public schooled family where both parents
| work might need two cars though. It would be a pain to drop
| your kids off at school, drop your spouse off at work, THEN
| head on to work and then pick them all up at the end of the
| day when traffic is clogged.
|
| It depends pretty heavily on family situations and all
| pjc50 wrote:
| If you live within London transport zone 1, it's quite likely
| to be a zero-car household, simply because of the difficulty
| in keeping the car somewhere.
| tomatocracy wrote:
| Most councils bave residents only parking bays for this
| exact reason. I live in zone 1 and the permit costs
| somewhere between 150-200 GBP per year.
| rnk wrote:
| That doesn't quite make sense, "it's difficult to avoid
| having a car because you can't store it"? Can you
| elaborate? I'm interested what life is like in these cities
| that charge drivers so as to reduce cars in the road.
| pastage wrote:
| Congestion charge makes car ownership easier in that area
| it is pretty cash anyways. The land is so valuable that
| you rather fit other things than cars there, e.g.
| apparments with even more people.
| em500 wrote:
| I think you misread GP: he's saying that in inner London
| it's difficult to have a car, not to avoid having one,
| mostly because parking space is very limited.
|
| What exactly are you interested in, about life such
| cities? I live in Amsterdam, haven't owned a car for over
| a decade (which doesn't mean that I never drive one), and
| haven't really missed it (even with a primary school aged
| child).
| pjc50 wrote:
| It's expensive to have a car in central London because of
| the cost of parking. It has basically been unbundled from
| housing; garages sell for upwards of PS100k, guaranteed
| parking spaces somewhat less, on-street parking is either
| banned, charged for, or very heavily competed over.
|
| As a resident you get a 90% discount on the congestion
| charge, so driving it will cost you PS1.50 per day. I'm
| not quite sure whether that applies to parked cars as
| well.
| Reason077 wrote:
| Car parking for residents is heavily subsidised by London
| councils, a policy which _encourages_ car ownership.
| Residential parking permits are very cheap (often as
| little as PS100 or so for a YEAR of parking), where as
| outsiders coming in to park will be charged a small
| fortune. [1]
|
| This system discourages schemes that could reduce car
| ownership, like car sharing, car rentals, etc, because
| residential parking permits must be linked to a
| particular plate number.
|
| [1] It's true that some newer housing developments have
| been approved on a "no parking" basis, which means if you
| live in that building you can't apply for a parking
| permit. But these developments are still the exception,
| not the rule.
| pastage wrote:
| Cars are a poor mans choice in Europe you only have to have a
| car if you are really poor. Europe is more mixed economicaly
| so this isn't true everywhere. Sure if you are rich you are
| also more likely to make life choices that make car ownership
| "a must", when you can buy cars like toothpicks it does not
| really matter.
| orobinson wrote:
| I live in London. We have three kids, no car and an electric
| cargo bike which they can all fit in. It's brilliant and all
| we need for getting around London. I've also used it for
| picking up furniture and building materials - such a
| versatile vehicle and much more enjoyable to use than a car.
| margorczynski wrote:
| Aren't you wary that the bike doesn't offer almost any
| protection at all when an accident happens? Something that
| causes minor or no damage when inside a car can easily
| cause serious injury on even death when on a bike.
| orobinson wrote:
| I greatly minimise the risks in several ways:
|
| - Planning routes that avoid particularly risky roads or
| junctions and take advantage of separated bike lanes
| where possible. This is trivial in a city as there's
| hundreds of possible routes between two places.
|
| - A cargo bike itself is a much larger and more visible
| presence on the road than a regular bike. That combined
| with the visible children on board usually means
| motorists do a better job of staying clear than they do
| when I'm on a regular bike.
|
| - Staying well clear of HGVs in ALL circumstances. Once
| you start cycling in a way where you treat any HGV as
| imminent death on wheels, you notice how many potentially
| dangerous situations you avoid.
|
| More generally, I find cycling in London feels quite
| safe. This is because drivers in London are mostly used
| to cyclists and generally act appropriately around them.
| Also traffic speeds are generally 20mph or less.
| crote wrote:
| That's a local minimum. Serious injuries or deaths only
| occur when a bike gets hit by a _car_. Bike-on-bike
| accidents are pretty much a non-issue.
|
| This is solved by better bike infrastructure, and by
| holding drivers accountable for the accidents. The more
| people cycle, the safer it becomes.
| bertil wrote:
| The problem is not what happens to a bike or a car in a
| comparable accident. The problem is that some car drivers
| somehow believe that bikes don't belong on the road.
|
| They display two very distinct and easy to notice
| behaviour:
|
| 1. They deny bike presence on the road: They refuse to
| yield, don't check their mirror, and run them over as if
| the bike is not there. When you point out the
| discrepancy, they just affirm that cyclists have to yield
| to more important traffic no matter what the condition.
|
| Another symptom of that is drivers thinking that bikes
| should not be on the road and harassing them with honks,
| and revving their engine. When they pass them, or on-
| line, they loudly claim that bikes are not allowed on the
| road or have a (non-existent) obligation to move away of
| a far more important car drivers threatens them. In that
| process, they speed (which is illegal), pass dangerously
| (also illegal) and threaten people with bodily harm
| (again, illegal). Retraining, license ban and jail
| sentences are easy ways to get dangerous people like that
| to not put people's lives in danger.
|
| A third symptom is that they claim that "no one" is using
| bike infrastructure (in spite of evidence like what we
| see in London) because they refuse to see it. They see no
| issue with routinely parking on bike lanes or blocking
| bike-only passages. This complete denial of another
| humanity is hard to imagine if you haven't witnessed it,
| but it's very common.
|
| 2. They have a cop-out of thinking that bikes are
| "dangerous" because they project their own dangerous and
| unhealthy driving habits as "normal" and impossible to
| modify----denying that those habits mean they break the
| law in several ways. Crash don't just happen: drivers
| choose to not pay attention. Actually supportive drivers
| are not pretending they care: they are enthusiastic about
| cycling because when _they_ are around bikes, drivers
| don't honk, threaten or put cyclists' lives in danger.
| And they can't imagine that anyone would.
|
| It's very simple for cyclists to be safe: drivers should
| look at them and thing "This is a human, going from
| somewhere to somewhere else, like me. I should not kill
| them." If they don't, the cyclist is not the one in
| danger: the driver is.
| swexbe wrote:
| The "safer" your car is, the more dangerous it is for
| everyone else in traffic usually.
| margorczynski wrote:
| Yes. But that doesn't change the fact that given current
| reality the safety of moving in a car is higher than when
| using a bike. How it could and should be is a different
| matter.
| garte wrote:
| This thinking seems self-defeating to me and only serves
| to uphold the status quo or - sadly - make things worse.
| margorczynski wrote:
| How is looking at reality and making choices that based
| on that analysis are best for the safety of you and your
| family self-defeating? You're putting activism into the
| mix and if you're willing to put more risk on yourself
| and/or your family to prove a point then it is your
| choice to do so.
| mrpopo wrote:
| It's not "activism" or "proving a point", it's the
| prisoner's dilemma. You maximize the global reward
| (fewest accidents) by putting yourself on the most risky
| position.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| I think that is literally the meaning of activism
| pastage wrote:
| As I state in a sibling above this is not the case it is
| just how we think as humans. You do a lot more harm to
| you kids and family by driving them in a car.
| pastage wrote:
| Actually being in a car is statiscally more dangerous
| than doing your commute on a bike, because of health
| reasons. Accidents are not that important.
| avianlyric wrote:
| No so clear cut. I almost every city in the world cycling
| rather than driving will increase your life expectancy.
| Even when factoring in risks associated with not moving
| around inside a 1 ton metal box.
| googl-free wrote:
| It's only safer on a per mile basis. Per hour and per
| trip, driving is more dangerous.
| tomatocracy wrote:
| One big con you missed is "where do you keep it?" Cargo bikes
| big enough for (say) one adult plus two large children
| basically take up the space of a small car. I have room for
| bikes (and cycle to work myself) and a car in London (and I
| need my car for journeys outside London) but no way I would
| have room for a cargo bike as well.
| matsemann wrote:
| > _- 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 a car. But they can be a
| replacement for most car use, and then just rent a car for
| other more seldom occasions.
|
| And to avoid the initial big purchase, not even sure if it's
| something for you, there's a startup where I live (
| https://whee.no/ ) where you also can rent the bike on a
| monthly basis. Really recommended to see if it suits your
| lifestyle.
|
| Lastly, I also think this kind of easier movement will change
| how people live. You can no longer expect to move out of the
| city and still get a short way to everything by using your car,
| making life miserable for everyone else (noise, danger,
| pollution, too much asphalt). So I think we will see a shift in
| where people settle, where they will no longer base their lives
| around owning multiple cars.
| ryankshaw wrote:
| what do people do that have kids between the "too big for
| cargo bike" and "too young to drive their own car" category?
|
| I used to take my kids all the time on my e-bike with a
| burley bike trailer. Now I have a 13 year old and a 10 year
| old. I'm pretty sure the middle schooler would get made fun
| of if his friends saw him showing up to school or soccer
| practice in the cargo bucket of my bike.
|
| For people that have hit that milestone before me, what do
| you guys do for your older kids?
| soperj wrote:
| My kid is 7 and rides his own bike to school with me.
| (2.5km) At 13 I'm pretty sure they'd be good to go without
| you even.
| sagarm wrote:
| It sounds like you think the infrastructure is too unsafe
| for them to bike on their own?
|
| My nephew (12) cycles himself to school, but the
| infrastructure supports him doing so.
| TheTon wrote:
| Our 9 year old has an electric scooter. I didn't really
| want to get it for him, because I'm an old school analog
| bike guy myself, but I have to admit it is convenient. It
| has around a 15 mile range and keeps up with a comfortable
| cycling pace, so my wife and I ride our commuter bikes and
| he cruises along next to us.
|
| He also has a bike and he's a pretty strong rider for a
| kid, but it's still a bit much for him to keep up on longer
| trips, so the scooter helps there. I expect in a couple of
| years or so it will break or he will outgrow it, but by
| then he should have no trouble keeping up on his own bike.
| olau wrote:
| My children ride their own bike to school at age 6. I
| bought light-weight bikes (like Frogbikes or Woom, they
| keep a great resale value), and accepted that it takes a
| bit more time.
|
| There's a certain joy in being propelled by your own
| muscles. But of course it depends on the distance.
| juancb wrote:
| Sounds like it's time for them to get their own bike to
| ride to school?
|
| You can ride with them on a few practice runs on a weekend
| and then continue to do so on a weekdays. Once you're both
| comfortable with the route and their ability to navigate it
| safely you can cut back on how much of the route you do
| together or just let them run it on their own. That last
| bit is a call to be made based on a lot of factors
| including your kids desire to ride with you.
| atotic wrote:
| My 11 and 13yo happily ride on the back of my cargo bike
| (Extracycle). Some of their braver, bike riding friends, do
| ask "Why don't you ride by yourself?"
|
| I used to have a burley before the cargo. I think the cargo
| upright position makes it feel a bit more grown up. Plus,
| it is so fun.
|
| The highschooler absolutely refuses to ride the back of the
| cargo, and insists on being driven by car. It takes so much
| longer with all the traffic, but he is willing to suffer to
| avoid looking uncool.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| When I was in middle school my friends who lived close to
| school used their own bikes
| Rendello wrote:
| I had my mind blown about Dutch-style cargo ebikes,
| _bakfietsen_. The cool thing is that you can use the bikes to
| haul cargo, or put three kids in the front in special
| harnesses when you need to:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQhzEnWCgHA
| em500 wrote:
| Most Dutch parents don't bother with harnesses in cargo
| bikes. Or with helmets on normal bikes.
| r00fus wrote:
| If they don't have to deal with cars, perhaps it's ok -
| but yikes. Helmets for everyone because even at 20kph
| someone could get a nasty/fatal head injury when they're
| yeeted out of the cargo area.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| "Why I stopped wearing a bike helmet" by former editor-
| in-chief of _Bicycling_ , the world's largest cycling
| magazine -
| https://www.cyclingtips.com/2018/11/commentary-why-i-
| stopped...
|
| (Although he does still say kids should wear them).
| ryukafalz wrote:
| The cargo area in mine has seatbelts sized for small
| children.
| em500 wrote:
| Try to count the number of helmets you can spot:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqQSwQLDIK8
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynwMN3Z9Og8
|
| In Amsterdam if we see adult cyclists with a helmet we'd
| guess it's probably a tourist or new expat. For children
| most parents only bother with helmets until they're six
| years or so.
| syntheweave wrote:
| It's all in a combination of infrastructure and riding
| style. If you're forced to ride with car traffic you have
| to go fast, which predisposes you to an aggressive road
| biking style. But if you do that then you also have
| trouble with stops and starts, which creates additional
| risk.
|
| If you can go slower like a Dutch commuter, then you can
| also ride like them, using a step-through frame and a
| lower saddle. That keeps your center of gravity down and
| allows scooting starts. All of this adds up to a
| substantially smaller risk of going head-first in a fall.
| tfourb wrote:
| We live in a very small town and I built a cargo bike from
| scratch to drive my (disabled) son to school. Excellent
| experience, despite not having motor assist. We still own a
| car, but we can easily make do with that one car now, where
| we would likely have had to buy a second one without the
| cargo bike. And having built it myself, it cost below
| 1,000EUR, including the welder I used to construct it.
|
| My sister lives in Berlin, has a very young child and just
| bought an electrified cargo bike. She is not a bike rider,
| never has been, but loves it. Great alternative not only to a
| car in a crowded city, but also to crowded public transport
| if you are transporting a small human.
| TomK32 wrote:
| > So I think we will see a shift in where people settle,
|
| Let's hope not all will want to live above the supermarket
| they work at: https://3pod.bandcamp.com/track/triangle-of-
| happiness
| r00fus wrote:
| This is the case in Hong Kong when I visited my extended
| family who live there a decade ago.
|
| Powered walkways/escalators/elevators everywhere, metro
| came every 2-3m, shopping/city offices/food courts
| connected to it all and you did a LOT of walking.
|
| That was the closest to Trantor I'll ever be in my life.
| Sigh.
| robbyking wrote:
| > _The newer style of cargo bikes can for many families
| replace a car._
|
| Absolutely! My wife and I have a 6yo, and we take him
| everywhere on the back of our Kona Minute.
|
| He's big for his age (65lbs) so we're looking to move to a
| ebike sometime this year, but up to now it's been great!
| Literally the only time we need to use a car is when we go
| out of town.
| holoduke wrote:
| You live in a city bubble. I have three kids and live in a
| suburban town about 40km away from the nearest big city. No
| way i can live without a car. I do have bikes and use them
| often to bring kids to school. But many friends and family
| are scattered arround the country. Many places i go to with
| my kids can only visited by car. And i find a car often very
| useful during a period of reconstruction of my house or
| garden. Or when i pick up big stuff from somewhere. Nah i
| couldnt live with out it
| matsemann wrote:
| Yes I am, but you're similarly in a suburbian bubble, where
| you get the benefits of living remotely (silence, big
| house, lawn etc), but also expect to get easy access to
| everything by driving everywhere. The latter of great cost
| to society both in dollars and other external factors.
|
| All your usecases could be served with a rental. Where I
| live I can rent cars on hour basis with an app. Need to
| haul something big? Rent a van for a few hours. Want to
| visit family in a remote city? Rent a sedan for a day or
| two. Need to get a cat to the vet? Rent a small city car
| for two hours.
| [deleted]
| substation13 wrote:
| This is why cities are better for the environment. I don't
| think rural car usage has nearly as much negative impact as
| driving in a big city though, so this shouldn't be a strong
| policy focus. Awesome that the kids can ride to school!
| rickydroll wrote:
| I think the rural/city better for the environment is a
| bit of cherry picking of statistics. It's important
| however to respect what's good for each of us. For me,
| living in the city meant shitty health outcomes, spending
| way too much money on rent and food, way too many people
| trying to stick a hand in my pocket for entertainment
| etc.
|
| For me a good life means dark skies, green trees, a
| chance of dying every time I go for a hike, and a garden
| in my backyard.
|
| If you are a city person, that's great, fantastic and I
| hope that you can stay there but if you have to move out
| to suburban/rural spaces, don't bring the city with you.
| Leave the light pollution, the noise, and all those urban
| attributes in the city.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Cities aren't loud. Cars are loud.
| nradov wrote:
| Sirens and garbage trucks going all night are loud.
| enriquto wrote:
| > Leave the light pollution, the noise, and all those
| urban attributes in the city.
|
| "The noise"... are you advocating for a rural setting
| without cars here? Most of light pollution and noise in
| the cities comes from cars and car infrastructure.
| moneywoes wrote:
| > a chance of dying every time I go for a hike
|
| Sold where did you go
| juancb wrote:
| Does your large suburban home improvement shop not offer
| delivery or rent out work trucks/vans for hauling your DIY
| catch of the week?
|
| Consider the cost of ownership with maintenance,
| depreciation, loan interest (if applicable), and insurance
| compared to renting. Depending on the frequency and
| distance of your long trips you may actually save money by
| renting.
| Kiro wrote:
| 40km from the nearest city should still provide lots of
| public transport options.
| ArcticLandfall wrote:
| > You live in a city bubble
|
| Or relatively, you live in a suburban bubble? Different
| lifestyles, different modes of transport.
| judge2020 wrote:
| There is no bubble, only a lack of desire to seek out
| knowledge about other lifestyles. The problems with car
| culture were not surfaced until the rise and dominance of
| the internet.
| ovi256 wrote:
| When people are accused of living in a bubble, it's
| usually because they show a strong universalist desire to
| expand their lifestyles to others, without consideration
| for the others' preferences. The opposite of humanist
| liberalism that was foundational for Western liberal
| democracies, or 'live and let live'.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| Although you didn't imply a preference one way or the
| other, this made me think: if policy that is driven by
| suburbanite lifestyles leads to the destruction of the
| planet, is it truly "live and let live"? A more accurate
| description of the US ideology as someone who has lived
| in both ultra-rural and urban environments in the midwest
| and west coast is: "I want to do whatever I want/believe
| is best, regardless of the impact it has on people
| outside of my circle."
| uoaei wrote:
| If we taxed suburbs what they actually cost us as a
| society, no one would want to live in suburbs. The land
| use is abysmal compared to cities. Suburbs are
| effectively subsidized by the cities they are near, and
| those living in suburbs get off way too easy. That's a
| good thing if you have an extractivist, individualist
| mindset, but if we are to continue functioning as a whole
| society, something needs to give.
|
| We love our farmers. Keep the fields going. But this
| business with allocating half-acre lots per 4 people
| (lots which are empty for literally 1/3 of the day) has
| got to end, or else local utilities should stop servicing
| those far-flung places. You want to be without the
| burdens of living in a society -- fine! Figure out water
| and power for yourself. It's easier than ever and there's
| still federal- and state-level rebate programs for
| renewables.
| ars wrote:
| If we actually tax them, it would be a negative tax.
|
| So many people don't seem to realize that without suburbs
| you don't have farms.
|
| Suburbs and farms produce all the things that cities rely
| on. You don't see heavy industry in the middle of a city.
|
| So we actually wanted to do your plan then cities should
| cough up way more money than they currently do.
| tfourb wrote:
| Farmlands and suburbs are completely different things,
| especially in the context of urban development.
|
| Industrial zones are also a completely different category
| entirely.
|
| Living in Germany, most German cities do not have
| anything that is comparable to a U.S. "suburb". Building
| codes demand a quite high density, even for single family
| homes for new developments and older developments have
| the tendency to get denser as the demand for housing in a
| city rises.
|
| German planning law specifically aims to concentrate
| development as much as possible, to limit encroachment on
| agricultural lands and nature. Doesn't always work out,
| but we have very little of the "urban sprawl" that is so
| characteristic of U.S. urban planning.
| ars wrote:
| And Germany is tiny compared to the US.
|
| A farm in Germany is how far of a drive from the nearest
| city?
|
| In the US you could drive 10 hours from a farm to get to
| the nearest large city. Suburbs and tiny cities are what
| farms need to survive.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| The poorer denser city centers (in America) subsidise the
| wealthier, less dense suburbs. "Suburbia is Subsidized:
| Here's the Math [ST07]" -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI
| ars wrote:
| I knew before watching it that it was Strong Towns
| propaganda.
|
| They keep ignoring that without those suburbs you won't
| have rural farms. Without those suburbs those
| "productive" cities will have nothing to eat, and nothing
| to buy.
|
| They measure productivity in terms of dollars - but all
| cities do is services, they don't produce goods. That's
| left to those places Strong Towns hates.
|
| If people actually implemented what Strong Towns wants,
| people would starve.
|
| Try the math again, but completely exclude services and
| let's see where you end up.
| amalcon wrote:
| Nonsense. Farms obviously predate suburbs, for one thing:
| nothing resembling the modern suburb could exist without
| steam power or something newer than that. There's never
| really been heavy industry in the suburbs: the modern
| suburb exists because people didn't want to live near the
| heavy industry in the cities.
|
| The North American suburb, which is what we're discussing
| here unless I misunderstand, more or less came about in
| the post-war era. It would really be an extraordinary
| claim that farms and heavy industry couldn't exist in
| North America until the 1950s...
| adambard wrote:
| > So many people don't seem to realize that without
| suburbs you don't have farms.
|
| This strikes me as a bizarre take. What do you consider a
| "suburb"?
| ars wrote:
| A place outside dense cities, somewhere not too far from
| farms. A place where a farmer can go for services without
| having to travel far.
| uoaei wrote:
| You're describing "rural" living. Suburbs entail
| something else.
| bregma wrote:
| Suburbs are the places where what used to be productive
| farms are paved over with asphalt. Few cities rely on
| them for anything except maybe cheap labour.
| ars wrote:
| > anything except maybe cheap labour.
|
| Hmmmmm. And that labor does?
|
| Please think about this a big more - cities do not have
| industry or agriculture in them. They need those suburbs
| to provide that. You can't just dismiss it as "cheap
| labor" - what exactly do you plan to eat or buy?
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Farms aren't sub-urbs, farms are rural. Suburbia "lesser-
| urban" is housing estates. Nothing productive happens
| there.
|
| https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/subur
| bia - " _the outer parts of a town, where there are
| houses, but no large shops, places of work, or places of
| entertainment_ "
| ars wrote:
| People _live_ there. And they create business nearby.
|
| And those business are closer to the rural areas than the
| cities are.
|
| And also, there aren't really any places with just houses
| and no places of work, that doesn't really exist.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Why is it illegal to build almost anything but suburbia?
| CalRobert wrote:
| Similarly, someone on the moon would find a spacecraft
| useful as well.
| r00fus wrote:
| I mean, no one is arguing to replace all cars with bikes.
| Just where appropriate and if you want to. Enjoy your
| suburban paradise.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| no-one is arguing you should cycle 40 km - but that doesn't
| mean we live in a bubble.
|
| That distance is more than the radius of the largest city
| in Europe -> it's 25km from Heathrow airport to the
| Buckingham palace.
|
| I don't think having a car is a big problem, I think we
| could hand out free e-bikes to every family and reduce
| amount of cars of the roads, because for ~50% of journeys,
| they make sence.
| ulrikrasmussen wrote:
| You can also just put seats on a normal bike. I have two kids
| seats on my bike, front and back, and take my 3 and 6yo to
| kindergarten that way. It's cheaper than a cargo bike, and
| much less likely to get stolen.
| uoaei wrote:
| I am dismayed but not surprised at just how much money
| people will spend on e-bikes to avoid exercise.
|
| There are literally millions of decent analog bike frames
| bouncing around in various corners of <your city here>.
| Getting one up and running, and strapping a seat to the
| front and back as you have done, would be about 10% the
| cost of a new e-bike, and maintenance would be negligible.
|
| Plus, you get to eat whatever you want guilt-free!
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > I am dismayed but not surprised at just how much money
| people will spend on e-bikes to avoid exercise.
|
| I am dismayed at how much people spend on plastic coffee
| pods just to avoid making a proper coffee!
|
| Before I got an ebike, I didn't have confidence of riding
| on the road proper- > now I know I won't be slowing down
| to 5 MPH on an uphill, with someone behind me honking
| incessantly or overtaking dangerously.
|
| I installed nice bright lights powered from the central
| battery, mirrors and a horn. This makes a world of
| difference.
| uoaei wrote:
| There is a lot to be said for shitty bike infrastructure
| causing confrontations like this. Yet somehow I've never
| been hit except once in a right hook, so I'm sure you can
| pull it off too if you dedicate yourself to it.
|
| I'd like to point out that the carbon footprint of a used
| bike is _a negative number_ and the out-of-pocket cost is
| laughably low. I love when people can reduce their
| emissions by replacing a car with something with much
| less impact like an e-bike, but those are the exceptions
| statistically speaking, and it also doesn 't delete that
| car from existence but rather brings about more demand
| for mining and materials. Buying used e-bikes is also a
| fine option.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| 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.
|
| Secondly things like double leg kickstands and steering
| stem lock are really important to load kids in and out of
| seats safely, which again don't exist in 'normal' bikes.
|
| My point is you don't need an ebike but you should
| definitely not be using an off the shelf thin frame to
| carry kids around everyday.
| mrob wrote:
| Exactly. Weight distribution makes a big difference to
| how the bike handles. If you put a lot of weight on the
| back without balancing it with weight at the front you'll
| lose grip on the front wheel easily, which can be
| dangerous. Front wheel skids are almost impossible to
| control.
| uoaei wrote:
| That would be a good example of something we call "user
| error". I am also not surprised that the first instinct
| of the risk-averse is "make it heavier", but look where
| that's got us with cars?
| uoaei wrote:
| 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 capacities.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| 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.
| pg314 wrote:
| It's true that you'll get more exercise if you do the
| same trip on a regular bicycle. But according to [1],
| e-cyclists cycles more and longer than regular cyclists.
| End result is that they exercise about as much.
|
| [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S25
| 9019821...
| r00fus wrote:
| I loved biking into work when I lived close enough (7mi)
| but honestly I would never have done it if I didn't also
| have shower access (was a small company but the business
| park had a shared shower).
|
| Doubly so if you're doing any hills with a passenger on
| board.
|
| Sweat/stink is what they're avoiding.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Can't understate the temporal dimension to owning a car. When
| dropping and picking up a kid at daycare, you want to move
| fast, if you work for a living.
| noelwelsh wrote:
| Eh. For all my kids' daycare career I dropped them off by
| bike. Given the distance and route it was faster than
| driving. It really depends on the distances involved, road
| layout, cycling infrastructure, geography, weather, etc...
| Not many universals here.
| hgomersall wrote:
| I was recently obliged for the first time to drop my son
| off at school by car. It took 50% longer than cycling. I
| can't understate the temporal dimension of using a car.
| When dropping and picking up a kid at school...etc etc
| slothtrop wrote:
| You're not representative of how this usually works, and
| you know it.
| matsemann wrote:
| You mean the long rows of cars queueing one constantly
| see outside US schools aren't representative? I'd say it
| takes far longer to pick someone up in a car than a
| bike..
| slothtrop wrote:
| Only if you live that close by. And I've never seen a
| long queue.
| prmoustache wrote:
| A kid goes to daycare for what 3 years? If you have 2-3
| kids and you don't wait 10 years in between these are just
| 10 years of your life.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Meaning what, it's not worth owning a vehicle for a 10
| year span? Be serious.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Meaning this is a moot point for most of your life.
| em500 wrote:
| This depends very much on local circumstances. In our local
| daycare in Amsterdam, probably 3/4 of dropping and picking
| up was done by bike. Even at that level, using a car is
| often slower due to tightness of parking space.
| gpvos wrote:
| _> You can no longer expect to move out of the city and still
| get a short way to everything by using your car_
|
| E-bikes could actually improve rural life as well (the
| example I read about was Spain). If you live 10km outside a
| village and can do your normal shopping by bike instead of
| car, that can really make an impact. Won't work in really
| sparse areas of course.
| sharkweek wrote:
| 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 miles on it.
|
| When we first bought it, I thought "okay when my wife rides
| the ebike with kids, I'll just ride behind on my road bike."
|
| It took all but a week for us to go buy a second ebike
| because of how failed my idea was. The guy at the bike shop,
| same that we bought the cargo bike from, laughed and said
| that happened all the time.
|
| While we have always been big into bikes, we're on another
| level now. I always feel sorry for the poor suckers at the
| park who ask me how we like the bike who have to listen to me
| rave about it for 20 minutes when a "we love it" probably
| would have been enough.
| antihero wrote:
| What was the issue with the road bike idea?
| sharkweek wrote:
| I consider myself a pretty strong cyclist, and I was
| huffing and puffing trying to keep pace with my wife and
| kids on the ebike.
| syntheweave wrote:
| Having experienced widely varying amounts of power output
| with the local bikeshare bikes, their varied condition
| and assisted vs non-, I don't have any illusions here -
| it's just a different experience to be able to spin it
| once and feel the bike boost you up to max effort. Even
| the heavily built bikeshare frames can easily outclass a
| road bike, if there's no mechanical issue. Although there
| often is - the chains, gears and tires really take a
| beating.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| Most probably it wasn't electric
| yohannparis wrote:
| I'm on the same boat. Now I'm the proud owner of two Urban
| Arrow cargo bikes (His and Hers) and I don't know how to
| live without it.
| mrcartmeneses wrote:
| Larry vs Harry Bullit rider here. my wife and I even rode
| it from London to Berlin (cheated with the ferry and
| train a lot) when we moved in late December. We have 2.5
| kids. No car. I use car sharing when I need a van or
| wanna drive to the airport. Life is good
| stevenally wrote:
| Presumably you live in a place where it's safe to cycle. If
| so, I am envious.
| egman_ekki wrote:
| Which one did you pick?
| gardenhedge wrote:
| I'd like a recommended brand too
| rickydroll wrote:
| > So I think we will see a shift in where people settle,
| where they will no longer base their lives around owning
| multiple cars.
|
| Magical thinking will not make it so. My partner and I moved
| further away from the city where she works because we wanted
| to move in together and we can't afford rent or property
| where either of us used to live.
|
| I work from home so most the time my car sits charging the
| driveway. However, all of my doctors are at least a half-hour
| drive away, my dental clinic is a 50 minute drive, my hobbies
| are anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour half drive away. The
| rest of my family is an hour away so no amount of moving will
| change these things without making the rest of them worse.
|
| But bicycles will work fine for 10% of my travel except for
| there being no infrastructure supporting bicycling.
| fho wrote:
| You might consider getting a velomobile. Slower than a car,
| but a lot faster than a regular bike. Eg I am currently
| considering a job that is about 50km away from here, one
| way times are: public transport 1h50m, car 50m, velomobile
| 1h to 1h30m depending on effort.
| nomel wrote:
| > we can't afford rent or property where either of us used
| to live.
|
| I've never seen this _not_ be the case.
|
| Are European cities organized differently or something?
| I've never see affordable living within biking distance of
| a business district, in the US. Prices are usually double.
| glacials wrote:
| Yes. European cities were, in general, well-developed
| before the car was invented.
|
| US cities are built around the car. This means more space
| dedicated to parking, which means less space for homes
| and businesses, which means things are farther apart,
| which means people need cars.
|
| It's a negative feedback loop.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Wouldn't that be a positive feedback loop that we feel
| negative about?
| seadan83 wrote:
| I don't think this is quite true. To nitpick. My
| knowledge is that European urban planning was very
| similar and car centric until the late 60s. At that time
| things diverged, US stayed the course with car centric
| split zoning where Europe shifted away from car centric
| design and heavily favored mixed zoning
|
| Eg, in many US cities, it is illegal to have a bakery on
| the ground floor of an apartment building.
|
| Though, bottom line, my point is US and EU cities were
| designed very similarly from 1940 until 1970
| unity1001 wrote:
| > My knowledge is that European urban planning was very
| similar and car centric until the late 60s
|
| There was and is scarce 'city planning' in Europe because
| there is scarce planning that can be done. The majority
| of cities have emerged in the middle ages at the latest,
| and there is nothing that can be done to 'plan' them.
| Even for the peripheries (as they are called) this is so:
| They formed around the villages or remote settlements in
| the peripheries of the cities, so there was no planning
| there at all.
|
| The closes that can be said to be built 'around cars'
| would be the urban construction of gated communities or
| high rises in the peripheries. But they still were not
| built around cars - those communities can still perfectly
| live within their own locale by having access to
| everything. The only difference that requires a car would
| be those people having jobs in the city and having to
| drive 20-30 minutes every day to the city and back.
|
| > Though, bottom line, my point is US and EU cities were
| designed very similarly from 1940 until 1970
|
| That is patently false.
| carschno wrote:
| You can observe this very well in Germany. You have many
| cities that were destroyed during World War 2, and
| rebuilt around the car. You can compare them to the
| cities that were built before, and not destroyed.
| Nowadays, the latter are typically those cities popular
| with tourists and inhabitants due to their lively and
| walkable city centers, while city centers of the further
| category are oftentimes abandoned and avoided areas
| during the evenings and weekends. Impressive to see how
| the car-based city concept has failed for the
| inhabitants, and how hard it is for those cities to adapt
| to the post-industrial era.
|
| Of course, failure is subjective: car-based cities have
| been essential for the car industry because many
| inhabitants are completely dependent on having a car.
| Someone wrote:
| > You can observe this very well in Germany. You have
| many cities that were destroyed during World War 2, and
| rebuilt around the car. You can compare them to the
| cities that were built before, and not destroyed.
|
| I think that's more likely "and rebuilt according to the
| old plan". Very few German cities escaped with limited
| bombing damage.
|
| https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/air-war-germany-map/:
|
| _"Of the 54 largest cities ( >100,000 inhabitants) in
| Germany, only four survived without significant damage:
| Lubeck, Wiesbaden, Halle and Erfurt."_
| Mashimo wrote:
| Some European cities with millions of citizen can have a
| similar footprint of North American cities of just
| hundreds of thousand of people. It's more dense.
|
| Sprinkle a bit of mixed used zoning, bike infrastructure
| and public transport on top.
|
| I live in the outskirts of a city of almost 300 000, and
| can be in city center by bike in 20 minutes. I'm at work
| in 10 minutes.
|
| Copenhagen: * City 183.20 km2 (70.73 sq mi) * pop
| 1,366,301 * Density 4,417.65/km2 (11,441.7/sq mi)
|
| Kansas City, Missouri: * City 318.80 sq mi (825.69 km2) *
| pop 508,090 * Density 623.31/km2 (1,614.38/sq mi )
| xyzzyz wrote:
| European cities are much less affordable than US cities.
| Just look at the data, compare average household income
| to average rent or purchase price.
|
| It blows my mind that people here put Europe as some kind
| of affordable walkable alternative. Some places are
| indeed walkable, but affordability is utterly atrocious
| by US standard.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| I think a part of this is that American incomes are high
| compared to many other developed countries.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| It sounds like your underarching problem here is housing
| costs.
| gambiting wrote:
| Sure but like.........people always say that (for
| example) in London you can't live closer to work because
| houses/flats are too expensive. Ok, I mean that's true,
| but how are you going to solve that? It's a gigantic city
| which is already full to the brim, with literally 1000+
| years of building on top of every single square inch of
| land available. You would probably have to demolish large
| areas of London and replace them with high-density
| housing to match demand - but obviously that's never
| going to happen. What other options are there? Maybe the
| only inevitable conclusion is that not everyone can live
| in London(or any other major city). You can't fix
| expensive housing in them by just wishing they were
| cheaper, or with regulations(or I'd love to hear how any
| regulations would help, beyond banning things like
| AirBnb).
| novok wrote:
| Lol Tokyo and many other mega cities in the world are
| great examples how none of those things are actual
| barriers. London's issue is political will, because too
| many wealthy and politically connected people currently
| profit from the current status quo at the expense of the
| exploited supermajority.
| gambiting wrote:
| Just saying "look at Tokyo" doesn't mean anything.
|
| How _exactly_ would you change London to be more like
| tokyo? As the simplest question - which areas of London
| would you demolish to make room for high density Japanese
| housing? Alternatively, if you 're going to build wide,
| how would you connect those areas with the centre, if
| building new metro lines is pretty much impossible in
| London for historical reasons?
|
| "London's issue is political will, because too many
| wealthy and politically connected people currently profit
| from the current status quo"
|
| That just sounds like saying "it's the elites fault,
| dude". Like, sure, but please propose any actual
| solution.
| novok wrote:
| You adopt the housing law of japan, which is set at the
| federal level and not the local level, where zoning is
| set in large regional areas, where if something is zoned
| for a 'high nuisance level' you can build anything of a
| lower nuisance level inside of those zones.
|
| You don't need your neighbors permission to build,
| everything is basically by-right where you follow well a
| well defined housing code vs. needing special approval
| for every little thing. Just get out of the way and stop
| needing a license to do anything and you will see how
| quickly the market will sort it out in London. The people
| of London will decide THEMSELVES, what to demolish or not
| once given permission to do so, no central planning
| needed.
|
| But it doesn't because the current system benefits those
| elites. Any time large amounts of special permission is
| needed to get anything done, creates the space for
| corruption in which a bureaucrat can benefit through
| bribes of one form or another.
|
| What your basically acting like is acting like you can't
| exercise and eat right to lose weight while you have no
| mental issues, financial issues, health issues,
| disability or age issues blocking you from doing the
| basic things. London has the money, ability and ground
| where all this is possible. It's a form of learned
| helplessness in front of a system that has given you no
| way out.
| gambiting wrote:
| 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 complex in London is
| almost naive.
| novok wrote:
| 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.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| 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.
| slifin wrote:
| On street parking is banned in Tokyo
|
| When buying a car you have to prove you have access to a
| drive way
|
| that's step one
| plugin-baby wrote:
| > building new metro lines is pretty much impossible in
| London for historical reasons
|
| Didn't they open a new one last year?
| gambiting wrote:
| They did - it was in development for over 20 years. At
| this rate to reach the density of Tokyo we would have to
| wait until the 4th millenium.
| labster wrote:
| I think you're not accounting for the density of Tokyo
| dropping. By the 4th millennium there will only be five
| Japanese people left, two of them catgirls.
| maigret wrote:
| Thinking out loud:
|
| - Ask for 90% of the buildings to be less than 120% of
| the average price.
|
| - Have lottery system for lot allocation
|
| - Make it easy for groups and communities to buy lots
|
| - Cap the lot prices per sqf
|
| - Evaluate the projects on the community impacts vs $$$
|
| See also this to understand how capitalist architecture
| makes everyone miserable: https://youtu.be/VoYZlyBHyQM
| xyzzyz wrote:
| You are asking for price controls. Historically, those
| have almost universally decreased availability and
| exacerbated shortages.
| mrcartmeneses wrote:
| 40-year Londoner here. The truth is that commuting costs
| compensate for cheaper rents. And where there is a
| difference you can also factor in the extra "work" time
| from spending 3 hours commuting every day. This changes
| when you work from home, but even then there are few
| places in suburban England where a decent cargo bike
| can't replace a car. England isn't like America where the
| towns were built around cars. Our towns pre-date them .
| (Except Milton Keynes)
|
| Also, re-property costs. It's mostly speculative. If we
| banned foreign non-resident buyers and disincentivised
| buy-to-let landlords then prices would be much lower.
| coderenegade wrote:
| You probably aren't renting further out. Owning a place
| versus just renting it changes the calculus quite a bit,
| and you are coming out ahead compared to paying 25% more
| to live closer in. Working from home also makes a huge
| difference. A longer commute is tolerable if you only
| have to do it a few times a week. The days where you
| don't commute add up to pay rise.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| The population is only 20% of the problem -> look at
| Berlin, it's population has grown 0.3% over the past 30
| years, but the house prices have gone stratospheric just
| like they have in every other major city.
|
| 40% of the housing problem is whatever the fuck is going
| on in the banking system -> it enables us to commit all
| of our life savings for the rest of our productive lives
| to pay for a roof over our heads. It's like a hostage
| situation with the highest bidder.
|
| > You would probably have to demolish large areas of
| London and replace them with high-density housing to
| match demand - but obviously that's never going to
| happen.
|
| So true, my friend is not even allowed to raise your roof
| by 20 cm to create an extra room in the loft.
|
| The planning system here is so crazy, I am confident it's
| like 40% of the problem.
| thrashh wrote:
| The price going up has probably reduced population growth
| though, so pointing to low growth but high prices doesn't
| tell us that much.
|
| Not to say that there isn't something else going on.
| piva00 wrote:
| Pointing to low growth and high prices tell us that isn't
| simple supply and demand pushing the prices up. Berlin
| even more as large swaths of the city are still
| underdeveloped after losing 2 million inhabitants since
| the 1940s-1950s.
|
| How can Berlin, a city with ample free space and free
| buildings still see a massive increase in housing prices
| if it was a simple issue of supply and demand? There's
| undoubtedly something else much fishier going on.
| misslibby wrote:
| I would also not trust that number of 0.3% population
| growth. Were did you get it from? There are a lot of
| refugees from Ukraine, for example, which may have given
| prices another boost in the last year.
| KPLS wrote:
| In terms of regulations, I'd propose we bring back bigger
| down payment requirements (20%) and end the infinite
| availability of artificially low-interest debt. The
| absurdly cheap debt has driven speculation by bigger
| entities on housing, driving up the prices, and eased
| lending standards have just attempted to give individuals
| and families a fighting chance at competing for homes,
| also driving up the prices. I'm not sure how financing of
| homes in London compares to the US, but the effect of
| near zero interest rates (which is behind us at the
| moment but I wouldn't hold your breath) have been global.
| I don't know how you encourage mom and pop landlords
| while cutting out a lot of the wild speculative money
| looking for a home in real estate, but it seems pretty
| important to figure out.
| mjevans wrote:
| 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 upon the poor))
| [deleted]
| bbarnett wrote:
| 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.
| mjevans wrote:
| Hotels, apartments, etc; things designed for such rentals
| should be in an entirely different category than
| (intended as single owner / dwelling) housing.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| So a block of flats should be intended to be either be
| all-renters or all-owners?
| lozenge wrote:
| Landlords don't provide housing, buildings do. If they
| are taxed out of owning the building, they'll sell it to
| somebody who can live in it.
|
| Yes, the world needs some amount of rented housing, but a
| huge percentage of people renting now want to own, just
| to have stability and control over their living
| environment.
| tremon wrote:
| _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"?
| hnlmorg wrote:
| London has really good public transportation and, as this
| article mentions, lots of people in London _do_ cycle to
| work (half of all the offices I've had in London has had
| an on-premises bicycle "shed").
|
| In fact I've met so many Londoners who never even
| bothered to learn to drive.
|
| In my experience, it's generally American cities that
| require a car rather than European cities. Generally
| speaking of course, you get good and bad city designs in
| all countries.
| gambiting wrote:
| of course, which is why a staggering 1 million of people
| commute in and out of london every day. But again, I'm
| just asking how exactly can we address the high price of
| housing near workplaces in London specifically, if London
| is already full to the brim and new housing isn't
| happening not because of regulations or lack of political
| will - there's just no space to build any more.
| soperj wrote:
| Move some of the work places.
| sgu999 wrote:
| I think the main drives are real estate investments and
| centralisation... Tokyo doesn't really have these issues
| in part due to cultural differences but also due to
| better regulations on urbanism. [ _]
|
| [_] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGbC5j4pG9w
| nradov wrote:
| 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.
| 13of40 wrote:
| I agree. I know it's complete herecy, but I've done
| Europe-by-train and Europe-by-rental-car each many times,
| and I much prefer the latter. If you're talking about
| travel in America it's not even a question. You learn how
| to drive or you're going to be stuck in the same 10 mile
| redius for the rest of your life.
| ausp wrote:
| 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.
| nradov wrote:
| 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.
| bluecalm wrote:
| One problem is huge swatch of premium land being
| dedicated to cars (parking lots, wasted whole floors of
| residential building for parking, huge highways through
| the city etc.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| How much of a problem is this in London? New towers
| sometimes have parking underneath (ie where people don't
| really want to live), others don't; lots of the suburban
| part of the city has driveways or garages. I'm curious
| which huge highways you're talking about?
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _" You would probably have to demolish large areas of
| London and replace them with high-density housing to
| match demand - but obviously that's never going to
| happen."_
|
| Nah. There's still many areas of fairly low-quality, low-
| density housing near the centre of London. In fact, just
| about everywhere you look there are residential towers
| under construction: there must be hundreds of them going
| up right now! There is still plenty of scope to greatly
| improve the quality and efficiency of housing in London
| without sacrificing open, green spaces.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > The newer style of cargo bikes can for many families
| replace a car
|
| This very much feels like "in addition to" rather than
| replacing a car, at least in the US. My wife and I (without
| kids) tried living without a car in one of the largest, most
| walkable cities in the US and it was doable, but it's just
| soooo much nicer to have a car. Coordinating rentals or even
| ride shares are a lot more tedious than jumping in a car and
| driving, and even if ride shares are cheaper than car
| ownership, I would often find myself not doing things because
| of the cost of ride share / car rental / etc. Further, I
| would have occasional ride share drivers blow me off when I
| really needed to be punctual, and I also had some fraudulent
| experiences with car share companies (upcharging me for
| services that I've explicitly declined and not correcting it
| via customer support channels).
|
| There's also public transit, but that takes _wayyyy_ longer
| to get around and it 's also really dirty, crime-y, and
| otherwise uncomfortable at least in the cities I've traveled
| around in.
|
| Lastly, cycling is probably always going to be less safe than
| getting around by car (we can and should improve cycling
| safety, but I don't know that we're ever going to get to
| parity with driving) and I don't know that very many people
| are going to want to subject their kids to that risk as their
| primary form of transit. I probably wouldn't, realistically.
| olau wrote:
| > Lastly, cycling is probably always going to be less safe
| than getting around by car (we can and should improve
| cycling safety, but I don't know that we're ever going to
| get to parity with driving)
|
| I think you're biased towards where you live. Where I live,
| cycling is definitely not considered risky, there are
| plenty of bike paths, and many people do indeed let their
| children bicycle as their primary means of transportation.
| One of the benefits is that the children can get around on
| their own and be more independent.
|
| And yes, 30 years ago there were far fewer bike paths here.
| So things can change.
| Tade0 wrote:
| > So I think we will see a shift in where people settle,
| where they will no longer base their lives around owning
| multiple cars.
|
| Not if real estate in cities remains as expensive as it is
| now. That's one of the main reasons why so many people move
| out and choose to spend so much time commuting.
|
| Cars are just a means to an end, which is not living in a
| one-bedroom apartment as a family.
| blitzar wrote:
| Schools inner city are (typically) terrible.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| That's _very_ american assumption. All good schools are
| "inner" city in my country.
| rickydroll wrote:
| A bit of refinement on that thought. In America, inner-
| city schools are mixed bag. If you live in someplace like
| Cambridge, schools tend to be good. Boston is a mixed
| bag. Same is true for other adjacent cities. However if
| you go to places like Westford, Newton, Wellesley which
| are very high earner high value properties, the schools
| tend to be consistently very good. Then you start moving
| into more rural places in Massachusetts like Pepperell,
| Townsend, Athol and again the schools are more like
| inner-city schools, underfunded and not very good
| quality.
|
| I think the best way to judge the quality of schools by
| the opportunities the student's have as a result of going
| through the schools. The Westford, Newton, Wellesley
| schools are for winners of the birth lottery. Leominster,
| Townsend, Athol are for us birth lottery losers.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| A lot of American school districts depend on property tax
| values for funding. You get natural class-based school
| segregation as a result.
| nradov wrote:
| For better or worse the quality of public schools depends
| far more on crime rates and income levels of the
| surrounding community than on school funding levels.
| There's very little that schools can do to to help pupils
| who are growing up in a difficult environment. By all
| means let's fund schools appropriately, but that's only
| going to make a marginal difference in outcomes.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| >A bit of refinement on that thought. In America, inner-
| city schools are mixed bag. If you live in someplace like
| Cambridge, schools tend to be good. Boston is a mixed
| bag. Same is true for other adjacent cities. However if
| you go to places like Westford, Newton, Wellesley which
| are very high earner high value properties, the schools
| tend to be consistently very good. Then you start moving
| into more rural places in Massachusetts like Pepperell,
| Townsend, Athol and again the schools are more like
| inner-city schools, underfunded and not very good
| quality.
|
| How much of that is the quality of the schools and how
| much of that is just richer parents who can/will pick up
| the slack in the event that the school system doesn't do
| the job as well as they want it done?
|
| If stats on median and per capita income are to be
| believed then the kid from Wellsley has a huge leg up on
| the kid from Athol even if you assume they get the same
| education.
| blitzar wrote:
| I like in the UK, and find any suggestion that I have
| even a thought in common with Americans offensive.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| The term "inner city" is very American loaded, so I
| apologise for this slight.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Sadly this rings somewhat true, I'm trying to make the
| maths work on moving from my house in the horrible Irish
| countryside (horrible if you don't like profound isolation
| and car-dependency, that is) and move to Utrecht or Houten,
| or Freiburg, and it is challenging, to say the least.
| nibbleshifter wrote:
| The Netherlands at least has functional health service,
| among other things. Ireland does not.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Ireland is horrible at everything. The health service is
| in collapse, the immigration bureau is incompetent, crime
| is legal (the garda told me not to vote Green... now
| remember they're the ones enforcing environmental laws),
| transport is a joke, the bike infrastructure is 30 years
| behind the continent, and for all that the taxes are
| quite high if you make anything resembling a decent
| salary. But if you DO have the gall to earn _gasp_ over
| 50,000 a year, you 're a fat cat with "notions". And
| imagine you build a house and at some point need to rent
| it out? You're a monster landlord scumbag - might as well
| be from the plantations and evicting those poor poor
| people who trash your house and don't pay rent for months
| on end!
|
| I posted this after being told it would take me six
| months to get my 3 year old to a pediatrician. https://np
| .reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/11luo2b/how_can_i_s... -
| when she stopped growing.
|
| This country is unacceptably bad. I look forward to
| leaving.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Good luck - I have a friend in Utrecht and he's happy
| there but IIRC he's renting and will do so for the
| remainder of his life.
|
| I was priced out of the city where I grew up, so going
| somewhere more expensive is out of the question.
| CalRobert wrote:
| I'd rather rent somewhere I can walk to the pub then live
| in my current paid-off house where I'm just lonely all
| the time. It's beautiful but that only goes so far.
| flir wrote:
| I like profound isolation... what's the bandwidth like?
| (The other thing that ties a lot of us to cities).
| CalRobert wrote:
| It's excellent. Gigabit fibre. I mapped out the rural
| fibre routes (along with other infra) and current real
| estate listings. Threw it up at gaffologist.com if you're
| curious. Note that I am not a front-end dev and it shows.
| Pxtl wrote:
| There's a middle-ground between suburban sprawl and one-
| bedroom-apartments in highrises. Dense old-fashioned
| streetcar suburbs that predate the invention of driveways
| do a great job of being cyclist and transit friendly
| despite the fact that every home is a detached SFH.
| Tade0 wrote:
| I know, because I grew up in what I consider the pinnacle
| of urbanism - the humble commie block.
|
| Unfortunately even commie blocks nowadays are either
| becoming too expensive or get "densified" - new blocks
| are built in between them, often without much of a plan.
|
| This appears to be due to induced demand - especially now
| that so many apartments are bought as investments and
| never rented out.
|
| This bothers me because I'm in the market for an
| apartment and it's becoming a race against time due to
| rising prices.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Hah, yeah. We're in a terrible housing crisis here in
| Ontario (houses around Toronto are now worth over a
| million) and tent-cities are cropping up everywhere, and
| "commie blocks" are what anti-urbanists point to when
| they complain about the new housing going in to meet
| demand, and all I can think is that I'll take
| Khrushchyovkas over tent-cities any day of the week.
|
| > This appears to be due to induced demand - especially
| now that so many apartments are bought as investments and
| never rented out.
|
| This is always the question. If even half of them are
| getting rented out, then at least new units are adding to
| the market and helping to battle rent... but it seems
| like governments are so crippled in their ability to know
| for certain how many people live in how many units.
| trgn wrote:
| Yeah, the american streetcar suburb truly is a gem,
| doesn't really exist on that scale in Europe. Lush,
| spacious, and verdant, but also walkable, with city feel
| and city amenities. Always great architecture. Mix of
| home sizes makes them naturally mixed income. Commercial
| corridors often preserved their function. So awesome, if
| only more newer suburbs were like that.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| > Mix of home sizes makes them naturally mixed income.
|
| Sadly, I don't think this will last if current trends
| continue. The town next to mine has a ton of duplexes but
| it's all zoned single-family now, so you couldn't build
| those today if you had to.
| zamnos wrote:
| Ah that's a bit of a false dichotomy though. In between a
| rustic rural house on several acres down a dirt unpaved
| road unsuitable for bicycles, and a tiny, loud, one-bedroom
| downtown apartment condo in a highrise, or worse - one
| bedroom in a shared flat, in a superurban locale, say Hong
| Kong, right above the nightlife or red light district,
| trying to raise a family of three or four; somewhere
| between the two extremes is a livable medium. Maybe a
| three-bedroom condo with a shared yard and pool raise a
| family in. A nestled away cute 2-bedroom cottage with a
| tiny yard at the edge of the city, but still within subway
| distance.
|
| Now, I'll concede that most cities in the US aren't
| designed this way. I'll go further and say that most cities
| in the US lack the density to deserve being called cities,
| they're just large swaths of adjacent suburbia with a tiny
| downtown district that most people drive to in order to
| access, which has huge implications on traffic and parking.
|
| What recent changes in society has enabled us to see is
| just how much we were sold a crock of shit while on our way
| to buying 5-bedroom McMansions with expansive yards for
| hosting dinner parties. If the cost is a one hour each way
| commute, people are starting to see it's not actually worth
| it.
|
| So I agree/you're right - real estate prices have to fall
| dramatically in order for things to be accessible to the
| non-rich households who aren't on dual tech worker
| salaries, and who can't afford a reasonably sized (2+
| bedroom) urban apartment. But for better or worse, HN skews
| affluent, so there are undoubtedly readers here able to
| afford a 4-bedroom apartment in one of the nicer
| neighborhoods of San Francisco where you'd want to raise a
| family. Pretending otherwise does no body any favors. The
| only question is how do we get from where we are today,
| which is that it's unaffordable to all but the upper-middle
| and upper class, to a place where is affordable on a single
| wage earners salary? The only answer to that is to build
| more housing. Stopgap measures like rent control don't
| work. It may be anathema to some, but part of that may
| include the government stepping in to make that happen.
|
| Ebikes allow us to get from here to there, as an ebike
| allows a slightly more sprawling city design, due to the
| added range enabled by an ebike vs walking+non-existent
| public transportation, which means we can get a lot of
| mileage by repainting and modifying existing roads to add
| bike-safe infrastructure without ripping out and replacing
| buildings, which is basically impossible.
| jimbokun wrote:
| This sounds like Yogi Berra's complaint of "Nobody goes
| there anymore. It's too crowded."
|
| Real estate in cities being expensive is evidence that
| people really want to live in environments like that.
|
| Will be interesting to see if other municipalities try to
| build similar housing and work environments (more walkable,
| less parking lots) to attract the people looking for a city
| life style.
| idopmstuff wrote:
| Yeah, unfortunately it seems very much like we're heading
| the opposite direction. People largely congregated in
| cities because of proximity to work, but as remote work
| increases that's becoming less of a factor. As people try
| to find cheaper property and more land, they're going to
| end up in places where bikes are a whole lot less
| practical.
| estebank wrote:
| Even if proximity to work were to be completely
| irrelevant for _everyone_ , a lot of people (most?) would
| want to be close to _something_ , be it their hobbies,
| hospitals, restaurants or at the very least shops. If
| your hobby is growing groceries and something outdoorsy
| (including road/gravel/mountain cycling!) and don't mind
| doing big shops/having to drive when you open a drawer
| and you realize that you ran out of oregano, then living
| in an isolated area is a valid choice (despite it
| increasing your individualized carbon footprint; if you
| fly more than once a year then that will dwarf almost any
| other lifestyle choice you make on that front).
|
| I live in a city despite working remotely since the
| pandemic started, not because of proximity to the offices
| I might have to go back to, but rather because I can walk
| a block to buy groceries. I know people that live <.5
| mile away from a Safeway in the peninsula that drive
| there because the streets are not very pedestrian or
| cyclist friendly.
| zamnos wrote:
| I mean the reality of it is that cars are damned
| convenient and it's way easier to drive, even for three
| minutes, than walk for 15 minutes, especially if there's
| a suburban parking lot at the other end. Getting people
| out of that habit is an uphill battle, and I'd be lying
| if I said I've never driven those three minutes to
| Safeway vs walk. Especially if I'm grabbing a months
| worth of groceries for the whole house.
|
| What's different now is ebikes/related which allows those
| three minutes to be done via bike. Dean Kamen claimed
| that cities would be redesigned around the Segway. He was
| too early, and only half right, but I think his claim was
| more prescient than we give him credit for. Ebikes, as
| we're hearing about here in London, really are enabling a
| new kind of city design that takes advantage of this
| semi-new technology.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| bikes are great in small towns with decent
| infrastructure. the range from 20k to 100k people is kind
| of perfect for biking because they are a bunch smaller
| than big cities. in actually rural and suburbia they
| aren't as good but small towns are perfect.
| ovi256 wrote:
| > bikes are a whole lot less practical I'm sure you meant
| as daily transportation. As a non-daily, I bike several
| times per week even if I drive daily.
|
| If I had my choice, I'd rather ride horses every day.
| Tade0 wrote:
| That's my plan should the EU ever mandate a 30km/h speed
| limit in cities.
|
| If I'm gonna move slowly, might as well do it in style.
| loeg wrote:
| Unfortunately the big front-loaded cargo bikes are, well,
| big. Almost as long as a car, if not as wide. You need to
| park them somewhere and they're definitely too big and heavy
| to carry up any stairs. They're also expensive, like mid 4
| figures USD. This starts to look like a similar problem to
| car ownership and parking. (I say this all as an avid cyclist
| -- my household has four bikes and one car.) Rentals seem
| like a good fit for some users so I'm happy to see someone
| trying it as a business model.
| Mashimo wrote:
| They are quite large, but not any where near as long or
| wide as a car.
| airza wrote:
| A bakfiets is nowhere near the size of a car. Come on now.
| estebank wrote:
| I feel it is useful to provide actual numbers on
| conversations like this.
|
| On some brand I quickly googled[1], the bounding box that
| covers _all_ of their models for electric bakfiet 's size
| is 253cm x 95cm (with no individual bike being both that
| long and wide). Comparing them with a Fiat 500 and a RAM
| truck[2] (just for kicks), that bounding box is 1 meter
| shorter in both dimensions than the Fiat. And their
| classic model is 228cm x 63cm.
|
| [1]: https://www.bakfiets.com/bestanden/documenten/618-22
| bakfiets...
|
| [2]: https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/abarth-500-
| 2008-3-d...
| lock-the-spock wrote:
| I own a bike with a big box in the front and parking has
| absolutely not been an issue for me. In the last six months
| I rode > 2600km in and around one of the densest European
| cities and parked in many different places. I have yet to
| find a place where I cannot park the bike . You _can_ use
| regular car parking, but you will always find a dead
| corner, bike rack, big sidewalk, etc where you can leave
| the bike. And to be clear, I don 't block the sidewalks or
| otherwise selfishly get in the way of other city dwellers.
|
| My bike is an urban arrow, so one of the bigger two
| wheelers. ~7500EUR new with all possible add-ons and a
| EUR150 annual insurance that covers the bike in full if
| ever stolen or damaged in an accident, so I also feel safe
| parking in rough areas with it.
| loeg wrote:
| Glad to hear it. The biggest barrier for me is parking it
| at home. I don't have an indoor space big enough for a
| cargo bike and don't want to leave a $8-10,000 bike
| exposed to the elements and thieves (regardless of
| insurance).
| stonogo wrote:
| A coworker of mine has a cargo bike from a company called
| Tern. I thought that is was the GSD but looking at their
| website it's different than the one he rides.
| Nevertheless, a neat feature is you can kick the bike
| backwards onto its own cargo rack, and the bike stands on
| its own vertically. He rides it to work and it fits in
| his comically small office; the footprint is about the
| same as a vertical filing cabinet. I'm told several of
| the newer cargo bikes have this feature.
| Xylakant wrote:
| It's probably a HSD, the GSD's bigger sibling. I know
| folks that bought it exactly for that feature and are
| very happy with it.
| bloke_zero wrote:
| Not easy at home in London. Our flat would not allow a
| cargo bike (1st floor) and there is no where outside to
| lock it safe and dry.
|
| 60,000 people on a 4 year waiting list for on street bike
| parking:
|
| https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-cyclists-
| bike-...
| Moldoteck wrote:
| ive seen recently a new model of cargo bike that can be
| folded and it takes much less space. Myabe this helps
| Xylakant wrote:
| In your case, a Tern HSD/GSD longtail may be a better
| option. It's not quite as convenient as a long John, but
| much more compact and parks upright, so it fits even a
| small apartment.
|
| Transport capacity is still great and the bigger version
| can seat two passengers, but the kids need to be old
| enough to sit and hold on themselves.
| pg314 wrote:
| I cannot speak for the safe part, but here in Belgium
| plenty of people leave their Urban Arrows outside (with a
| rain cover).
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| London core requires a special solution -> bikes with
| folding handlebar stem, folding pedals, possibly a
| longtail if you need to transport two kids.
|
| All of this stuff exists but the bike industry can't put
| 2 and 2 together.
|
| Here is a link to a folding handlebar stem that is
| sometimes in stock:
| https://flatbike.com/product/thinstem/
| dublinben wrote:
| Long tail cargo bikes like the Tern GSD avoid those issues
| of the bakfiets style 'wheelbarrow' bikes. They'll take two
| passengers, and there's plenty of less expensive options as
| well.
| celticninja wrote:
| 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 PS150 and
| I only had to tow it when necessary.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| As a parent myself who has always had a car but has aspired
| at times to go car-free, I think the whole "semi-frequent
| short term car rental" thing only really gets realistic when
| the kids are old enough to just need those tiny Mifold
| booster seats / seatbelt adjusters.
|
| Conventional UAS-attached car seats are just too bulky and
| troublesome to be installing and uninstalling all the time in
| cars you only rent for a few hours at a time.
| CalRobert wrote:
| I think the key there is "all the time" - when we lived in
| the middle of a European city we used car-share, and the
| car seat was a bit annoying but since we were using it
| maybe once or twice a month tops it just wasn't that big a
| deal. Though we were using the seatbelt mount, and not
| ISOfix.
| r00fus wrote:
| They even have inflatable ones you can easily fit in a
| backpack - I have one sitting in my garage from years ago
| when my tots needed them.
|
| But yeah, if your kid is too small, it's a hassle to to
| carry around that bulky infant seat.
| ilyt wrote:
| I guess if renting was big enough there could be option to
| rent a car with those pre-installed
| aperson_hello wrote:
| That's generally an option, but it's not exactly cheap!
| sidfthec wrote:
| Why is no one talking about the safety of hauling kids on a
| bike? It's incredibly dangerous compared to a car.
|
| In my city, it's not if but when you'll get hit by a car on a
| bike. Yet I see parents increasingly think it's okay to haul
| their children on their bikes.
| yibg wrote:
| So it's not the bikes that are dangerous but the cars
| around them. Shouldn't the solution be about how to keep
| cars away from bikes, not ditch bikes and drive cars?
| oangemangut wrote:
| Because it should be okay, and it's a societal failing that
| it currently isn't as safe as it should be. Cars are always
| safer for their occupants, but using them puts vulnerable
| road users at greater risk of serious injury or death. In
| my city I love to see more people on the road with their
| kids on e-bikes. It shouldn't be a moral failing on part of
| the parent to be doing that. OTOH, just this morning one of
| the A*Hole parents back her SUV out of a parking space in a
| day care parking lot while on the phone and holding the
| phone to her ear. When I motioned for her to get off her
| phone in the DAYCARE PARKING LOT she shrugged and sped off.
| seagullriffic wrote:
| I hope this is meant ironically.
|
| Cars regularly mount pavements/sidewalks as well, and kill
| pedestrians who are not even in the road.
|
| The correct response to "cars make cities unsafe for
| everyone" is of course to ban all but the most essential
| cars from cities. It is not to suggest that the _other_
| forms of transport (including walking on the
| pavement/sidewalk!) are so unsafe as to be irresponsible,
| in the presence of cars.
| SergeAx wrote:
| > you will not kill someone if you ride after a night drinking;
|
| It actually depends, but chances are better.
|
| > do not have to worry about car maintenance, parking tickets
| or theft;
|
| Isn't bicycle theft wider than car theft in Europe? Bycicle is
| easier to steal and easier to sell to black market resellers.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| > - you will not kill someone if you ride after a night
| drinking;
|
| You might kill yourself though.
| secretsatan wrote:
| Also noting on drinking and riding, in Switzerland, it's
| possible to lose your drivers license if caught doing it, I
| kinda think thats unfair and not very sensible at all as a
| policy.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| What if you just don't have a drivers license?
| secretsatan wrote:
| I'm not sure, I was under the impression that you won't be
| able to get one for the period it would be suspended, but
| can't find a source.
| docmars wrote:
| [flagged]
| thiht wrote:
| That's such bad faith.
| ed_balls wrote:
| > might be impossible depending on work or children
|
| a dog it's even worse in this regard. I don't think any taxi
| will refuse a child.
| ilyt wrote:
| I live in big-ish EU city (Warsaw, Hamburg/Glasgow level of
| population) and have been cycling for 10+ years, moved to car
| for various unrelated reasons.
|
| But car commute is still faster. I can get from home to work in
| ~35 minutes at lower traffic (say 10AM, blessed be flexible
| work hours) and in MAX hour in more of a rush traffic. Best
| time by bicycle is around 1h10m. I do park at work building so
| that's 5-10 minutes of looking for parking saved there.
| Technically I can get there by 50 min if I get with bike to
| metro but that's pretty much possible only on off hours.
|
| It's definitely pretty nice way to keep in shape, now with more
| remote work I just use the time saved to do some cycling. Did
| it pretty much "from when it stopped snowing to when it
| started", 20km a day (I went via metro in the morning, came
| back cycling, just didn't wanted to do all the mess with
| arriving sweaty and having shower at work every day), including
| few in pouring rain at near-zero 0C which was.. experience and
| I have now learned to stop shivering by force of will alone.
|
| Thought I'd get less fat but it didn't work, tho I did get more
| healthy overall. Diet is the key in the end.
|
| > - somewhat dangerous when the infrastructure is lacking.
|
| Yeah I try to not share any road with cars as much as I could.
| For 10 years I don't think I had a day where I didn't saw some
| car doing something sketchy or just driver not paying
| attention. Not that cyclists were holy here just... much less
| potential for damage.
|
| > - you will not kill someone if you ride after a night
| drinking;
|
| please just don't
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| 1:10h on bike in Warsaw is like 20km, it's pretty much whole
| city in straight line length: https://i.imgur.com/21GFPI1.png
|
| You just live very far from your job.
| ovi256 wrote:
| It takes longer than continuous biking in a city would make
| one think, for the same reason driving does: you have to
| stop at red lights, yield, wait in traffic.
| shagmin wrote:
| Living in a small city (or large town may be a more
| accurate way to put it) with lots of greenways, I feel
| like I get the best of both worlds. Before my office re-
| located I could go 6 miles (~9.5 km) to/from work on a
| bike in between or around corporate campuses and
| subdivisions and only deal with a few intersections,
| while in a car I'd have to deal with traffic and traffic
| lights regularly most of the way.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| My average was 18-20km/h, but half the journey was on the
| Vistula river bank which makes lights irrelevant. https:/
| /um.warszawa.pl/documents/61166/6599671/08102017_Bulw...
|
| Still, would assume 16-18km/h is minimum reasonable speed
| unless you ride like a pensioner.
| onpensionsterm wrote:
| >- Immediately stopped having insomnia. Better feel overall;
|
| It's interesting you mention that. When I took up cycling to
| work in Manchester, I started struggling to fall fully asleep
| because I'd have short pseudo-dreams about the POV of cycling
| on wet, dark, busy roads & jerk awake, scared that I was
| falling asleep at the handlebars.
| GoToRO wrote:
| It goes away after some time. It's almost as if you unlock a
| lot of stored energy just by moving. After a while the extra
| energy is gone and you will sleep right away.
| ilyt wrote:
| I just... got more fit and stopped being all that much
| tired after the trip so it stopped helping for sleep.
| lr1970 wrote:
| > - do not have to worry about car maintenance, parking tickets
| or theft;
|
| You are concerned about car theft but not about e-bike theft.
| How come? Stealing e-bike is so much easier.
| ilyt wrote:
| How many e-bikes would need to be stolen to reach average car
| price tho?
|
| You could have one stolen every year and still end up cheaper
| than owning a car.
|
| Hell, just price of petrol+insurance for a year is more
| expensive
| koonsolo wrote:
| Some time ago I was surprised how fast these e-bikes are
| compared to my motorcycle. In Belgium we have plenty of roads
| where bikes can go but not cars & motorcycles.
|
| One morning I overtook a colleague on an e-bike (max 45km/h)
| with my motorcycle. A few streets later I overtook him again,
| since he took a shortcut that I was not allowed to take.
|
| A bit later I overtook him again, since I had a red light and
| he again took a shortcut.
|
| We arrived at the same time at work. Impressive!
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| Are you sure your friend was actually allowed to take that
| shortcut with an e-bike going 45 km/h?
|
| AFAIK, these are considered "light motorbikes" (or something)
| and require the same paperwork (aside from an "easier"
| license) and gear as regular motorbikes.
|
| More importantly, they are specifically _not_ bikes and aren
| 't allowed to ride on bike lanes any more than a fat liter+
| bike is.
| snozolli wrote:
| _Are you sure your friend was actually allowed to take that
| shortcut with an e-bike going 45 km /h?_
|
| If it looks like a bike and you ride it like a bike, you're
| not going to have any problems riding it where bikes are
| allowed. It sounds like you envision this person riding at
| absolutely maximum possible speed at all times.
| gambiting wrote:
| Until you hit someone with that bike, in which case you
| will be found 100% guilty and in massive legal trouble.
| snozolli wrote:
| How many times have you hit someone while riding a
| bicycle? I never have.
|
| How much harm do you suppose it would do, leading to
| "massive legal trouble"?
|
| Incidentally, 45kmh is 28mph, which I was _just barely_
| able to maintain on level ground on my road bicycle when
| I was fit. The "speed pedelecs" laws seem a bit silly
| rather than simply enforcing speed limits and penalizing
| reckless behavior.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>How many times have you hit someone while riding a
| bicycle? I never have.
|
| I suppose I should stop paying for car insurance then,
| since I never had an accident either. Or maybe more
| accurate example is that I shouldn't worry about the
| safety of my car, since I never actually hit anyone with
| it.
|
| >>How much harm do you suppose it would do, leading to
| "massive legal trouble"?
|
| There was a cyclist in london recently who ran into a
| woman on his modified bicycle, she tripped, hit her head
| on the pavement and died - he was subsequently found
| guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to prison for many
| years.
|
| You could run into someone at 5mph, they could hit their
| head on something and die. There is another case exactly
| like this going on where a person hit their head on a
| bollard and left him permanently disabled for life.
|
| The entire point is that if you are on a path
| specifically forbidden for cycles, and an accident
| happens while you are cycling, you _will_ be found guilty
| and will have to face consequences, most likely much
| harsher than if you weren 't doing something forbidden.
| koonsolo wrote:
| Even with minor infringements with e-bikes in Belgium
| they punish pretty severely.
|
| For example: bike not properly licensed: Lose your car
| license for 15 days and pay 800 euros.
| koonsolo wrote:
| In most of EU, are in serious trouble when they catch you
| riding such a speed pedilec without license and/or
| license plate.
|
| Cops already had mobile stations to check the max speed
| of scooters, and they now just added those ebikes to the
| checks.
| koonsolo wrote:
| You are correct, but for those shortcuts it was allowed.
|
| There is however a grey zone when going on bicycle lanes
| next to the rivers, because you can go max 30km/h there.
| But when nobody is there, I'm sure most e-bikes just go max
| speed.
| ilyt wrote:
| I've seen someone on one of those e-scooters going like
| 40km/h. It looked terrifying. I'd be worried doing that much
| on bicycle but on tiny scooter wheels anything bad and you're
| catapulted into pavement.
| agilob wrote:
| In any city I lived in in the last 10 years ebike would be
| stolen or at least the battery would be, in minutes.
| britzkopf wrote:
| Don't have to worry about theft?! Wow, Europe must be so
| different than North America. I'm much more worried about my
| biker being stolen (has happened about a dozen times in my
| life) than my car. If the former happens you get absolutely
| zero support, while if the latter happens the police will
| actually try to do something.
| trgn wrote:
| lol yeah. I live in a city where practically nobody bikes,
| and bikes get stolen frequently. Nowhere near as bad though
| than European city.
|
| Bike theft is so rampant. It's just so easy, throw it in a
| truck, or pedal away with it. Since I live in a redneck
| place, I ride a step-through woman bike in pastel color now,
| after two previous ones got stolen, and that genuinely helps.
| People may make snarky comments, but the bike has remained
| untouched for a decade now.
| kkfdkerpoe wrote:
| Bike theft is a big problem at least here in Finland,
| especially for expensive bikes.
| tigeroil wrote:
| Indeed. Though to be fair, having a bike is so much cheaper
| than a car that even if it did get stolen it'd still be
| cheaper to replace it than run a car.
| pastage wrote:
| Having a bicycle stolen is actually a frequentl reason
| people stop cycling. Getting a new bike sucks.
| pjmlp wrote:
| It was most likely a typo, there is hardly any European
| country where bycicles don't get stolen.
| waldothedog wrote:
| A dozen times? Damn, where do you live if you don't mind me
| asking?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Probably Amsterdam, where 80.000 bikes are stolen _per
| year_ [1] - at 821k inhabitants, one in ten will
| statistically have a bike stolen each year.
|
| The country is on its best way to become Europe's head
| narco state.
|
| [1] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/jo
| urnal...
| acidburnNSA wrote:
| This stood out to me too. I'm pretty sure that every nice
| e-bike left outside gets stolen within minutes in my city.
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| I have a nice ebike I use daily in Europe, and I'm also much
| more worried about getting it robbed than my car.
|
| I only park it in fairly secure locations if it's for more
| than a few hours (ie. not in the street), and I put 2 of the
| most secure bike locks I could find, 1 wheel lock, secure
| bolts on wheels and saddle, and light locks on big
| accessories like the child seat. Plus an Airtag hidden
| somewhere.
| interdrift wrote:
| bike thefts happen in the Netherland (once I saw a 50+ year
| old guy walking around inspecting bikes in a student
| neighbourhood + multiple bike thefts in that area). Also in
| Bulgaria where I am from :) but I can't say where it happens
| more or what the chances are.
| crote wrote:
| Not really. I've never had one of mine stolen, despite
| usually using a fairly crappy lock.
|
| The trick is to have a bike which stands out. If you can
| recognize your individual bike from across the street, people
| won't steal it. Bonus points if it _looks_ crappy despite
| being well-maintained. Beyond that it is mainly a matter of
| parking in bike garages with cameras where possible, and
| using a chain lock to fix it to an immovable object
| otherwise.
| bluecalm wrote:
| I assume you can store your e-bike somewhere safe when
| commuting. Imo theft and complete unwillingness shown almost
| universally shown by police to do anything about it is a major
| obstacle in wider bike/e-bike adoption. If it wasn't for theft
| I would do 0 trips with my car within a city. As it is I can't
| even go shopping to the supermarket as my bike will be gone
| sooner or later.
| alkjsdlkjasd wrote:
| > - weather might make the ride unpleasant;
|
| As the Dutch like to say: there is no such thing as bad cycling
| weather, only bad cycling clothes.
|
| I would strongly recommond a pair of water/wind proof trousers
| to go over your regular trousers, if you don't already have
| some. This has lead to a much more pleasant riding experience,
| especially in winter. They aren't very practical on a regular
| bike as they make you uncomfortably hot, but on an e-bike, it's
| much less of a worry.
| iso1631 wrote:
| > As the Dutch like to say: there is no such thing as bad
| cycling weather, only bad cycling clothes.
|
| The Dutch also like to drive, with 588 cars per 1000 people,
| higher than Denmark, Ireland, Sweden etc, and more miles per
| person than France, Spain, Italy, Poland, and 14% higher than
| the EU average
| bertil wrote:
| Not sure where your stats are from, but they probably
| include Dutch people driving _abroad_ : they can easily
| take the train and bike anywhere in their own country, so I
| suspect most of their driving is to go on holiday in
| Europe. They are famous for being a small country with
| surprisingly large number of caravans near every beach in
| Europe.
| CalRobert wrote:
| That makes sense, the excellent infrastructure in the
| Netherlands makes it a very pleasant place to drive.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k
| scythe wrote:
| >As the Dutch like to say: there is no such thing as bad
| cycling weather, only bad cycling clothes.
|
| What kind of cycling clothes will mitigate a 40 C / 70%
| humidity afternoon in Memphis?
| maigret wrote:
| Trees for example. City highways make everything hotter.
| zip1234 wrote:
| Memphis is full of underutilized 4 lane roads--remove 2
| lanes and add a bike path + trees. The difficulty is that
| unless there is a bike network, it will get limited
| utilization. Need to build out a way to get places and
| people will use it.
| paganel wrote:
| The Dutch have passable weather for most of the year, of
| course that it's easy for them to say that.
| Jwarder wrote:
| I would add boots that are high enough that there is no gap
| between the rain pants and the shoe. An old pair of "hiking"
| boots did the job for me. Riding through a puddle and getting
| your socks even mildly wet feels terrible.
| meindnoch wrote:
| How often does it snow in the Netherlands?
| badpun wrote:
| Amazingly, there is a city almost as dominated by cyclists
| in Finland (don't remember how it's called atm). The city
| is plowing and de-icing all the bike paths on regular
| basis. They're also well-lit, as people's commutes during
| winter months are often in the dark.
| joromero wrote:
| Another interesting fact is that at least some of the
| cycle lane markings are projected rather than painted
| because otherwise they would be covered by the snow.
| bertil wrote:
| You are thinking of Oulu.
|
| It's not just Oulu, though: any city with students in the
| North has a lot of bikes, Umea in Sweden has 40k students
| almost all on bikes; Vaasa (opposite Umea, in Finland)
| also has a lot of bikes. Uppsala, Stockholm, Malmo,
| Goteborg, Eppo, all have a lot of bikes--and just as many
| in winter and summer.
| Xylakant wrote:
| Meet Oulu, the winter cycling capital of the world.
| https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2021/01/22/meet-the-
| bike-... https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/what-on-earth-
| winter-biking-...
| nicehill wrote:
| Fascinating
|
| How do Europeans keep ice off bike lanes? Salt?
| Xylakant wrote:
| This video is a great explainer
| https://youtu.be/Uhx-26GfCBU
| dagurp wrote:
| In Reykjavik they used sand at first because pedestrians
| prefer that but that is pretty dangerous for cycling so
| they use salt on designated cycling paths and sand
| everywhere else.
| jkaljundi wrote:
| Tractors and snowplows. Salt kills the bicycles and salty
| slush is much worse to drive in. Hard packed snow is
| actually the best to ride on.
|
| Interestingly Oulu bike roads clearing contract states
| the company doing the snowplowing can do inspections only
| on bicycles, not cars :)
| nicehill wrote:
| Maybe hard packed snow is a strategy for only flat cities
|
| Seattle infamously tried the hard packed snow strategy
| about a decade ago, and it turned it into a dangerous
| (hilly) ice rink
| avianlyric wrote:
| There's a difference between riding on hard pack with a
| bike, and driving a car over it. I have no idea why you
| think an experiment with hard-pack snow on automotive
| roads is in anyway indicative of what works on cycle
| lanes.
| xorcist wrote:
| It depends.
|
| Salt only works until ten below zero. After that it only
| makes things worse.
|
| When it works the result can be magical if combined with
| sweeping. Trashes the drivetrain real bad though.
|
| There's a nice big picture how Oulu does it, halfway down
| the article.
| pastage wrote:
| It depends.. salt works down to -18C on cycle paths as
| long as you maintain it snow free and do not have big
| puddles of water. Brushing the snow away down to the
| asphalt is my preferred surface condition for cycling.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| The fact that this is newsworthy kind of reinforces the
| point that cycling in extreme weather is not a
| particularly easy or convenient thing to do.
| Xylakant wrote:
| It's easy enough that children can do it. Cycling on
| hard-packed snow is not particularly hard, less so than
| sand, I'd say comparable to gravel. Ice is a problem.
|
| Convenience is relative. Sure, cycling in winter requires
| a good pair of mittens, and a warm hat, but all in all,
| it seems that a lot of people prefer it in Oulu over
| driving.
|
| And the thing here is that it's not the weather that's
| stopping people from cycling. It's shitty maintenance of
| the cycling network. Slush and ice, being forced into the
| same space as cars.
|
| And that's the newsworthy part - how does Oulu manage to
| maintain a cycling network in winter where most other
| cities fail. The answers include things such as
| priorities, dedication, investment. Oulu dedicates
| resources to the problem. Most towns don't because "no
| one cycles in winter" - which then becomes a self-
| reinforcing prophecy.
| docdeek wrote:
| Google says snowing on 20-30 days a year in Amsterdam:
| https://thingstodoinamsterdam.com/blog/snow-winter-
| amsterdam...
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| Not that often anymore (most winters there's at most one or
| two weeks with snow cover), but when it does, in many
| municipalities cycling paths get priority for snow removal.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> As the Dutch like to say: there is no such thing as bad
| cycling weather, only bad cycling clothes.
|
| Easy to say in a country famously flat, small, and with a
| relatively narrow weather window. I welcome any Dutch person
| to attempt a 15+km commute during a rocky mountain winter. I
| know of driveways in US/Canada with more vertical than any
| Dutch commute.
| [deleted]
| mjhay wrote:
| Minneapolis is one of the top US cities for cycling mode
| share. You can bike in snow+ice with proper studded tires.
| With a fat bike, you'll do better than any car or truck in
| deep snow.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| It's implied, but to be clear: ebikes make it comfortable
| to ride with 4+ inch tires for absurd distances. An ebike
| with studded fat tires will make you feel like Legolas in
| LoTR.
| acomjean wrote:
| I did a fair amount of winter biking in Boston. Good
| clothes really help. For me wool socks really help.
|
| You do tend to warm up when riding a bike (pedal assist
| bikes might take longer). For me the issue is fingers, but
| with good gloves and a less than 45 minutes ride for me it
| was be ok. Ice and wind are issues too. But taking it slow
| and my glasses help a bit. The snow when plowed makes the
| roads narrower which can be an issue.
|
| I always wondered why there were so many outdoor stores in
| the City.
| barbazoo wrote:
| How many people live in the Rockies though? And how many
| live in relatively flat cities. You're not wrong I just
| think that this is akin to saying EVs aren't practical in
| the US because of Alaskan winters.
| alkjsdlkjasd wrote:
| Completely agree for a push bike, but with an e-bike it's a
| different ball game.
|
| Also in the US the max ebike power is 850W! More than
| enough to carry you up the steepest hills.
| CalRobert wrote:
| The trick is to build your towns and cities such that 15km
| is longer than most people would need to commute by bike,
| except perhaps as part of a bike->transit mixed-mode
| commute.
|
| There are places with wintry weather that are good for
| biking! Oulu comes to mind
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-64354089
|
| And as explored in this video, if the weather is too bad to
| bike safely in, it's probably too bad to drive safely in.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFkI3eglT1M
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| > if the weather is too bad to bike safely in, it's
| probably too bad to drive safely in.
|
| I am sceptical of this assertion. For starters, if you
| have poor traction in a car you can always slow down, and
| the risk you face is sliding. In a bike, you need to have
| a minimum speed to actually bike, otherwise you can't
| stay upright. And your failure case is no longer sliding,
| but it's toppling over.
|
| To say nothing of what happens if you throw wind into the
| mix.
| pastage wrote:
| I cycle in areas with ice and snow have done so all my
| life, all I do is lower my speed and my saddle. That
| means when there is ice I can always use my feets. This
| is more stable than walking, in wintertime I will stop
| and help pedestrians over vast swaths of ice.
|
| I have managed to skid out once and that was with studded
| tires.
| CalRobert wrote:
| "the risk you face is sliding"
|
| Yes, including sliding over my child who is riding her
| bike to school, and killing her.
|
| "your failure case is no longer sliding, but it's
| toppling over."
|
| In which case the primary injury will be to your dignity.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > In which case the primary injury will be to your
| dignity.
|
| I just came flying off my bike two months ago after
| hitting some nasty patch of ice.
|
| Broken hand, a good dent in my helmet, many bruises. If
| it wasn't for the helmet, I might have been taken away in
| an ambulance.
|
| I've been cycling regularly for 12 years, so this isn't
| some noob error.
| CalRobert wrote:
| I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you heal well. I was
| referencing the point about going so slow you can't stay
| upright.
| avianlyric wrote:
| You can calculate the approximate speed a vehicle will
| start aquaplaning at based the vehicles tire pressure (V
| = 10.35*sqrt(psi) ) [1]. A car tire is usually inflated
| to around 30-35 psi, which give an aquaplaning speed of
| about 61mph.
|
| A road bike tire is inflated to 80-120psi which give an
| aquaplaning speed of about 92mph.
|
| A hybrid tire is inflated to 40-70psi, which gives an
| aquaplaning speed of about 65mph.
|
| Bikes aren't know for traveling above 60mph, so wet roads
| don't pose much of a problem for bikes. Their tire
| pressure is so high compared to their normal speeds, that
| an unassisted human would really struggle to make a bike
| aquaplane. Additionally bikes can easily be ridden stably
| at walking speed. Unless you're riding on ice, going
| slower simply doesn't pose a problem.
|
| As a result slipping on bike, because you can't cycle
| slow enough, just isn't a concern. In the only situations
| where it might be a problem, simply walking would be
| challenging, and driving would be idiotic.
|
| [1] https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19640000612
| myrmidon wrote:
| While interesting, this is almost completely irrelevant
| to bikes: The problem is not primarily water but wet ice
| or fresh snow.
|
| Wet ice is especially dangerous because it can be pretty
| much invisible and you can transition directly from
| normal road surface to essentialy ZERO steering ability
| (and immediate crash if you initiate a turn or anything).
| There is pretty much no avoiding occasional crashes from
| this, the only way is to leave the bike at home when
| conditions are wet and close to freezing.
| scott_w wrote:
| I've fallen off my bike in ice. I've also skidded in a
| car on ice.
|
| While the fall on the bike hurt me more, I can easily see
| how much more dangerous the situation in my car was.
| Blind luck saved me (and the car in front) that day.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> it's probably too bad to drive safely in.
|
| Ya, well one still has to get to work. "Safe driving" is
| slow but unless the roads are actually closed then most
| of us still have to get to work.
| CalRobert wrote:
| I don't understand how that relates to what I said?
| Jochim wrote:
| That famed flatness brings along with it less famed strong
| winds.
|
| Having cycled on some of those windy days, it was more
| challenging than most of the hilly cities I've lived in.
| ChrisKingWebDev wrote:
| Luckily there is already a video about that:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU
|
| The quick takeaways are that there are cities in Finland
| that are colder than any Canadian city where 50% of the
| kids rides bikes to school. Also, a test project in
| Montreal gave a bike path a dedicated snow removal budget
| and ridership was up 30% in one year.
| timeon wrote:
| I'm not from Netherlands. What I have learned biking in
| snow blizzard is that it is good to have gloves and
| glasses. Everything else is just getting used to things.
| yourusername wrote:
| It would be easy to say but that's not a common Dutch
| saying at all. It's a bastardised version of a
| Swedish/Norwegian saying.
| yurishimo wrote:
| Je bent niet van suiker...
| yourusername wrote:
| Different meaning. More like "this sucks but you'll
| live".
| bertil wrote:
| The worst weather when riding a bike is the wind (trust me:
| I live in the Arctic circle, we have snow or black ice on
| the road half the year and it's routinely -25oC; bikes
| handle both fine). The Netherlands has more wind than
| anywhere on land. It can be literally impossible to bike
| against the wind without the local training when it's
| strong enough. If they can do that, I doubt a mountain pass
| would scare them.
|
| And it rains, a lot. Which is fine if it's vertical and you
| have a rain coat, but Dutch people made windmills, the
| Netherlands and horizontal rain. No coat can protect you
| from that.
|
| The weather band is indeed narrow, but half of that band is
| terrible.
| dzikimarian wrote:
| > there is no such thing as bad cycling weather
|
| Wet snow being blown into the face? Compared to 20degC inside
| a car, commuting between two underground garages? That's
| going to be a hard to sell.
|
| In the summer bike is fun, but from November, where I live
| it's just masochism.
| r00fus wrote:
| Theft is the major reason I haven't invested in a utility
| e-bike (or use my expensive road bike) to do local shopping.
|
| I live in a place with fantastic bike-ability, but don't shop
| because of theft concerns.
|
| Is that different in London?
| djtango wrote:
| No bike theft is a huge problem in London
| boudin wrote:
| There are more bike hangars now though, but it often just
| solves half of the problem.
| [deleted]
| jwr wrote:
| Very similar impressions after years of biking (and having
| switched to an E-bike about 2 years ago).
|
| I bike year-round in Warsaw, Poland, even though most people
| consider winter to be "off-season". Don't really understand why
| -- they do go skiing after all, so cold must not be the
| problem? The only days I don't bike is when it's raining
| heavily or when it's really slippery (lots of snow, freshly
| frozen sleet, etc).
|
| There are days when I don't ride a bike, and on these days I
| can really tell the difference: I feel much worse.
|
| I found that what I miss when switching to a car is the sense
| of freedom: on a bike, you can stop pretty much anywhere, while
| in a car you need to follow the road in the traffic and are
| generally stuck. No way to stop quickly, take a phone call, or
| admire the pretty passers-by.
|
| Also, switching to an E-bike was a great idea: it doesn't take
| away the exercise (as most people tend to think), it just makes
| biking more pleasant and extends the max distance I can go. And
| in summertime I can set the assist to max and not worry about
| arriving all sweaty.
|
| If you live in a city, I'd highly recommend getting a city
| E-bike. Not a mountain bike. A city bike with proper mudguards,
| upright posture, and a large basket in front. Don't be that guy
| in lycra pants on a mountain bike, with a backpack on his
| (sweaty) back, taking the full additional weight of the
| backpack on the narrow seat, and with a mud stripe on his back.
| Enjoy life!
| tasuki wrote:
| Apart from the air quality, Warsaw is great for cycling. It
| ain't hilly and there's enough bike lanes. Also Veturilo is
| pretty good with its dense network, especially in Spring
| before the bikes start breaking :)
| thinkindie wrote:
| I live in Berlin, within the Ring (for those familiar with the
| city). I don't own a car, I have multiple carsharing
| subscriptions and I have two children, 1 and 4. We have a cargo
| bike to move them around and do groceries, almost in any
| weather (as long as it doesn't rain), otherwise we have public
| transport as a backup.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Where do you live for those of us unfamiliar with the city?
| Paris?
|
| More on topic - Bikes make a lot of sense in the city but if
| you add kids to the equation the safety risk just becomes too
| high to stomach IMO.
| alkjsdlkjasd wrote:
| Reference is the s-bahn ring:
|
| https://oxyi.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/map-of-berlin-
| co...
| alkjsdlkjasd wrote:
| > the safety risk just becomes too high to stomach
|
| Check out chart 2:
|
| https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-
| casua...
| nonethewiser wrote:
| To share with everyone else, chart 2 shows 12x more
| fatalities per mile traveled for bikes compared to cars.
| alkjsdlkjasd wrote:
| On the other hand, is shows that pedestrians and cyclists
| have the same rate of fatalities per mile traveled.
|
| So better to not walk or cycle and just stick to your car
| /s
| joaonmatos wrote:
| The Berlin S-Bahn Ring is a looping railway around the city
| center. It excludes some higher density areas in the north
| of the city and includes some less populated areas in the
| south of the city, but being inside the ring is the most
| accepted benchmark of living in the city core.
| thinkindie wrote:
| it says right at the beginning "I live in Berlin".
| Zardoz89 wrote:
| You can absolutely kill a pedestrian or another cyclist when on
| an e-bike, do not drink and ride
| jraby3 wrote:
| I've had 5 bikes stolen and no cars stolen, so have to disagree
| about worrying about theft.
| raphaelj wrote:
| Well, my bike is insured, and I bought a recently released
| angle grinder-resistant lock [1].
|
| My workspace is also fairly well located so that also helps.
|
| [1] https://eu.litelok.com/products/litelok-x1
| afavour wrote:
| The concern I have (in NYC FWIW) is that someone will see
| they can't steal the bike and will instead just trash the
| thing while it's still locked. Maybe I'm too pessimistic.
| ClapperHeid wrote:
| That's pretty much my experience in the city where I used
| to live. I'd regularly pass bikes securly locked to some
| post or other but with the front wheel stoved in and
| bent. I always assumed a would-be thief had done it in a
| fit of pique, after failing to get the lock open.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| Drunk assholes smash random stuff all the time without
| first trying to steal it.
|
| Bicycle wheels are unfortunately easily bent by kicks
| from the side.
| danjoredd wrote:
| These days it seems worth it to get a folding bike. I am
| currently trying to get one myself so I don't have to
| worry about it getting stolen OR trashed. I just fold it
| up and take it inside where nobody will touch it
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Insurance won't get you to work.
|
| And if you don't need it to get to work you don't need a
| car in the first place, so I wouldnt see a point in
| comparing.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| You can take a cab on the one day you're without a bike.
| avianlyric wrote:
| Most bike insurance include covering the cost of paying
| for a taxi or other transport alternative on the day of
| your bike theft.
| ClapperHeid wrote:
| >I bought a recently released angle grinder-resistant lock
| [1]....
|
| EUR169 --Jeebus! My bike didn't even cost that much.
| kuschkufan wrote:
| Then you don't need this lock for your bike. - Cptn
| Obvious
| est31 wrote:
| Not neccessarily, it depends on the environment. In some
| places even bikes in the sub 160EUR range are at danger
| of being stolen.
| prmoustache wrote:
| I think you'd want a tetanus shot just by looking at my
| girlfriends bike with too much insistence.
|
| We still lock it with a chain but I guess that is a good
| deterrent as there is always a nicer bike that looks more
| worth the effort on the same rack.
| iso1631 wrote:
| My car is insured, and I'm not sure how you would steal it
| given that when I lost my key to a cheap car from the 1990s
| about 15 years ago it cost a fortune to get a new key made
| which would actually start the engine thanks to the
| immobilizer. The majority of car thefts are stealing the
| keys.
| atchoo wrote:
| Are you locking your bike to something angle grinder
| resistant when out and about?
|
| The last bike I had stolen was from an underground bike
| store, behind two armoured locked doors and locked to a
| permanent bike-rack embedded in concrete. Thieves didn't
| cut a single lock, instead they cut all the bike-racks and
| emptied the place.
| alwaysbeconsing wrote:
| As with nearly all security, nothing is perfect. You are
| just raising the bar high enough to lower risk to an
| acceptable level. Cutting an entire row of racks and
| hauling off all the bikes is a bigger, noisier, longer
| job, requiring more coordination, than taking one. It
| presents more risk to the thieves themselves, which means
| there are going to be fewer thieves willing or able to
| take it on.
| howling wrote:
| This is the same company that creates the touted highly
| secure LiteLok Gold that LPL cuts in 16s.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-On0DGcDlc
|
| I'm skeptical of any bike lock's security that is not
| reviewed by LPL.
| ilyt wrote:
| Yeah mine goes from my apartment to my work's underground
| parking so little risk here. Would be way more wary if I had
| to park it on the street
| est31 wrote:
| Yeah I agree with the general sentiment of the comment but
| that point I think is wrong.
| vishnugupta wrote:
| > might be impossible depending ... children
|
| Bakfiets[1][2] FTW!! I lived with my two young (under 10)
| children in Amsterdam for one year without car relying 90% on
| Bakfiets and occasional Uber rides. After a brief period of
| teething issues it worked out perfect, even in winters/rains. I
| used the non-e-bike version as I didn't want to splurge on
| Urbanarrow about which I kept hearing raving reviews.
|
| [1] https://www.bakfiets.com
|
| [2] https://urbanarrow.com
| scythe wrote:
| >- might be impossible depending on work or children
|
| The public (media) conversation has largely focused on whether
| people give up cars entirely, but at least in America, the norm
| is for most families to have _two_ cars, if not more. Walking
| that back to one car would meaningfully reduce the design
| constraints on medium-density housing -- you can build a
| neighborhood of small houses with only street parking, for
| example, which is basically impossible when people need two
| cars -- and therefore it would also reduce housing costs in
| urban neighborhoods.
|
| Ebikes could significantly help with that even if they don't
| lead to the car-free future envisioned by some techno-
| urbanists. For example, your girlfriend has a car.
| Tarrosion wrote:
| Do you worry about ebike theft? If not, how do you lock it in
| public?
| hardware2win wrote:
| >you will not kill someone if you ride after a night drinking;
|
| You may, especially that ebikes are hella fast. Dont ride after
| alcohol.
|
| In my country you would lose car license if they caught you
| driving a bike while drunk
| fipar wrote:
| About not killing someone if you ride after drinking, Obviously
| it is ver difficult for a bike to directly kill someone other
| than the rider (as opposed to a car, where this is very easy),
| but a drunk cyclist can still hurt other people directly or
| indirectly (causing a bigger accident by forcing someone to
| avoid them).
|
| Even on a city free of private cars, you'd still share the road
| with pedestrians, other cyclists, and public transportation.
|
| And even if you really don't hurt someone else, it's terribly
| hard on a bus driver if they kill someone, even when it wasn't
| their fault (my wife saw this first hand when someone committed
| suicide by throwing themselves under a bus).
|
| So no, if you drink, just walk, take public transportation, or
| get someone else to take you home, but don't ride a bike.
|
| (edit: typos)
| wdb wrote:
| You can hit a pedestrian
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| However, there's a good incentive to not hit pedestrians.
| In collisions with pedestrians, cyclists often get more
| injured and surprisingly, pedestrians are more likely to be
| to blame for the collision (e.g. stepping into a road or
| cycle lane without looking).
| Fricken wrote:
| The risks you're concerned about are not statistically
| relevant.
| mecsred wrote:
| Cool thanks for letting me know. Time to down a 40 and
| start doing wheelies through high traffic crosswalks.
| [deleted]
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Safer than doing the same with burnouts in a parking lot.
| Zigurd wrote:
| I once had an office in an only somewhat renovated area of
| mill buildings in an old mill town in New England. One
| building always had a number of down at the heels looking
| bicycles parked outside. Eventually I found out it was an
| addiction rehab.
|
| There was no public transport in the area. I'd rather have
| them getting to rehab on a bike than not going at all.
| jerrre wrote:
| Don't most of you points also apply to drunk walking?
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Literally just being drunk enough can end up in you being
| dead or maimed.
|
| From a harm reduction perspective, Drunk Driving -> Drunk
| Bicycling feels like it reduces the capacity for damage
| roughly proportionally to Drunk Bicycling -> Drunk Walking.
| At a critical level, the speeds you can comfortably achieve
| are reduced at each step, thereby increasing the amount of
| reaction time available to avoid an incident, reducing the
| ramifications of an error, and reducing the amount of
| damage your body has the capacity to do (by nature of the
| amount of kinetic energy you are attempting to control).
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| one major difference is that someone who is incredibly
| drunk can still drive a car at 100kmph, but they can't
| balance well enough to ride their bike.
| patcon wrote:
| Not sure if this is an example of anti-fragility, but it
| made me think of that. there's def something diff about
| bikes for this. Get too drunk as a cyclist and you remove
| yourself from the situation in relatively safe way, just
| by not being able to stay in control :)
| Mashimo wrote:
| You have to be really plastered to not ride a bike any
| more. Like a lot, a lot.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| The damage is a function of mass and speed. Obviously
| walking < e-bike << car
| thomasahle wrote:
| The argument above was that you can still hurt a bus
| driver psychologically by having them kill you. So it
| doesn't really matter that an ebike is heavier.
| thomasahle wrote:
| The argument above was that you can still hurt a bus
| driver psychologically by having them kill you. So it
| doesn't really matter that an ebike is heavier than
| walking.
| alkjsdlkjasd wrote:
| To quickly do the calculations:
|
| Walking: 5 km/h * 70kg = 97 kgm/s
|
| e-bike: 20 km/h * 90 kg = 500 kgm/s
|
| car: 50 km/h * 2000kg = 28,000 kgm/s
| loeg wrote:
| Energy is proportionate to the square of velocity. So
| it's:
|
| Walking: 5 km/h * 70kg => 875 (although this is a very
| slow estimate for a walker) (please ignore the non-
| canonical units)
|
| e-bike: 20 km/h * 90 kg => 18,000 (I think your estimate
| for ebike mass might be on the low side at 20kg, but
| whatever)
|
| car: 50 km/h * 2000kg => 2,500,000 (and that's a fairly
| low speed for cars! Drunk drivers often drive faster than
| is wise.)
|
| Everything else is a rounding error compared to the
| energy of a car.
| Someone wrote:
| > Walking: 5 km/h * 70kg => 875 (although this is a very
| slow estimate for a walker)
|
| In the context of this thread (a walker who's drunk), I
| don't think it's _very_ slow.
|
| Also,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_walking_speed:
|
| _"The preferred walking speed is the speed at which
| humans or animals choose to walk. Many people tend to
| walk at about 1.42 metres per second (5.1 km /h; 3.2 mph;
| 4.7 ft/s)."_
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S209575
| 641...:
|
| _"The results show teenagers walk at an average speed of
| 1.45 m /s, young adults walk at an average speed of 1.55
| m/s, middle age pedestrians walk at a speed of 1.45 m/s,
| older pedestrians walk at speed of 1.09 m/s, and elderly
| or physically disabled pedestrians walk at a speed of
| 1.04 m/s."_
|
| 5km/hour is about 1.4m/s; the _fastest_ of these speeds
| is 5.6 km /hour.
| codethief wrote:
| Initial kinetic energy is not the right physical quantity
| to look at. Most of that kinetic energy will remain in
| the car/bike/..., i.e. it doesn't tell you much about how
| much energy will get transferred to the victim - it
| merely gives you a bound from above.
|
| More details:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35233887
| uoaei wrote:
| Realistic estimates:
|
| Walking: 6kph, 70kg => 100J (0.02% of car)
|
| Analog bike: 18kph, 80kg => 2kJ (0.36% of car)
|
| E-bike: 25kph, 100kg => 4.6kJ (0.82% of car)
|
| Car: 50kph, 2000kg => 560kJ (100% of car)
| loeg wrote:
| Thanks. Just for the sake of fleshing out the speeding
| angle:
|
| Car, 64 kph => 164% of car at 50 kph
|
| Car, 110 kph => 480% of car at 50 kph
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| it's worth noting that most collisions don't happen at
| full speed (and combination of velocity matters a lot).
| swexbe wrote:
| Wouldn't joules be more indicative of damage caused?
| codethief wrote:
| No. The kinetic energy of the car/bike/... doesn't tell
| you anything because you don't know how much energy gets
| transferred to the victim until you have applied momentum
| conservation to the elastic/inelastic problem. So, the
| right approach would be (in this order): Calculate
| momenta, calculate how much momentum gets transferred to
| the victim via momentum conservation, deduce the
| resulting change (increase) in kinetic energy of the
| victim. This kinetic energy will be converted into heat
| (= damage/injuries) in one way or another, so it's the
| relevant physical quantity for our considerations.
|
| Finally, in case of an inelastic problem (likely with
| cars, not so likely with bikes or people), you also need
| to consider the energy loss during momentum transfer.
| Once again, this energy will become heat (= do damage),
| so it adds to the aforementioned increase in kinetic
| energy when we're interested in how much damage will be
| done.
| yakubin wrote:
| Just as there is the law of conservation of energy, there
| is also the law of conservation of momentum. Both explain
| it equally well IMO.
| p1mrx wrote:
| How can mv and mv2 explain the damage "equally well",
| when one is linear and the other is quadratic with
| respect to velocity?
| wiredfool wrote:
| Momentum is always conserved. Energy is partially
| conserved. If it squishes, it will be more like MV, if it
| bounces, it's more like 1/2 mv^2.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| The point is the extreme magnitude of difference between
| a car and a bike/person. This shows it just fine.
| trgn wrote:
| I cannot believe this is getting downvoted. The reasons
| cars are inherently dangerous is 99% because they are
| heavy and fast. Everything we build around that (traffic
| rules, dedicated lanes, buffer spaces, ...) is purely to
| deal with this fundamental physical reality.
|
| With great power comes great responsibility. Whether you
| take that perspective in Joules, Watts, Newtons, kg.m/s,
| the conclusions are roughly the same. Drivers needs to be
| hundreds of times more responsible than cyclists or
| walkers.
| Mashimo wrote:
| > but don't ride a bike.
|
| I'm drunk biking and thought about if I should stop.
|
| But I have never hear about anyone having an accident related
| to drunk biking. In theory I could run head first into
| oncoming biker. But I never felt being that drunk in a way
| that would lose control. That would also make it illegal
| where I live.
| bowsamic wrote:
| It's also very illegal to bike when drunk where I live in
| Germany
| usrusr wrote:
| Correction: it's illegal to bike when very drunk. In the
| moderately drunk range, German law is surprisingly
| reasonable in acknowledging that drunk driving would have
| been much worse.
| pastage wrote:
| Not in Sweden and we have less accidents than Germany.
| timc3 wrote:
| You are not allowed to be driving anything while drunk in
| Sweden.
| null_object wrote:
| > Not in Sweden and we have less accidents than Germany.
|
| I don't think you got the memo where everyone seems to
| think getting blind drunk and then getting on an electric
| scooter is totally ok "in Sweden".
|
| I've had a few near-misses myself with crazy drunk riders
| on pedestrian streets in central Stockholm; I once
| interviewed a job-candidate with a cut-up face who
| laughingly told us he'd crashed a scooter with two(!)
| friends on the back after a drink night; a friend of mine
| smashed their hip after a night drinking and then jumping
| on a scooter.
|
| The rules may be there. The actual reality is different.
| pastage wrote:
| You can not be convicted for drunk cycling, but you can
| still be stopped for recklesness in traffic. Same goes
| for e-scooters. As long as you do not cause problems
| there is no legal or social taboo.
| jefc1111 wrote:
| I am on board with this. You can do someone a serious injury
| while cycling.
|
| Also, you might kill yourself by drunk cycling. And that is
| likely to have a huge effect on lots of people you care
| about.
|
| It's just a bad idea all round...
| Mashimo wrote:
| > It's just a bad idea all round...
|
| Drinking alone is a bad idea all around.
| mjhay wrote:
| It's a bad idea, but orders of magnitude less of a bad idea
| than drunk driving. People ditching cars means less drunk
| driving (even if it means more drunk cycling), as well as
| less road deaths in general. That can only be a good thing.
| adam-a wrote:
| If you kill yourself while cycling then you were almost
| certainly hit by a car, which is probably more likely if
| you are drunk cycling. But this is also the fault of bad
| cycling infrastructure and arguably the driver who cannot
| avoid another road user.
| lenlorijn wrote:
| I see lots of folks in the comments assuming what would
| happen when you bike drunk, seemingly not ever having done so
| themselves or seen it.
|
| I live in a student city in the Netherlands (Groningen),
| where most students go out on the town by bike. It's really
| not much more dangerous than walking drunk. And it's very
| much preferable to driving drunk.
|
| Thousands of students park their bikes in the city's central
| underground bike parking spots every weekend. I have never
| heard of someone dying because biking drunk. The biggest
| danger for any bike, drunk or not, remains the car. This is
| also reflected in the enforcement of laws by the police.
| Although driving drunk, and being drunk in public is not
| allowed, fining cyclists for this is rarely enforced.
| Partially because the consequences are not too bad, and
| partially to make sure people don't drive home drunk instead
| to avoid a fine.
|
| According to the Dutch central bureau of statistics in 2021,
| out of all deaths of cyclists 34% are due to losing
| consciousness, getting a foot stuck in the wheels, making a
| wrong movement, or due to bad road conditions and
| slipperiness. Out of this 34%, 72 % is over the age of 70.
| https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2022/37/meer-fietsdoden-
| na-e...
| tfourb wrote:
| A friend of mine in college drove down a (very) long flight
| of stairs with his bike while being (very) drunk. He was
| severely injured and I very much doubt based on his
| recollection of what happened that he would a) have injured
| himself at all if he was on foot and b) even if he had fell
| on those stairs, he would have had much less serious
| injuries.
| treve wrote:
| Sure, but you are comparing statistics for an entire
| country to a specific incident. Of course there's a non-0
| risk, but when it's about traffic and safety it's about
| acceptable, not complete elimination of risk.
|
| It's still illegal in the Netherlands to bike drunk. I'm
| sure this would be aggressively enforced in cities like
| Groningen if statistically there were major safety issues
| Thursdays and Friday nights with drunk cyclists, but this
| is not the case.
|
| Not to say that your friend shouldn't have walked instead
| though. Drunkness is also a sliding scale. Luckily with
| cyclists the chances are way lower of murdering others.
| altacc wrote:
| I once heard somebody describe cycling after a few drinks
| as the closest thing humans can get to flying.
| nec4b wrote:
| Hitting a pedestrian when riding a bike at 25 km/h has life
| threatening consequences for the pedestrian. Pedestrians do
| die when hit by bikers. Especially elderly which have worse
| awareness around them and are more fragile.
| bosie wrote:
| Not even being snarky but if hitting a pedestrian at
| 25kmh with a bicycle is so bad, how much worse would it
| be with a car/truck/bus?
| nec4b wrote:
| I'm sure flying a plane with 300 people on board while
| being drunk is worse than driving a car drunk. But that
| doesn't mean it's now OK to drive under influence,
| because there is something even worse out there you could
| do while being drunk.
| acomjean wrote:
| Don't drink and ride.
|
| We a friend do this, they didn't hurt anyone but themselves,
| and not too badly. And they did hit their head when they fell
| off , but were wearing a helmet (thus becoming a advocate for
| helmets..). Still pretty scraped up.
| stcroixx wrote:
| Pretty sure it's illegal to operate any kind of vehicle on a
| public street while over the limit in the US. No different
| than a car. Except, if you get in a wreck you're almost
| surely dead.
| toss1 wrote:
| Nice suggestion, but drunk-cycling is self-limiting in a way
| that drunk-cycling is not. Drunk-driving you are seated, and
| only need to be barely conscious. for drunk-cycling, you
| still must be sufficiently functional to balance on a bike,
| which puts a bit of a floor on the level of perceptual and
| cognitive function available, in addition to the far lower
| bike vs car ceiling on available momentum to do damage.
|
| Not recommended, but cycling is a very substantially less-
| worse choice, absent getting another ride.
| otherme123 wrote:
| True, I remember watching a guy "cycling" drunk, and he was
| just walking with a bike between his legs.
| trgn wrote:
| > which puts a bit of a floor on the level of perceptual
| and cognitive function available
|
| Absolutely. I cannot believe people are actually
| equivocating on this. A drunk driver is hundreds of times
| more dangerous than a drunk cyclist, it's a categorical
| difference.
| Zigurd wrote:
| That's correct. Drunk drivers are frequently completely
| unconscious by the time they crash a car, and can have been
| for quite a distance down the road. Can't happen on a bike.
| inpdx wrote:
| One could envision that last beer or shot not having
| taken full hold when the cyclist gets on the bike. One
| could also envision balance being sufficient but reaction
| time not.
|
| Have I crashed my bike at the bottom of a hill while
| drunk? Yes, yes I have.
| scott_w wrote:
| The important part, for public safety, is "How many
| people did you kill/maim?"
|
| Injuring yourself due to alcohol is bad. Hurting others
| is inexcusable.
| mikrl wrote:
| - if you ride after a night drinking
|
| I was at my local bar here in Ontario and a gang of older
| fellows (boomer/Gen X) roll up on electric stand-up scooters.
|
| Some drunk zoomers started laughing and giving them shit and
| flexing their trucks but they just ignored them, had their 3-4
| beers and said they were going to <fancy uptown bar> which
| would have been at least 45 minutes to walk.
| xapata wrote:
| > you will not kill someone if you ride after a night drinking;
|
| A pedestrian I know was seriously injured (brain damage, years
| of therapy) by a cyclist who was going the wrong way down a
| one-way street.
|
| To be fair, the cyclist wasn't drunk, ... so maybe the drinking
| bit is completely irrelevant. Carry on then.
| sebcat wrote:
| > you will not kill someone if you ride after a night drinking
|
| You might however end up at the hospital doing that, or worse.
| mellosouls wrote:
| _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.
| pg314 wrote:
| Do a google image search for 'Dutch on bicycles'. None of
| those people in the pictures need to change or shower after
| their ride. Same thing were I live. We only wear special
| cycling clothes if we go out cycling on a road bike or
| mountain bike in the weekend. And of course then you need to
| shower afterwards.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I have to shower at least once a day anyways, so it doesn't
| really make a difference if I do that before or after my
| commute. In fact when I drive to work I usually spend the
| first couple minutes in the shower just staring at the wall
| waking up- when I bike to work I'm much more efficient.
|
| The only downside is that on warmer days if I have something
| going on in the evening I'll sometimes need to shower again
| when I get home, but IMO it's still worth it considering that
| my roundtrip commute is maybe 60 minutes by bike vs 50
| minutes by car, and if I commute by car I don't get the free
| workout
| _dain_ wrote:
| _> cyclists (as motorcyclists) need to change (at each side)
| and shower etc;_
|
| Excuse me? I have literally never done that in my life. I
| just bike in my normal clothes. It's light exercise, you
| don't have to shower afterwards.
| matsemann wrote:
| 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.
| jonahrd wrote:
| I could probably count the number of times I've changed or
| showered after cycling on one hand, and cycling has been my
| main mode of transit for 10 years.
|
| When your trip is like 3km you don't even have time to work
| up a sweat, especially if you're limited to just going at the
| speed of traffic. (Yes, on my own I could probably ride
| faster, but I'm _limited_ by car /infrastructure speed)
| mellosouls wrote:
| Sure, there are always going to be anecdotal exceptions
| ("parking isn't an issue for me, I just park on site"), but
| I think fans on either side can have quite rose-tinted
| views when assessing the pros and cons; I was just pointing
| out an omission in one of the examples.
| jonahrd wrote:
| I live in the highest density cycling city in North
| America (Montreal) and this is not anecdotal. A huge
| portion of my office cycle-commutes to work, and the vast
| majority do not shower. This was doubly-true before I
| worked at my current company, where there _weren 't_
| showers, and still most people used bikes to commute.
|
| At what point do anecdotes from people who actually live
| this experience day to day become more useful to listen
| to than theories from people who don't?
| mellosouls wrote:
| I used to commute by bike myself (and would still if
| logistics allowed), so you should probably not presume.
|
| The fact is, short of linking to professional analysis
| and reporting we are all here relating anecdotes - and
| that's ok.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| When your trip is 3km you can easily walk. Bicycle
| commuting is very hard in warmer climates, because you will
| get sweaty. But motorcycles solve that problem at least.
| Then you have those cold climates with awful weather, where
| bicycle commuting is pure misery, compared to riding a car
| or bus. So it is all very location dependent.
| electriccatblan wrote:
| Bike commuting during winter is fine as long as you have
| the right clothes. I have commuted in a -55F wind chill
| in perfect comfort. I will concede that it takes a few
| weeks to calibrate clothing if you're not used to it, but
| it's not some huge barrier if it's something you're
| interested in
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Snow cover can make it impossible. Frozen rain means you
| need somewhere to store your wet clothes, and they will
| not be nice to put on when going back. Somebody who isn't
| a huge biking freak will prefer the car.
| lasermike026 wrote:
| This is a great success which I hope is replicated in the United
| States.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| What are the per-mile statistics? What percentage of total miles
| traveled occur via bike? If every trip counts equally,
| pedestrians should outnumber everyone. (Most every cyclist or
| driver becomes a pedestrian at some point during the day.)
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| The article points out that walkers do outnumber everyone.
| secondcoming wrote:
| Commuting to work on my bike through London was one of my
| highlights living there. So much fun and danger.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| imagine how much of a shit show it would be if every single one
| of these people tried to commute in one day in their own
| individual vehicle instead of a bicycle.
|
| It's the space efficiency of the bicycle that allows London to
| function at this point.
| lacker wrote:
| I'm worried about riding my bike in the city. A friend of mine
| died on her bike when hit by a truck in Seattle a few years ago
| and since then I just don't feel okay biking alongside cars any
| more, especially with kids.
|
| I know this is fundamentally born of emotion rather than
| rationalism, but still, it does seem like riding a bike is much
| more dangerous than driving. Bicycles are somewhere from 3x to
| 11x more dangerous than cars.
|
| https://bicycleuniverse.com/bicycle-safety-almanac/
|
| When I visited Amsterdam I liked how they often had separated
| bike lanes, not like in the US where cars can and do just drive
| through the bike lanes, like an actual physical barrier
| preventing cars from driving through bike lanes. Maybe that would
| be a lot safer, but, I won't hold my breath on that coming to the
| US.
| f_devd wrote:
| > Bicycles are somewhere from 3x to 11x more dangerous than
| cars.
|
| In the US, where there is effectively no bicycle
| infrastructure. In the Netherlands it seems to be about 1.18x
| (or 1.1x if you include trucks) [0].
|
| [0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/523310/netherlands-
| numbe...
| chroma wrote:
| The important metric is fatalities per distance traveled, not
| absolute numbers. In the Netherlands, bicycles have 11
| fatalities per billion kilometers traveled. Cars have 1.6.
| locallost wrote:
| By that metric, walking is the most dangerous mode of
| transport. Somehow seems illogical.
| chroma wrote:
| 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 earth.
| f_devd wrote:
| They are a replacement for cities not for _all_ road
| travel, same way trucks aren 't going to be replaced by
| scooter, it's a different mode of transportation better
| suited for shorter distances. The comparison _could_ be
| valid if you filter the car travel for <15km of planned
| route.
| pharmakom wrote:
| Well let's make cycling safer with proper infrastructure
| then.
| f_devd wrote:
| I'm not sure that makes much sense as a safety metric,
| bicycles obviously travel less distance on average per
| instance used, so the 'rate of death' would not have the
| same scaling as distance traveled
| sofixa wrote:
| "Painted bicycle gutters" is the derogatory term for what many
| North American cities call "biking infrastructure". There have
| even been some studies that suggest they have worse effects
| than nothing, because they give a false sense of security to
| cyclists without providing any protection against drivers.
| Especially when coupled with total lack of general planning
| (e.g. bike planes splattered from random place A to random
| place B, finishing in the middle of an intersection).
|
| Everyone deserves better biking infrastructure, cyclists and
| car drivers alike (more bikes => less cars => less traffic =>
| happier drivers and happier cyclists).
| lacker wrote:
| Yeah, I can believe that. I remember one spot off the 280
| there are some bicycle lanes that go right over highway off
| ramps. Drivers are just constantly zooming through at near-
| highway speeds. Yeah, they're painted green, so what? It's
| like a particle accelerator encouraging bicycles to smash
| themselves.
| ilovecurl wrote:
| Somewhat important detail to note: The City of London's (AKA "The
| Square Mile") geographical area is 1.12 square miles:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London
|
| This is great news.
| raldi wrote:
| I remember New York mayor Michael Bloomberg taking a trip to
| London around a year after they implemented their congestion
| charge, since he wanted to do that too. Their mayor told him
| something like, "Everyone's going to be protesting literally up
| to the morning it goes into effect, and then a week later
| everyone will be saying, 'Why didn't we do this ages ago?'"
| monkchips wrote:
| hopefully this will contribute to a tipping point on
| infrastructure investments around low traffic neighbourhoods.
| theFletch wrote:
| I didn't see any mention of this in the article, but I wonder
| what percentage is commuting vs. delivery. I was in NYC before
| and after the pandemic and, just from a casual outside
| perspective, it seemed that the number of delivery cyclist has
| risen significantly while commuters has dropped or just stayed
| the same.
| Zigurd wrote:
| NYC has enough delivery riders that storage and fire risk from
| overnight charging is significant. I'm sure the same risks
| apply everywhere but sheer numbers in NYC make it a headline
| issue. I rode blue bikes while visiting, and I had different
| observations riding and walking: While walking it seemed like
| delivery riders where everywhere. While riding, I noticed a lot
| more leisure and commuting riders, probably because I was
| riding where they ride, not to some random delivery location.
| theFletch wrote:
| That's a great point about just being where certain types of
| riders are. This probably speaks volumes about the
| infrastructure for cycling, or lack of in NYC. I'm a cyclist
| and advocate for more bikes, but there is something about
| putting motorized transportation (e-bikes, scooters, etc.)
| even closer to pedestrians that seems wrong to me. Getting
| hit by a car is no fun, but getting hit by an e-bike going
| 20+ mph can't be fun either. The number of people to
| potentially suffer an injury also doubles.
| Zigurd wrote:
| I never felt unsafe walking or riding where delivery riders
| were delivering. The safety problems I encountered were all
| due to cars.
|
| Delivery riders have a tough life. They buy their own gear
| and pay to keep it in the city. Things like UL-listed
| batteries are important. But so is expansion of bike
| infrastructure for all kinds of cyclists.
|
| I don't own one, but I know e-bikes popularize cycling. In
| some places they are the only practical daily use bike.
| More would be better.
| jamesgill wrote:
| Only a quibble, but "Bicycles outnumber motor vehicles" might be
| more accurate. It's a vehicle count, not a person count.
| throwewey wrote:
| NB. This is in the City of London, which is a 1 sq. mile area in
| the center of London. This is definitely not representative of
| London as a whole.
| [deleted]
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Looking at the chart, it appears that "motorists" is separate
| from "taxis". I wonder which bucket Uber falls into.
| dkdbejwi383 wrote:
| PHV which stands for "Private Hire Vehicle"
| stevesimmons wrote:
| Taxi in London for road purposes usually means the London black
| cabs, which may drive in bus lanes. Ubers are like normal cars.
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| Great!
|
| Now fix London's massive crime issues, thanks.
| pornel wrote:
| What a coincidence that crime in London became an issue the day
| a non-christian Mayor got elected, and the issue is of utmost
| concern on US-centric social media.
| isaacremuant wrote:
| This is mostly not for the right reasons of benefits and
| incentives but cost of public transport, unreliability of public
| transport (we've had strikes all year so far) and absolutely
| terrible traffic (urban planning is non existent).
|
| They simply gentrify car ownership in the city due to different
| taxes and it ends up being something that is only for the
| wealthier segments.
|
| Everything seems to be about profit in London, while trying to
| coat it with a nice messaging about environment or some other
| thing most of us agree on but the implementations usually are
| simply money making or money saving schemes that very gladly
| screw over those less socioeconomically able.
| knolan wrote:
| I've a 24 km commute in Dublin in Ireland. It's most consistent
| by ebike. Driving can take anywhere from 35 minutes to over an
| hour depending on traffic. Public transport takes 90 minutes and
| there is only a direct bus a couple of times a day, otherwise it
| will take closer to two hours.
|
| On my bike it consistently takes an hour. I can take various
| green ways through parks and try to minimise my exposure to
| aggressive drivers and get some good exercise even on an ebike.
| The only issue is picking up a puncture which has been an issue
| with my new tyres lately. It's important to invest in good
| equipment if you can.
| ihaveajob wrote:
| Predictability is an important factor, and yes, bikes are
| better at that. By the way, try a vinyl liner between the tube
| and the tire for puncture protection. Since I started doing
| this, my puncture rate has fallen easily by 90%.
| knolan wrote:
| I think I just need to get the same puncture resistant tyres
| I had on it previously which were excellent. The current ones
| where whatever the LBS had in stock.
| nmca wrote:
| I have run schwalbe marathon pros on a variety of bikes & have
| never gotten a fast puncture on one despite thousands of miles.
| They are a touch heavy to be fair, but seems easily worth it.
| hardlianotion wrote:
| schwalbe marathon is by far my most successful anti puncture
| tyre.
| electrosphere wrote:
| November 2020 I ordered a Swytch e-bike kit and fitted it to my
| bike. It replaced the car for many things (weekly grocery shops,
| city centre trips).
|
| I moved to London last year and this turned out to be a fortune
| timing.
|
| My car, a Honda Civic 2007 diesel, is not ULEZ compliant and I
| will have to pay PS12.50/day to drive it from August 2023 due to
| the low emission zone expansion. I plan to sell it in July.
|
| Guess what? I've been using my Swytch e-bike happily here in
| London to get around the suburbs. There are even some Amsterdam
| style bike lanes to get further into the city.
|
| Pros when I get rid of the car:
|
| * no insurance, tax, ULEZ charge, fuel, trip to fuel station,
| servicing charges, worries about people scratching it...
|
| * Uber for when I really need a car (eg. I have a group with me)
|
| * able to take short-cuts and bypass unpleasant town
| centers/sometimes
|
| * feeling of getting fresh air and exercise
|
| * helping a cleaner environment for next generation
|
| Cons:
|
| * weather has a big factor when riding and planning trips, all
| you really need though is gloves, a waterproof jacket - maybe
| waterproof over-trousers for when there is heavy rain.
|
| * cold weather waters my eyes and hits me in the face
|
| * have to unlock & lock the bike and carry a D-lock
|
| I doubt I will ever own a car after August 2023.
| chroma wrote:
| So the reason more people are cycling in the area is that the
| government made cars extremely expensive, almost certainly more
| than the externalities created by those cars. If they instead
| instituted a carbon tax and congestion pricing, I doubt your
| daily expenses would exceed PS12.50/day.
| abricq wrote:
| 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 months, I have seen a huge change in the behavior of
| car drivers: they are much much nicer to interact with. Before
| COVID, I had dangerous interaction with drivers several time a
| week, and had to be in constant vigilance for them not
| considering me as part of the traffic. Now, it has been reduced
| to maybe once a month. Sometimes I don't even believe how well
| people respect us now, considering how it was just 3 years ago.
| And most of the time when I confront people that did something
| dangerous, they are sorry and feel bad about it (it really wasn't
| like this a few years ago...)
| kccqzy wrote:
| Interestingly I recently visited Seattle and rented a car
| there. I did what I always do--yielding to bikes when turning
| right--and the bicyclists actively thanked me for yielding and
| avoiding cutting in front of them. I was a bit dumbfounded as
| to how this behavior isn't common enough.
| entropicgravity wrote:
| I ride an e-bike and I'm very fond of it, but it's a
| transitionary solution. What will propagate in cities within
| twenty years is almost all EV's with covered roads (no
| poisonous gases) and 'cars' that take up a half of a current
| lane and can carry three people at most. The car market will
| split between 'long distance' similar to today's cars and 'city
| cars' that are tiny compared to today. This will happen because
| EV's can happily scale to a much smaller size than ICE cars can
| and consequently will be much more practical.
| [deleted]
| qball wrote:
| >EVs can happily scale to a much smaller size than ICE cars
| can
|
| No, they cannot; in fact, _small size is their primary
| weakness_. Compact car-sized EVs currently get about
| 200-250km of range _at best_ - they're physically unable to
| carry enough battery power to make them viable. Gas-powered
| subcompact cars get 2-3 times the range of the comparable
| electric and have a significantly smaller TCO. They aren't an
| upgrade, and will never be an upgrade.
|
| Where EVs shine is in the inherently energy-wasteful lifted
| station wagon (SUV/crossover) market segment that's
| overwhelmingly popular today (to the point where a
| significant number of manufacturers have abandoned standard
| cars entirely), mainly because those vehicles _are_ big
| enough to hold the number of batteries needed to get a
| somewhat-competitive range with their similarly-sized gas
| counterparts. Yes, this means we burn even more natural gas
| at night to charge those land yachts up to the point it 's
| kicking out more emissions than encouraging subcompact gas
| cars would, but out of sight, out of mind, right?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Compact car-sized EVs currently get about 200-250km
|
| What qualifies as compact? A Chevy Bolt will comfortably go
| 400km. More if it were strictly used at city speeds.
| matsemann wrote:
| 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.
| foepys wrote:
| I noticed that as well. I guess many people took up cycling as
| a leisure activity when COVID hit and suddenly noticed how
| dangerous cars are for them on their bicycles.
| cienman73 wrote:
| But, also tfl trying to build more and more cycle lanes ignoring
| the importance of the pedestrians.
| https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/18/sadiq-khan-cycli...
| pharmakom wrote:
| TFL care a great deal about pedestrians which is why many
| planned cycle lanes were not built and turned into wider
| pavement space.
|
| Also please keep in mind that The Telegraph is not a neutral
| actor with regards to Khan. They recently blamed him for the
| national strikes, which was totally non sensical.
| zabzonk wrote:
| both equally horrible, from the perspective of a pedestrian. the
| only two people i have ever punched with intent in my life were
| these witless nincompoops that drive around the city and into you
| - if you don't work there, you have no idea how dangerous these
| assholes are.
|
| easy solution: compulsory lisencing and insurance
| GalenErso wrote:
| I don't live in London, but I'm interested in acquiring a
| stationary bike to do cardio at home. Does anyone have
| recommendations?
| swarnie wrote:
| Get a Peloton with a financing deal, hope either they or the
| underwriter collapse shortly after.
|
| Free bike.
| ddek wrote:
| > hope either they or the underwriter collapse shortly after
|
| Has this ever worked? Surely the administrator would just
| sell the debt at a discount (for them, not you).
| dmurray wrote:
| If Peloton collapse, they would stop providing their cloud
| product and you presumably wouldn't be on the hook to keep
| paying them, and they might not ask for the bikes back. If
| you only want the physical equipment, this might work out
| for you.
| mattmcknight wrote:
| One good option is to turn your bike into a stationary bike so
| you can use it for both purposes. Options range from cheap to
| crazy expensive, like everything else with bikes.
| https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/indoor-bike-trainers...
| debacle wrote:
| I'm a big fan of the Schwinn recumbent I bought pre-pandemic.
| It was <$250 and has seen a lot of use.
|
| Not the nicest bike by a long shot, but it gets daily use.
| TexanFeller wrote:
| I would celebrate if this happened naturally, but this seems more
| a case of if you punish driving enough you get less drivers.
|
| When I was in London over a decade ago they already had
| restrictions on car traffic into certain parts of the city and
| additional fees to go there. Tax on a new car is 20% and lots of
| regulations on their characteristics. Large taxes on petrol which
| is already much more expensive than in the US.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| You could certainly view car-centric infrastructure as
| punishing cyclists if you wanted to.
| Zigurd wrote:
| I live in the Boston exurbs. There used to be two passenger
| rail stations on a Boston & Maine RR line back when the town
| consisted almost entirely of farms.
|
| Cars killed those services. Nothing about that was "natural."
| Cars need to be contained to uses where they are strictly
| needed in order for such services to come back.
|
| With work-at-home as a new norm there is much less need for
| commuting. With delivery there is much less need to drive from
| store to store on shopping trips. The American "geography of
| nowhere" is a blight to be eradicated.
| Xylakant wrote:
| Nothing about traffic allocation is ,,naturally". Building
| roads is a decision. Allocating space for cars, bicycles,
| pedestrians is a decision. Making driving a car cheap is a
| decision. Discouraging driving by increasing costs is a
| decision. Reducing car traffic by restricting use is a
| decision.
|
| It's decisions all the way down. The question is ,,What is the
| outcome we want and what's the road to get there."
| Arkhaine_kupo wrote:
| > Large taxes on petrol which is already much more expensive
| than in the US.
|
| Oil is the most subsidised industry in America. Oil is more
| expensive pretty much everywhere but Saudi Arabia where you can
| get it by kicking about the sand.
|
| Despite all the restrictions London has placed, it is still the
| most gridlocked city in the planet, with the lowest traffic
| movement. London has too many people, and too many cars despite
| its incredible public transport options.
|
| On of the main reasons is that it is not a very tall city, low
| density means sprawl, means lots of cars. Replace a lot of the
| Zone 1 2 floor flats with a garden for a 10 story multi family
| house and suddenly car useage would plummet.
| alamortsubite wrote:
| There's nothing natural about cars, nor the many negative
| externalities that are associated with them.
| crote wrote:
| People have lived in the area now known as London for over 6000
| years, and London has been a city for nearly 2000 years. It has
| grown _very_ naturally.
|
| Cars are the recent addition, and they are being restricted
| because _they_ were causing issues. The alternative is
| bulldozing the city for some highways, which does not really
| sound very natural to me.
| Jochim wrote:
| What's natural about the provision of tens of thousands of
| parking spaces, dedicated carriageways, tunnels, bridges,
| signalling infrastructure etc.?
| dabeeeenster wrote:
| "Tax on a new car is 20%"
|
| UK sales tax IS 20 for almost all goods! Why is this a reason?
| Can't think what other "regulations" there are in their
| characteristics other than emmissions?
| seszett wrote:
| That's an average VAT rate for Europe.
| vultour wrote:
| Large parts of Europe have VAT around 20%.
| xsmasher wrote:
| You say "punish driving," I say "make drivers pay for the
| externalities they cause."
|
| If you don't, you get the tragedy of the commons.
| jwhiles wrote:
| I used to walk everywhere in the middle of the road but then
| they started punishing me for it :(
| textread wrote:
| 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 tower of babel I have achieved so far is this:-
|
| A barge carried my car accross a river. I was sitting in the car
| with my Brompton next to me.
| truthsayer123 wrote:
| You need to do mediation. You think too much about
| abstractions. And is not able to focus on what is real.
|
| Here is a free one month trial.
|
| You can try other apps as well but waking up app was the one I
| found best.
|
| https://dynamic.wakingup.com/shareOpenAccess/SCB2E2075
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| 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.
| icare_1er wrote:
| The main issue with bikes in big cities is the blatant bike-theft
| problem and the near-impunity that thieves seem to enjoy.
| Maxburn wrote:
| I haven't done my research but from what I've gathered from news
| over the years hasn't London had very high car tax, tolls, super
| expensive gas, and just outright closing streets and eliminating
| parking?
|
| So with a big enough stick and very little carrot anything is
| possible? Is that a win? Aren't we hearing that actual residents
| really don't like these "15 minute" cities?
| _dain_ wrote:
| First, the City of London hardly has any residents; almost all
| traffic demand comes from outside. I imagine the few residents
| it has welcomes these measures, since they suffer the bad
| effects of commuter traffic, while generating little of it
| themselves.
|
| Second, how else are cities meant to do this? The fundamental
| problem is that there is a huge and rising level of driving
| demand[1], and limited supply. There is a scarcity of road
| space in London and you can't really add more. Basic economics
| tells you that you can manage that scarcity through some
| combination of prices, queues, and lotteries. Throughout most
| of the 20th century, we defaulted to queues, in the form of
| traffic jams. You can use the road at zero cost, but you'll
| have to wait a long time. But that became increasingly
| untenable as car ownership rose -- the number of cars in
| Britain has doubled over the last few decades. And traffic jams
| are themselves unpleasant: they're noisy, ugly, emit pollution,
| etc. So now cities are using prices too, in the form of
| congestion charges, taxes, and so on. That's not some punitive
| "stick" done for its own sake, it's just a tool used to cope
| with an inescapable economic reality. When you have more cars
| and the same amount of road, you need to deter an increasing
| fraction of those cars from using those roads. The "carrot" is
| providing alternate, more space-efficient ways to get around:
| bike infrastructure, public transport.
|
| [1] "driving demand" is itself a weaselly, meaningless phrase,
| because "demand" only makes sense in reference to a specific
| price level. motorists have been conditioned by a century of
| car-friendly policy to expect to drive and park for free, but
| there's no real justification for that. just because the roads
| are publicly owned doesn't give them the right to use them for
| free, any more than state-owned railways should have free
| fares.
| sofixa wrote:
| > 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, rather
| dense, and with very relaxed and mixed zoning (you can have a
| 13th century "Church of X Girls School" next to a Tesco store
| in a glass skyscraper. It already does everything a "15th
| minute city" is about, apart from being "15 minutes big" -
| commute times are usually bigger, and somewhat concentrated to
| City and Canary Wharf, but there's work, leisure, shopping,
| housing to be found all around. Idiots who rage against a
| concept they couldn't begin to comprehend because toilet paper
| quality "journalists" make money that way aren't concerned
| residents of London, they have nothing to do with the city, and
| their opinion is best ignored.
| Maxburn wrote:
| 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?
| koyote wrote:
| As someone who lived in London for nearly a decade, getting
| groceries was 100x easier than when I lived somewhere you
| had to drive for 15-30 minutes (traffic) to get to a large
| hypermarket.
|
| A rucksack will easily carry around 5-6 days of food. Other
| than that, I would simply pop by the shop on my commute
| home from work. It would be a 5-10 minute detour max.
|
| Remember that the shops in such cities are directly
| accessible (no need to walk through a massive shopping
| centre), there's no time wasted on finding a parking space,
| there's so many shops that it's extremely likely that
| there's at least one between your home and the bus/tube
| stop and they're mostly exclusively filled with food so
| you're not walking past dozens of aisles filled with non-
| groceries.
|
| The big bonus of course is that if you wake up in the
| morning and realise you're out of milk, it's a usually a
| <5min walk to the closest shop to pick some up and no one
| will bat an eyelid if you're still wearing your bathing
| gown. :)
|
| There's also generally less food waste (as you shop for
| fewer days and can plan better) and you can opt into buying
| your fruit, veg, meat and fish fresh every day instead of
| having to hope that your 'big shop' at the megastore will
| still be fresh at the end of the week.
| cmonagle wrote:
| Typically you carry your groceries in a bag. Some people
| have wheeled bags for bigger trips.
|
| In neighborhoods with a traditional urban form (or "15
| minute cities"), you wouldn't usually take mass transit to
| the grocery store, it's within a short walking distance.
| With groceries close by, it's natural to make frequent,
| smaller trips.
| milkytron wrote:
| 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.
| _dain_ wrote:
| "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.
| Zigurd wrote:
| We are hearing from trolls and astroturf bots that 15 minute
| cities are a deep state plot.
| sumitgt wrote:
| I would personally bike more often to more places if only there
| was some way to securely park my bike at the destination (grocery
| stores, restaurants, etc.).
|
| The only place I can reliably bike to at the moment is my office
| which has a secured bike parking.
| jagtstronaut wrote:
| What is a constructive way to respond to cyclist hate? I used to
| commute to work quite a bit and got a lot of flack both on the
| road and off (people giving their opinion).
|
| I don't really understand the hate first of all, but more
| importantly how do you respond to it appropriately and maturely?
| Is there another way than just ignoring it?
| noobermin wrote:
| Keep cycling until they join you (or die because they're old
| boomers anyway).
| snvzz wrote:
| Great.
|
| Hopefully this will make the introduction of stricter regulations
| on motorists easier, particularly safety and noise.
| jmclnx wrote:
| Nice, I wonder if they are back using internal hubs (like old 3
| speeds) or derailleurs ?
|
| The internal hubs like they used 50+ years ago were a better
| design for rainy weather than derailleurs.
|
| With that said, I can guess most are using single speed.
| Hopefully not fixed :)
| i_am_jl wrote:
| >With that said, I can guess most are using single speed.
| Hopefully not fixed :)
|
| I'm more curious as to the makeup of electric-assisted vs
| human-powered.
|
| Ebikes have also shaken up the drivetrain landscape a bit.
| Motors can be in the middle of the bike, and those bikes are
| often being paired with internally geared hubs in the rear.
| Mid-drive bikes can incorporate a gearbox in the motor, and are
| built with nothing but a belt drive and a single cog on the
| rear wheel.
|
| I love pedaling, but I'd have to be blind to not see how ebikes
| have widened cycling's userbase in my area, and I'm very
| curious if that's the case everywhere.
| pjc50 wrote:
| As an occasional work cyclist in Edinburgh and previously
| Cambridge: it doesn't make that much difference. It's nicer to
| have more gears to get a decent speed, but not being able to
| slip off is an advantage to 3-speeds.
|
| Overall bike design makes more difference. Dutch bike >> MTB
| with comfort fittings > regular MTB > racing bike. By "comfort
| fittings" I mean things like chain guards and mudguards and a
| suitable saddle.
|
| These days quite a lot will be e-bikes too.
| seszett wrote:
| > _Dutch bike >> MTB with comfort fittings > regular MTB >
| racing bike_
|
| I feel like you're missing one type, the _80s touring bike_.
| The one that looks like a racing bike but with a longer
| wheelbase, mudguards, racks and thicker tyres.
|
| It is more comfortable in the city than a racing bike, but
| also IMO better than a mountain bike with curved handlebars,
| thinner tyres and a lighter frame. They're also dirt cheap.
| tokai wrote:
| >internal hubs like the used 50 years ago
|
| Their invention is closer to 150 years ago than 50.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Interestingly, Bromptons[0] using Sturmey Archer internal hubs,
| _and_ I believe you can buy an upgrade that puts a derailleur
| on the front, to double the number of gears.
|
| [0] https://www.brompton.com
| julian_t wrote:
| The owner of a bike shop I used to frequent had a Moulton
| (one of the old space-frame ones) with a 5-speed hub and a
| derailleur on the back _and_ three rings on the front. He
| said he wanted to see just how many gears he could actually
| get on one bike.
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| A good number of bikes in London are folding Bromptons with
| 3-speed hub gears or similar.
| lm28469 wrote:
| In Berlin most newish city oriented bikes I see have internal
| hubs
| [deleted]
| tgtweak wrote:
| Works well when you don't have 3-4 months of snow and ice. This
| is probably my biggest gripe with the whole "change roads to
| bicycle paths" push that is happening in most big cities
| (emulating this and using it as a guiding example). That
| infrastructure is essentially useless for 1/3 of the year.
| toshredsyousay wrote:
| And cars work so well on snow and ice? Some cities in Finland
| have lots of people cycling in the winter and last I heard they
| get lots of snow and ice. You can get snow tires for bikes just
| like you can for cars. You can also plow bike lanes like you
| can plow the roads.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU
| Mashimo wrote:
| > Works well when you don't have 3-4 months of snow and ice.
|
| Should work just fine IF there is biking infrastructure.
|
| You plow the bike roads just like you do with car roads.
| nntwozz wrote:
| We are the cyclists, the intermediate stage between humans and
| pure energy.
|
| https://youtu.be/1s0XsulDXtk
| trgn wrote:
| Bicycles are the best machine from the industrial revolution.
| Quiet, healthy, efficient, harmonious with our sensibilities. I
| think it is precisely these aspirational qualities that is
| enraging the morlocks in their cars (speaking for US only now,
| it's better in other countries). A bicycle is a shameful
| reminder of the virtuous path not taken.
| ClapperHeid wrote:
| Remember back in the 1970s; if you ever saw anything on the
| news about China, it would feature rank upon rank of cyclists
| pouring through Peking's great thoroughfares, with nary a
| motor vehicle in sight. We all laughed at how backward they
| were.
|
| Now we'd view a similar scene from any major city in the
| world as signs of a great environmental advance.
|
| Funny how times change, isn't it?
| panick21_ wrote:
| Sadly china embraced 'modernity' and they literally just
| used the single worst ideas from urban design and traffic
| engineering.
|
| They went with single use superblocks connected by
| highways. A terrible system in so many ways.
|
| Thankfully they protected some of the old city centers and
| those still have the beautiful chinese urbanism.
|
| Thankfully, leadership in China has realized that they
| really fucked up. Sometimes when building the 5 ring road
| highway that is clogged you start to rethink the problem.
| Funny enough by turning to Western New Urbanism:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqldZhxl86I
|
| https://www.efchina.org/Reports-en/report-lccp-20171214-en
|
| The book is really interesting, a great set of guidelines
| for city building. I don't agree with everything but its
| pretty fantastic.
| trgn wrote:
| Yes! Can't believe we thought car-clogged city streets were
| actually aspirational. Truly mass delusion.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| >Bicycles are the best machine from the industrial
| revolution. Quiet, healthy, efficient, harmonious with our
| sensibilities. I think it is precisely these aspirational
| qualities that is enraging the morlocks in their cars
| (speaking for US only now, it's better in other countries). A
| bicycle is a shameful reminder of the virtuous path not
| taken.
|
| The power loom?
|
| The electrical generator?
|
| The steam engine?
|
| The telegraph?
|
| The bicycle is a "nice to have" latecomer that can only exist
| in a world which is already somewhat industrialized.
| trgn wrote:
| lol way to miss the point. Hyperbole is a rhetorical device
| to emphasize a point.
|
| I'm so tired of the internet.
|
| Anyway, yes, let me revise, bicycles are the best
| invention, of ALL TIME!
|
| Power loom: ushered in capitalist mode of production,
| alienating us from our labor. Electrical generator: it's
| cool I guess. Steam engine: start of the fetishization of
| the engineering aesthetic. Awful. Only redeeming quality is
| that it gave us steam punk fiction 200 years later.
| Telegraph: instant communication is way overrated.
|
| Sorry for piling on. Long weekend.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| > lol way to miss the point. Hyperbole is a rhetorical
| device to emphasize a point.
|
| https://i.kym-
| cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/738/025/db0...
|
| Your "hyperbole" was solidly within the fat part of the
| bell curve of "what people of your bent say
| unironically". You don't get to say you were just
| pretending when it's called out for being absurd.
|
| Also, poe's law is very relevant here.
|
| >ower loom: ushered in capitalist mode of production,
| alienating us from our labor. Electrical generator: it's
| cool I guess. Steam engine: start of the fetishization of
| the engineering aesthetic. Awful. Only redeeming quality
| is that it gave us steam punk fiction 200 years later.
| Telegraph: instant communication is way overrated.
|
| Once again, it's not whimsical hyperbole when there's no
| shortage of people saying more or less exactly the same
| thing unironically.
| trgn wrote:
| > what people of your bent say unironically"
|
| Fair enough. I am certainly of that bent, and proud (ie.
| smug if you prefer) about it.
|
| I don't see irony and hyperbole as equivalent though. I
| am serious that bicycles are an excellent invention,
| certainly in the context of personal mobility, most
| certainly contrasted with horrid technology like cars. So
| unironic in that sense. But certainly hyperbole, as in,
| "best" invention, that's hard to determine. There's
| millions of axes on which to judge inventions, can't
| really put them all on a single line, and find "good,
| better, best".
|
| > no shortage of people saying more or less exactly the
| same thing unironically
|
| I was joking, doubling down on the original premise of
| exaggeration, I thought that was obvious.
| testybesty2 wrote:
| 100%, but you missed FUN.
|
| On another note, Ran Prieur has some interesting thoughts on
| bikes as a mode of transport.
|
| https://www.ranprieur.com/tech/trans.html
| trgn wrote:
| Thanks for the link! Looking forward to dive into it.
| postsantum wrote:
| Monkey Dust is the most underrated tv-show I've ever watched
| hprotagonist wrote:
| And the total time it's taken a load of goods to cross the city
| still hasn't changed in 700 years :)
|
| (I _believe_ that this is Neil Gaiman 's joke, but it could also
| be Pratchett, or older)
| dharmab wrote:
| This article is about the City of London, not London the well-
| known capital city.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| I think the joke works in both cases, really... despite the
| fact that the city of london is what, half a mile wide?
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| It would be interesting to see how road space is also allocated
| between these 2 modes.
|
| I don't know much about the City of London (I do know that it's
| not the same thing as the city of London), so I'm curious if
| others with more knowledge can share some information.
| ddek wrote:
| In CoL, a few cycle lanes but mainly it's just very quite
| roads. It works in CoL because motor traffic is so heavily
| restricted the roads are fairly quiet.
| vergessenmir wrote:
| Which is why it's pretty much the safest area to cycle
| because motorists are primed to expect cyclists on the roads
| but you only have to travel 2 minutes east and traffic
| becomes much heavier and more chaotic pretty quickly
| favaq wrote:
| Didn't they make it very, very expensive to drive in the City of
| London?
| ajb wrote:
| PS15/day. So more expensive than public transport but less than
| if you took an uber.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| That's probably excluding parking. I would expect the day
| rate for that to be quite steep.
| favaq wrote:
| Then it's not wonder people would rather cycle. What a
| deceptive headline.
| coopierez wrote:
| How is it deceptive?
| redleader55 wrote:
| As a data point, going two ways between zones 3 and 1 by tube
| is 8.7 pounds a day, and it will go up soon. If you include 2
| people in the family, the convenience of dropping off the
| kids at their schools, etc 15 pounds doesn't sound that bad
| for the car, if you have where to park.
| fancyfredbot wrote:
| It is not any more expensive than anywhere else in central
| London. Electric cars can drive in the city for free at any
| time. For other cars, between 7am and 6pm you have to pay a
| PS15 congestion charge to drive in the centre. You might have
| to pay another PS12.50 ULEZ charge if you drive an older car.
| lenlorijn wrote:
| Space is expensive in city centers. Cars take up lots of space.
| afandian wrote:
| Isn't it full of very, very expensive people?
| hammock wrote:
| How much of this is because London is a great place to bike and
| how much of this is because they tax you so darn much to drive in
| the City?
| olivermarks wrote:
| _Make sure you charge your ebike battery outside and /or in a
| steel ammunition box to mitigate fire risk_.
|
| What's driving the battery fires with e-bikes and scooters?
|
| https://www.npr.org/2023/03/11/1162732820/e-bike-scooter-lit...
|
| The problems seem to be more with low end Chinese ebikes.
|
| Hopefully LEVA will produce some standards as Light Electric
| Vehicles are very unregulated right now.
|
| https://levassociation.com/
| samstave wrote:
| I have been a daily bike commuter for over a decade.
|
| I recently got an e-bike, and I would not want a non-e-bike
| aftger this.
|
| I have an Orbea Rise and I love it. It is heavy though, and the
| tires are too wide for some of the bus bike racks...
|
| Also, WRT to lighting - I highly recommend getting these, instead
| of the expensive lights they sell in places like mikes bikes...
|
| I have these on my bikes - they are awwesome because they are
| weather-proof, solar charged, motion sensing activation and give
| a wide throw of light. I have one on the front of my bike and on
| on the back. They automatically turn on at night and go bright
| when the bike starts moving.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Otdair-310-Lighting-Waterproof-Securi...
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| biking is great except for ball cancer due to sitting postion
| sunbum wrote:
| you sit in a car as well
| kilgnad wrote:
| [dead]
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Not quite the same. The problem with a bike seat is the bike
| seat cuts off circulation in point where a lot of blood
| vessels pass through, riding has been linked to cancer. Along
| with the more common city riding hazards like car passangers
| opening doors, falling over and you breaking bones, getting
| run over, or even directly breathing in exhaust fumes from
| trucks.
| ignormies wrote:
| > the bike seat cuts off circulation in point where a lot
| of blood vessels pass through, riding has been linked to
| cancer
|
| Even if this is true (I'm skeptical without seeing a
| source), you're more than free to mount whatever style of
| seat you want on your bike. No one's stopping you.
|
| > Along with the more common city riding hazards like car
| passangers opening doors, falling over and you breaking
| bones, getting run over, or even directly breathing in
| exhaust fumes from trucks.
|
| Great point. Those are all excellent reasons for further
| reducing the numbers of cars on our streets in lieu of
| bikes and walking.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| I remember watching 60 minutes, and watching streets in
| China filled with people riding bikes everywhere. Fast
| forward to now, and clearly even communists prefer cars.
| The reasons are endless why a car is superior way to
| travel, 99% of the time for most people.
|
| However, I have nothing against bikes. I rode one my
| first year of university, daily; rain and snow. I was a
| poor student. It had its benefits, but it sucked in many
| ways.
|
| Separated Bike paths is both a safer and nicer
| experience. No need to try and get rid of cars.
|
| Because biking in cities is dangerous, I wouldn't go
| around telling people to do it.
| kilgnad wrote:
| [dead]
| RankingMember wrote:
| Source? It doesn't look like a direct causal relationship has
| been proven thus far- the current (inconclusive) state of
| research is summed up here: https://blog.dana-
| farber.org/insight/2015/12/does-cycling-in...
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2890221/
|
| Sure, here are some studies that have investigated the
| possible association between cycling and the risk of
| testicular or prostate cancer:
|
| A 2014 study published in the Journal of Men's Health found
| that cycling was associated with a higher risk of testicular
| cancer in men who cycled frequently or for long periods of
| time.
|
| A 2015 study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine
| found that cycling was associated with a higher risk of
| erectile dysfunction and decreased libido in men who cycled
| frequently or for long periods of time.
|
| A 2017 study published in the Journal of Urology found that
| cycling was associated with a higher risk of prostate cancer
| in men who cycled frequently or for long periods of time.
| tyingq wrote:
| Curious how much of this was the PS15 daily "congestion charge"
| you have to pay to get a vehicle into the area.
| [deleted]
| t00 wrote:
| There is a proven correlation between prostitution and poverty.
| Are we observing a similar effect?
| realworldperson wrote:
| [dead]
| Aaronstotle wrote:
| Love to see it, I cycle a lot for exercise.
|
| Weather has been very rainy, hoping to bike more for short trips
| around town. Thought about a cheap e-bike for grocery shopping,
| etc.
| [deleted]
| housingisaright wrote:
| I love only having a bike in the city. So convenient and helps
| keeping my energy up. Worst part of living in Stockholm is that
| it is completely inconvenient in most cases if you actually wanna
| go to the city.
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| Its fascinating, that even such a entrenched industry such as the
| car industry, can be banned from urban centers. There is hope for
| change yet.
| trgn wrote:
| 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 certainly
| couldn't imagine "the feel" about 10-15 years ago. Hope US
| cities can marshal that same gumption eventually. This takes
| top-down courage. It can never resolve bottom up, especially
| with how fearful and short-sighted americans can be.
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| 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.
| andylynch wrote:
| 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.
| trgn wrote:
| From what I gather, there used to be, the "streetcar
| suburb" was exactly that. It no longer exists, at all. best
| you may get is some new urbanist toy town in the exurbs.
| They're great because they're better than a regular suburb,
| providing local walkability, but they're still isolated
| pods.
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| A start for that would be investors legislating for
| building codes to be suspended in a new development area
| completely, allowing for mixed development. Then make a
| investment into public transport towards the area
| taxfree.
| leoedin wrote:
| > The 24-hour traffic count was conducted on a wet and windy
| November day last year.
|
| Presumably that means on a nice summers day the numbers are even
| higher.
|
| This is of course countered by the fact the City of London is
| becoming increasingly hard to navigate in a motor vehicle.
| There's a proliferation of camera-enforced road closures and
| turning restrictions which, along with the congestion charge and
| very high parking charges make driving anywhere near the City
| only really possible for the very rich. It's long been the case
| that the majority of vehicles in the City (or anywhere in central
| London really) are taxis and commercial vehicles. It's great that
| cycling is increasing, but it's probably at the expense of train
| travel rather than driving - I don't think I've ever met anyone
| who works in central London who drives to work regularly.
|
| One peculiarity of the way the City of London is managed is that
| it has its own local government. Maybe with this evidence that
| cycling is important they'll finally invest some money into their
| cycle infrastructure - you can essentially see the dividing line
| between the City and Islington just by looking at the quality of
| the road surface.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Peak driving time in the City is also probably more like after
| 8/9pm when the big banks start offering car service for their
| employees to get home anyway.
| kkfdkerpoe wrote:
| I think the sensible model is to eventually get rid of most car
| traffic in city centres, and concentrate the parking spots in
| suburbs, with adequate public transport to denser areas.
|
| Personally I couldn't live without a car. Not because I need it
| much in the city right now, but because I need it to reach my
| relatives and meaningful places in the countryside, far away from
| any public transport. Cost of living is also something to
| consider, not everyone can afford a proper house within reach of
| public transport, and living in a flat sucks.
| bilvar wrote:
| Indeed. And they're as (or even more) dangerous for pedestrians
| as cars since they think traffic rules do not apply to them.
| Source: I work there.
| lscdlscd wrote:
| Amazing news! More cyclists (and fewer motorists) on the streets
| creates a safer, less polluted city environment for everyone.
| bartread wrote:
| Whilst I'm overall in favour of promoting cycling as a way of
| getting around, in preference to motor vehicles, I'm not sure I
| entirely agree with "safer".
|
| I live in Cambridge and have lost count of the number of times
| I've had to contend with cyclists blowing through pedestrian
| crossings on a red light (or zebra crossings at any time) when
| I'm trying to walk over them, or cycling the wrong way down a
| one-way street - or on the wrong side of the road - or had to
| dodge people cycling on the pavement.
|
| When driving I've nearly hit several cyclists. Examples
| include: one leapt off of the pavement out of nowhere in front
| of me, one blew through a red light at traffic lights with a
| restricted view, and one was cycling the wrong way around a
| roundabout. The first two of these aren't one-off scenarios.
| Fortunately on all occasions I was paying attention so managed
| to take evasive action. Similar incidents have occurred when
| I've been on my motorcyle, most of which have been near misses,
| but on one especially ridiculous occasion a cyclist ran into
| the back of me at a set of traffic lights.
|
| 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). It needs to become
| socially unacceptable to cycle without due care and attention
| to the safety of others (the same way drink-driving has become,
| not just legislated against, but enforced against and socially
| unacceptable). However, unfortunately, it's not at the moment
| so I'm not sure that safety - particularly for pedestrians or,
| indeed, cyclists - is a given.
|
| Overall it constantly shocks me how little responsibility
| cyclists take for their own safety.
| scott_w wrote:
| I live in Newcastle and the VAST majority of dangerous road
| usage I see comes from drivers. Just yesterday I watched a
| driver pull out of a junction straight into a cyclist because
| he wanted to rush out instead of checking.
|
| When cyclists kill or maim 5 people per day, I'll be the
| first calling for regulation. Until that day comes, the focus
| needs to be on the most dangerous mode of transport: private
| cars.
| bartread wrote:
| I don't disbelieve you but I'll bet you any amount of money
| that the number of cyclists per capita is far higher in
| Cambridge than it is in Newcastle.
|
| That disparity in itself will change the behaviour of
| motorists: I'm used to checking every single direction for
| cyclists before I make a move, even as a pedestrian,
| because there are just so many of them everywhere.
|
| It's also why you see "Think Bike!" signs along routes
| popular with motorcyclists. Lots of places in the country
| there just aren't that many of us compared with car
| drivers, so people become unused to looking out for us,
| with sadly predictable consequences.
|
| That's not to excuse drivers in Newcastle, by the way. It's
| just to point out that you probably see more drivers
| behaving badly compared with cyclists because of the
| differences [apologies, my bet on the differences] in the
| numbers (which I did do a search for but couldn't find
| anything useful or authoritative).
| scott_w wrote:
| There are more bikes than cars in London and a peruse of
| Cycling Mikey's Twitter and YouTube will disabuse you of
| the notion that this is a numbers thing. It's a culture
| issue within the UK that makes sure good infrastructure
| isn't provided and cyclist and pedestrian safety isn't
| prioritised (either at the infrastructure or day to day
| driving level).
| Xylakant wrote:
| > 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.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| 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 defense of bicyclists, I think a lot of this happens
| because the laws and roads aren't properly taking
| bicyclists into account. Stuff like bicycle lanes at the
| end of the block also becoming turn lanes for cars should
| just be unacceptable and provokes conflict between drivers
| and bicyclists.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| 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/6300
| 0/63700/...
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| People who dick around like that in a car find themselves
| in jail really quickly. People who do it on a bike wave
| self-righteously at the police while flagrantly violating
| the law, and get away with it.
| scott_w wrote:
| I watched a car drive straight into someone yesterday.
| The police refused to come out.
|
| I don't see how that squares with your statement at all.
| Xylakant wrote:
| I have video proof of a car ramming me when pushing into
| my lane. Police declined to investigate because there "no
| proof of deliberate action."
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| That's because an accident and a traffic violation are
| different. Minor accidents are usually handled without
| police intervention, and this is by design.
| scott_w wrote:
| See my other comment: he pulled out without looking
| because he was in the middle of cutting up other road
| users (me in this case). That's driving without due care
| and attention which is a traffic violation in the U.K.
|
| The police don't care. What mechanism will put him in
| jail?
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| "Driving without due care and attention" sounds like a
| statute that has a much more specific interpretation than
| you think, and the police probably aren't the ones who
| misinterpreted that here. "Careless driving" and
| "reckless driving" are against the law in many states in
| the US, but both actually have very specific
| interpretations that are not entirely contained in the
| text of the statute. This is the joy of living in a
| common law country.
|
| Things like running red lights, not stopping at stop
| signs, and speeding are much easier for laypeople to
| judge, and it sounds like none of that was happening
| here.
| scott_w wrote:
| So just to be clear "drivers who fuck around go to jail"
| is not true. But it's cyclists that are the problem in
| this discussion.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Yes, drivers who blow through red lights and stop signs
| like the bad actor cyclists do will find themselves in
| jail (on reckless driving charges, incidentally) pretty
| fast. You're trying to compare apples and oranges here: a
| driver who happened to not see someone while driving
| (because they were driving more aggressively than you
| liked) vs. people who regularly flout traffic laws.
| scott_w wrote:
| One group kills and maims five people a day (drivers) and
| your problem is with the group that doesn't. In fact,
| you'll fight tooth and nail to defend the driving _that
| put a man in hospital_ by choosing not to look for
| hazards.
|
| This isn't "more aggressively than I like," this is a man
| put in hospital because a driver chose to ignore the UK
| official guidance on how to drive. Official guidance, I
| might add, that you must learn as part of your driving
| course.
|
| Attitudes like that are exactly my point.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Don't you hate it when one side just paints the other as
| being all of the problem? That's very frustrating.
| scott_w wrote:
| One side kills and maims 5 people a day in the U.K. The
| other side doesn't even come close to that.
|
| If you're going to call for regulation and enforcement,
| where would you spend money and effort?
| Lio wrote:
| Bollocks they do. People dick about in cars ALL the time.
| YouTube is full of people acting like knobheads in cars
| and getting away with it.
|
| I know Cambridge really well and I know people that
| regularly race their cars on the A14 at night.
|
| Do you really think all the people buying tuning kits are
| doing so because they like sticking to the speed limit?
|
| When it comes to obeying traffic lights you won't be
| waiting long to see cars tailgating through amber. That
| happens every time.
|
| Finally I'd point to the number of drivers still on the
| road with more than 12 points on their licence. They just
| plead extenuating circumstances in court and get away
| with it. They almost never find themselves in gaol. The
| real kicker is that those that do end up in prison on a
| Dangerous Driving charge _never_ permanently loose their
| licenses.
| bartread wrote:
| > Isn't the same statement true for car drivers?
|
| In theory I agree with you, but in practice the behavioural
| differences are noticeable, at least in Cambridge.
|
| One example (admittedly anecdata from somebody who spends a
| lot of time on the road using different modes of transport,
| including foot): lots of cyclists blow through red lights,
| (relatively speaking) very few car drivers do so. Of
| course, the stakes of a car driver blowing through a red
| light are arguably higher, so it's still not great.
|
| 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. That's not what I see because
| of cultural issues (behaviour) surrouding cycling in this
| area. Possibly the accidents would be less severe, but
| there would still be plenty of accidents if everybody was
| cycling.
|
| OTOH, and again it's small numbers/anecdata so take with a
| pinch of salt, but over 20 years in Cambridge I know more
| people who've been injured in cycling accidents that
| haven't involved motor vehicles, as those who've been
| injured in cycling accidents where motor vehicles have been
| involved. A couple of those people have blacked out even
| though wearing helmets because, e.g., their head hit the
| pavement. Causes of accidents are a bit of a mixed bag:
| road conditions aren't great around here (potholes, gravel
| on road, etc.)[0], one clipped by another cyclist on a
| cycle path (other cyclist didn't stop), etc.
|
| I'm very pro-cycling but, as I say, from an empirical
| standpoint I'm not convinced it's necessarily that much
| safer. I'm sure there's data that, in some area or other,
| would prove me "wrong". But so much of it is down to
| cultural and behavioural issues, as well as cycling
| infrastructure and road quality, that I don't think it's
| valid to just forklift figures from one area and say, well,
| if everybody in Cambridge cycled we'd see X% fewer injuries
| from collisions on our roads. Unless other factors are
| taken into account it's very faulty reasoning.
|
| _[0] On the road conditions point, you 're much more
| vulnerable on a bike than you would be in a car. If you're
| a driver and you hit a big pothole, you might damage your
| car, but you'll probably be OK. If you do the same on a
| bike you are much more likely to fall off and injure
| yourself._
| scott_w wrote:
| > 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.
| bartread wrote:
| 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 that
| in Cambridge, UK, it's littered with potholes, and often
| to some extent multi-modal.
|
| You can't just forklift an insight about cycling in The
| Netherlands and expect things to work the same somewhere
| else without making a whole load of stuff happen beyond
| just encouraging lots more people to cycle if you want to
| actually make it safer. In Cambridge, UK, we need both
| solid investment and cultural change (both cyclists and,
| yes, motorists too) for cycling to become a safer option.
|
| Am I being clear enough for you now?
| scott_w wrote:
| That's partially true but you said "cycling isn't safer"
| when the available evidence is that it is. Even in the
| UK, you're more likely to be killed _on the pavement_ by
| a car than by a bike. Say what you like about numbers but
| cars aren't supposed to be there. That fact alone should
| tell you something about the difference in danger.
| Xylakant wrote:
| 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.
| planede wrote:
| I'm also in Cambridge. Many car drivers are also
| dickheads, at least they think that using the indicator
| is optional when leaving a roundabout. This mostly annoys
| me when I'm on foot and try to cross the street near a
| roundabout. I found traffic in Cambridge to be very
| hostile to pedestrians.
| bartread wrote:
| > Many car drivers are also dickheads
|
| Yes.
|
| I know.
|
| If you actually read what I said carefully you'll note
| that I said some portion of the _population_ : a very
| general statement which is inclusive of both cyclists and
| motorists. I am an equal opportunities disparager.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Cars are a mortal danger to non-car users (pedestrians,
| (motor?)cyclists), but at city speeds, they wouldn't be a
| _mortal_ danger for other car users.
| Xylakant wrote:
| These people killed by a dickhead driver would probably
| disagree https://slate.com/business/2023/03/dc-car-crash-
| tickets-rock...
| Avshalom wrote:
| https://jalopnik.com/charges-dropped-against-driver-who-
| open...
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| >Isn't the same statement true for car drivers?
|
| Yes. Completely.
|
| Even before you get into discussions of selfishness/malice
| there are people who are just shitty at understanding how
| traffic works and how the different classes of traffic
| interact with each other. These people create problems
| wherever they go whether they go their on foot, two wheels
| or four.
|
| In online discussions they're usually the ones screeching
| loudly about "rules" that get ignored contextually because
| they don't understand the context(s).
| esteth wrote:
| The statistics suggest that you're much, much more likely to
| get KSI'd as a pedestrian by a motorist than a cyclist.
|
| We've been indoctrinated into motonormative thinking because
| most of us have lived our entire lives surrounded by cars.
| Zigurd wrote:
| Half of road deaths worldwide are pedestrians. The number
| killed by cyclists is so small it is under the significant
| digits of the total.
|
| Cyclists violating traffic rules is frequently cited in anti-
| cycling astroturf, of which you can find current examples and
| a deep archive at StreetsBlog.
|
| This "Overall it constantly shocks me how little
| responsibility cyclists take for their own safety." just
| screams "I'm a dickhead driver likely to hurt someone and I
| want a defense."
| iso1631 wrote:
| You're about 100 times as likely to be killed by a car
| while walking on a pavement than you are to be killed by a
| bike.
|
| https://www.roadpeace.org/pedestrian-pavement-deaths-2/
|
| > This "Overall it constantly shocks me how little
| responsibility cyclists take for their own safety." just
| screams "I'm a dickhead driver likely to hurt someone and I
| want a defense."
|
| You didn't twig with "When driving I've nearly hit several
| cyclists"
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > "[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 of cyclists doing similar
| (and in my 20+yrs experience as a pedestrian + cyclist in
| London, it's not nearly as bad as motor vehicles.)
|
| > It needs to become socially unacceptable to cycle without
| due care and attention to the safety of others
|
| Let's start with the heavy motor vehicles first, eh.
| vuln wrote:
| > Let's start with the heavy motor vehicles
|
| So SUVs, Trucks and Electric Vehicles?
| bartread wrote:
| > > "[whatabout cyclists who break the law]"
|
| Your attempt to classify my post as whataboutism is in
| incredibly poor faith.
|
| I'm very pro-cycling, but it would be foolish to ignore the
| very real and observable safety concerns that occur because
| of factors such as poor behaviour (and also, although I
| didn't mention them originally, issues like infrastructure
| and quality of road surfaces).
|
| You cannot simply assume that within a particular context
| or location that more peope cycling equates to greater
| safety. There are too many other factors at play, and those
| need to be addressed in order to ensure that cycling is a
| safer option for everybody.
| iso1631 wrote:
| > I'm very pro-cycling, but it would be foolish to ignore
| the very real and observable safety concerns that occur
| because of factors such as poor behaviour
|
| You'll no doubt be able to point to the statistics that
| back up these very real safety concerns.
|
| You could start with the number of KSI caused by cyclists
| compared with motor vehicles
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > You could start with the number of KSI caused by
| cyclists compared with motor vehicles
|
| Cyclist involved KSIs, 2013-2020: 1123 (30 + 1093)
|
| All road KSIs, 2020: 24989 (1460 + 23529) (and this was a
| quieter than normal year on the roads)
|
| I make that a factor of 8 * (24989 / 1123) or 178x
| difference.
| aisengard wrote:
| 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.
| pharmakom wrote:
| > 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)
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > 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 says "we should prioritise X and 416*X the
| same" is either not arguing in good faith or should be
| nowhere near decision making.
|
| [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-
| road-casua... - 1760 fatalities, 28044 serious injuries.
|
| [2]
| https://www.nationalworld.com/news/politics/pedestrians-
| kill...
| phpisthebest wrote:
| I agree we should prioritize getting pedestrians, and
| cyclists off the road so they do not interfere with
| motorists...
|
| Roads should be for cars only.
| pharmakom wrote:
| Your username says it all :)
| bee_rider wrote:
| 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 walk the bike
| for a bit.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > 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 least speed restricted to 5 mph. Cyclists could stop,
| lock up the bike and walk. Or walk the bike.
| bee_rider wrote:
| 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.
| lscdlscd wrote:
| As this is a UK based article, I'm assuming you mean the
| Cambridge in England. I happen to live in Cambridge,
| Massachusetts and the while cyclists can be reckless, the
| drivers pose a 1000x greater threat to safety than cyclists.
|
| As a tip for dealing with cyclists: continue your movement as
| a pedestrian: they'll go around you. Most pedestrians have
| headphones in/little awareness of their surroundings, and as
| a cyclist I always assume I'm invisible to them and to cars.
| ClapperHeid wrote:
| >As a tip for dealing with cyclists: continue your movement
| as a pedestrian: they'll go around you. Most pedestrians
| have headphones in/little awareness of their surroundings,
| and as a cyclist I always assume I'm invisible to them and
| to cars...
|
| This! I used to do a 10 mile commute to work through
| several areas that were designated as shared cycle lane /
| footpath. Every trip was a slalom of avoiding pedestrians
| dawdling along on the cycle lane side of the divide. Always
| either with headphones on, or their phone clamped to the
| side of their head. Completely oblivious to the world arund
| them. So I'd have to swerve round them. And then hear the
| involuntary gasp of surprise behind me, as I zipped past.
|
| But much worse were the ones who'd wake up enough to spot
| you at the last minute and then suddenly jump to the side
| --usually the side I was just about to swerve round them
| on.
|
| Just keep on walking in your own oblivious bubble. I saw
| you about 1/2km ago and have already planned to my route
| round you!
| rootusrootus wrote:
| You could just about rewrite this and substitute car for
| bike and bike for pedestrian, and have it still be true.
| It's like there is a hierarchy based on speed, and
| everyone thinks the level below them is a bunch of twats
| ruining their commute.
| ClapperHeid wrote:
| I was going to reply and say _" You wouldn't see a
| cyclist riding down the road with headphones on,
| blissfully unaware of what's around them..."_ but then I
| thought back to my cycle commuting days and remembered a
| fair few examples of seeing just that. And anoher one in
| similar vein; the cyclist who swerves out into the road
| to avoid a puddle at the kerbside --without so much as a
| rearwards glance to see if any cars are coming up behind.
|
| No. Pedestrians don't have a monopoly on obvlivion. But
| neither do cyclists. Some of the things I saw people
| doing behind the wheel of their cars or lorries, as I
| cycled past them would put you off going out on a bike
| for life.
| bartread wrote:
| Yes: Cambridge, UK.
| worik wrote:
| > As a tip for dealing with cyclists: continue your
| movement as a pedestrian
|
| As a pedestrian (I am not wearing headphones) please ring
| your bell if you are passing me on a shared path.
|
| It is very frightening to have a cyclist suddenly appear in
| your field of vision, from behind, terrifying.
| Xylakant wrote:
| The problem is that a lot of people will jump to a random
| side if you ring. Another large fraction will yell at
| you.
|
| Something that worked comparatively well for me it so
| shout "I'll pass on your (left/right)"
| pharmakom wrote:
| Yep, I've been yelled at for:
|
| - Ringing the bell
|
| - Asking nicely too quietly
|
| - Asking nicely too loud
|
| - Just passing
|
| You can't win.
|
| Ultimately people just don't want you to cycle. This is
| very much a cultural thing. Anyone cycling past age 15 or
| so is either poor or dangerously counter cultural. One of
| the most interesting things about the Netherlands is that
| is very little bike culture! You don't see people
| signalling with messenger bags, cycling caps, bike brand
| stickers etc. because choosing to cycle is not unusual.
| worik wrote:
| >.... so shout "I'll pass on your (left/right)"
|
| That will do.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > continue your movement as a pedestrian: they'll go around
| you.
|
| Please, please tell that to my local cyclists. _Especially_
| the commuters. The norm here is "ON YOUR LEFT!" about 1.5
| seconds before blowing by at 25 mph with two feet of
| clearance.
|
| How about when you're going to pass a pedestrian, you give
| them a lot of space and slow down to 5 mph.
| lbriner wrote:
| It should do but I am worried it won't. Just look on social
| media when a cyclist posts something about dangerous driving
| and they are hit by a combination of:
|
| * Indifference from the Police most of the time * Extreme
| vitriol from motorists who seem to literally believe that all
| harm is caused by cyclists * Illogical city planning where
| cyclists are constantly being moved from safe spaces directly
| into busy traffic.
|
| We have a sick motor-centric society in the UK and along with
| the rest of climate problems that are ignored/underplayed, I
| don't know how long until we can say that we are a cycle-
| friendly country.
| xutopia wrote:
| And quieter and better for small shops.
| opless wrote:
| [flagged]
| hardlianotion wrote:
| Hm. Sarcasm and an implied argument that fails a smell test.
| opless wrote:
| [flagged]
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Cars kill way more people than bicycles do though.
| Regardless of your perceptions here, this mode shift is
| overall safer.
| opless wrote:
| Yes, and looking at the number of flags my comments have,
| quite a lot of you wonderful cyclists really don't have a
| steady grasp on reality either!
|
| But again, I already knew this
| ehnto wrote:
| Quieter too. When wandering Tokyo I started asking myself, why
| does it feel so quiet when there are so many people and so much
| advertising? Then you hit one of the roads with cars, and you
| realise just how much road noise impacts a space. It is obvious
| in theory but I bet most of us in car-centric cities have
| learned to live with it so much, that it doesn't cross our
| minds as the source of discomfort.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| "Cities aren't loud, cars are loud."
| yourusername wrote:
| Said someone that has never lived across the street from a
| elevated subway, on a street with a streetcar or near a bus
| stop.
| sofixa wrote:
| Depends on the quality of the infrastructure. I live in a
| metropolitan area with elevated metros, suburban and long
| distance trains, cargo trains, trams (streetcars in
| american), etc. and it vastly differs. Paris line 6 makes
| a lot of noise due to the rubber tires and frequent turns
| (it's a semicircle line), meanwhile modern trams and
| modernised suburban rail (RER A) are barely audible even
| next to the tracks, let alone in buildings nearby.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Or a cargo rail line.
|
| Or my favorite: historical buildings with equally
| historical distances between them. You could go deaf just
| from clapping your hands there.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| The saying isn't "only cars are loud" smartass.
|
| And I've lived across from from an elevated transit line
| in an otherwise carless city center and it was quieter
| than any north american subwayless city I've lived in so
| this isn't even true lol.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| Hint: Don't try to lie about stuff that's a common
| experience because it increases the pool of people who
| can call you out.
|
| There are many thousands upon thousands of people who in
| their lives have lived both near rail and near highways.
|
| I live <100yd from the intersection of two state highways
| and <300yd from a freight and passenger rail line.
|
| The highway is a constant drone that you mostly tune out
| whereas the rail line is silence punctuated by noise,
| like an old school clock that chimes on a schedule. I
| don't notice the traffic anymore. I do still notice the
| trails.
|
| No noise is better than either but if I had to pick one
| it would be the highway.
| dang wrote:
| Would you please stop breaking the site guidelines, such
| as with personal swipes and flamewar posts? You've done
| it a lot, we've asked you to stop, and you've continued
| to do it. Eventually we're going to have to ban you if
| you keep this up.
|
| I don't want to ban you, so if you'd please review
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take
| the intended spirit of this site more to heart, we'd be
| grateful.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| >You've done it a lot, we've asked you to stop,
|
| I know this is probably boilerplate but if it's not I'd
| be really interested in seeing where you've called me out
| previously because as far as I know you haven't.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| It's not lying to describe my experience ya jackass. I
| don't tune out highway noise, a pretty common experience
| for people with certain conditions like autism and adhd.
| It's nice that you believe it doesn't affect you but the
| noise is _there_.
| dang wrote:
| Would you please stop breaking the site guidelines? I
| realize the other comment was provocative, but
| provocation is not an ok reason to break the rules--it
| just leads to a downward spiral.
|
| If you'd please review
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take
| the intended spirit of this site more to heart, we'd be
| grateful.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Are they rules or guidelines? I know them and consider
| them when commenting, but they are phrased as requests
| and so I treat them as such.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't cross into personal attack. You can make
| your substantive points about transportation
| infrastructure without that.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| crote wrote:
| What is louder: 1 subway train, or 200 cars?
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| More like 500-800 cars, given that one car carries 1.3
| people on average.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| 1 subway train.
|
| In real tests done in NYC, the mean dbA for subway
| platforms was 81.1 vs. 76.0 for buses (which, by
| definition, run on the roads)
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2707461/
| paradox460 wrote:
| And Bart makes the NYC subway sound quiet
| rootusrootus wrote:
| It's a different kind of sound. Tire noise is white noise
| (or at least, similar). My experience working in close
| proximity to a light rail line was 1) the train shakes
| the ground as it goes by, and 2) if you're near a corner,
| the squeaking is pretty loud. We have water sprayers in
| those areas to try and cut down on the howling, but it's
| not a panacea.
| foepys wrote:
| That's just bad design. There very quiet tram and railway
| designs available - they just cost a bit more money than
| the cheap 19th century designs that are still in place.
|
| Where I live in Germany the passenger trains (not even
| the tracks) got upgraded a few years ago and all those
| click-clack and screeching sounds are gone. What is left
| is a wooshing sound of the wind being pushed aside and
| the not-so-loud grinding sound of the thingy (collector?)
| that hits the power cable.
| danjoredd wrote:
| Even in the middle of the country you can hear cars. I lived
| in the country and you could see the road about a mile away,
| and when I put my ear to the ground I could still hear the
| cars when one would pass by every once in a while
| stevenwoo wrote:
| I go on long rides on my bicycle between San Jose and San
| Francisco listening to audiobooks for background
| entertainment. I could listen to these at the same volume I
| listen to at home while taking it easy, unless there is a
| motor vehicle passing by, then sometimes no volume is loud
| enough to make the audio intelligible until the vehicle has
| gone far enough away.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| I for a long time was also wondering because so many of the
| streets look so much more charming. I only understood why
| once I read that there is almost no street parking in Japan.
| Once I knew that, it became obvious that that's at least part
| of the reason.
| barnabee wrote:
| It really is fantastic news.
|
| The more that pedestrians and cyclists dominate, the faster the
| shift from ugly, dirty roads to a pleasant human centred urban
| environment.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| The urban core should be pedestrian only. Bicyclists can stop
| at the edge and lock the bike and then walk. Then outside the
| bike zone there could be a car zone as it gets more suburban.
| II2II wrote:
| According to the article, the number of cyclists have not
| increased that much. (They mentioned it is _at_ 102% of pre-
| pandemic levels.) What they are seeing is a decline in motor
| vehicles. The cyclists are simply an interesting way to
| benchmark that decline!
|
| It is still good news. People need to find better modes of
| transportation for both the environment and for society. It is
| just that the title doesn't mean what it suggests.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| So are more people taking public transit, walking or maybe
| stopped commuting entirely during the pandemic?
| andylynch wrote:
| Many people working remotely, or commonly three days a week
| in town (incidentally it's a buyer's market for office
| space now). Train ridership is also down for similar
| reasons.
| interdrift wrote:
| don't drink and bike, it's dangerous.
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| Note that the "City of London" is not the whole of the London
| built-up area, but just the financial services district, slightly
| more than one square mile in area. Still, it's a remarkable
| statistic even then.
| detritus wrote:
| Yeah, that makes a lot more sense than the ridiculousness of
| the proposition if meant across the rest of London, as it's
| clearly not the case, sadly.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Also note that this is Cyclists > cars+PHV, not that Bike >
| cars+PHV+taxi+Van+Bus+Lorries
|
| During one of the lockdowns in 2020 when almost all the hotels
| were closed I was staying near Blackfriars and traveling to the
| West End on my brompton. It was great, there was barely any
| traffic on the roads - very few buses, taxis, vans or lorries.
| It was only about 2 miles, but it was the most relaxed commute
| I've had in years.
|
| Tried it again recently, not a nice thing at all, mainly
| because of the buses.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| If anyone non-UK types are interested in this weird entity --
| technically dates back to Roman days, and predates the United
| Kingdom by hundreds of years -- this podcast episode is quite
| funny and informative.
|
| Just an example of what a weird anomalous zone it is: the King
| (or Queen) of England is not legally allowed to enter without
| explicit permission from the mayor -- not the mayor of London,
| the Lord Mayor of this square mile. It's like if Wall Street
| could tell the President of the US to take a hike.
|
| https://trashfuturepodcast.podbean.com/e/unlocked-britainolo...
| danjoredd wrote:
| CGP Grey also had a great video on it
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
|
| He also had a video on the mayor of The City of London
|
| https://youtu.be/z1ROpIKZe-c
| chriswarbo wrote:
| > It's like if Wall Street could tell the President of the US
| to take a hike
|
| An alternative take:
|
| If it turns out, by some legislative fluke, that a particular
| square mile of the US is not bound by all of its laws, it
| won't be long until Wall St companies start moving their
| headquarters!
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_Death_(Yellowstone)
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Aka Delaware.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| This is kind of what happens in Las Vegas, but to a lesser
| extent than the City of London. Most of what we think of as
| "Las Vegas" is actually the unincorporated territory known
| as "Paradise."
| yieldcrv wrote:
| I started digging and noticed there are lots of little
| fiefdoms in plain sight in the US.
|
| Its... amusing.
|
| Either a little unincorporated hamlet to escape taxes, or
| a little incorporated hamlet to collect taxes from some
| warehouses.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That's pretty common, though? It's the whole reason the
| census has the concept of metro statistical areas.
| Phoenix, Portland, Seattle, all have this same effect to
| varying degrees.
|
| But none of them have a rule saying the POTUS cannot
| visit with the Mayor approving, so there's that. And
| "City of London" is _tiny_ compared to the rest of the
| London metro.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| In the western US, this is common. On the east coast,
| it's unheard of.
| hammock wrote:
| >it's a remarkable statistic
|
| If you consider levying a $20-30/day tax to every driver,[1]
| plus another $12/day if your car is too old,[2] plus
| $200-600/year to park on public roads,[3] causing people to
| stop driving as remarkable, then sure.
|
| Edit: why the downvotes?
|
| [1]https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10279911/Sadiq-
| Khan... [2]https://www.carthrottle.com/post/youll-now-be-
| charged-extra-...
| [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_Excise_Duty
| Symbiote wrote:
| VED is to _drive_ on public roads.
|
| Parking is about PS7/hour during work times, although it
| would be optimistic to expect to find an on-street spot every
| day. The maximum time is 4 hours anyway.
|
| Apart from the mistake, you are probably downvoted for
| posting a hysterical Daily Mail article. Note the "up to".
| [deleted]
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| All that sounds wonderful actually. Cities are for people,
| not cars.
| hammock wrote:
| My Venmo is @hammock-69420 if you want to be the change you
| want to see in the world.
| 988747 wrote:
| [dead]
| tim333 wrote:
| The stuff you mention isn't that relevant - I speak as a car
| owner in central London. (I don't pay [1] and [2] and
| everyone has to pay [3]). Parking is the real problem.
|
| Also driving in central London rush hour is kind of tedious -
| I prefer rail etc.
| rjmunro wrote:
| There's a great video by CGP Grey about it here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc, and a follow up
| about how they elect their government:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1ROpIKZe-c&t=3s
| tremon wrote:
| Ah, that clarifies things. I've seen many photos of the traffic
| in the streets of London, and was wondering how such a bicycle-
| hostile environment would manage to get so many cyclists.
|
| I thought that maybe the metric they were using ("the single
| largest vehicular mode counted during peak times on City
| streets") meant they were measuring how many vehicles of a
| certain type were passing by. And since in gridlock bicycles
| travel faster than cars, you'd have more bicycles passing by
| than cars.
| odiroot wrote:
| Also funnily, (Greater) London is not even a proper city. It's
| a town and a county consisting of City of London, City of
| Westminster and all the other boroughs.
| andylynch wrote:
| The City is unusual in many ways well-covered elsewhere. It's
| worth highlighting that this milestone is part of a long and
| well-planned strategy.
|
| North Americans especially might be surprised at how
| aggressively they are removing motor vehicles from the district
| (Down over 50% since 1999). New developments are very
| pedestrian and cycle friendly- eg my large workplace build five
| --odd years ago had 500+ bike spaces, desks for 5,000 and a
| single digit number of car parking spaces (for VVIPs and
| disabled staff only) - they are also converting many streets
| back to vehicle-free open spaces. This is all quite popular and
| mostly uncontroversial.
| mFixman wrote:
| It also has the best cycling infrastructure in Greater London.
|
| One of the big problems London has is that each borough decides
| how much to invest in cycling infrastructure, and a commute is
| only as good as its worst section. My commute from northern
| Camden to the City is a pleasure, a commute from west London
| through Kensington will be more of a pain.
|
| IMO TfL should force the creation of good grade-separate cycle
| lanes in all of the major streets in London, just like they
| force standardised bus stops. Currently one single borough is
| screwing over a quarter of the city.
| Reason077 wrote:
| It absolutely does NOT have the best cycling infrastructure
| in Greater London! In fact, with the exception of TfL's
| Cycleway routes route along its southern and western fringes,
| I'd argue it has hardly any real cycle infrastructure at all.
| All this has happened despite the City of London being quite
| _hostile_ to cycling!
|
| Examples:
|
| - Cycle-hostile layout changes on Bishopsgate. While I
| strongly support the number of car lanes being reduced and
| footpaths being widened, this has been done in a way that is
| hostile to cyclists - if not downright dangerous. There is no
| room for cyclists to overtake cars (and vice-versa) and
| dangerous sharp kerbs that come out of nowhere at a near 90
| degree angle to the carriageway. Very poor design.
|
| - Removal of segregated cycle lane on Cannon Street, a street
| which for much of it's length is much wider than it needs to
| be for the volumes of traffic it gets. The cycle lane was
| well-used and really improved conditions for cyclists.
|
| - Removal of the zero-emissions scheme on Beech Street, which
| restricted the area through and around the Barbican tunnel to
| pedestrians, cyclists, and zero-emissions vehicles. This was
| previously very pleasant to cycle through, thanks to reduced
| traffic volumes and cleaner air. But the change resulted in a
| rapid return to illegal level of air pollution in the tunnel.
| The cycle lanes in the tunnel are also in poor condition
| (potholes, crumbling poorly maintained paving, etc) which
| besides the stinking air, makes it even more unpleasant to
| cycle through.
|
| Finally, there has been talk of a proper east-west cycle way
| across the city of London for many years (in addition to the
| existing C3), but nothing ever seems to happen with it. TfL's
| busy C2 (Cycle Superhighway 2) cycle route simply stops at
| Algate East on the City of London's boundary. After all these
| years, why hasn't it been extended westwards through the
| city?
| zarzavat wrote:
| The City of London is notable for allowing businesses to vote
| because so few people live there. There is one residential
| district inside the City in the Barbican estate, the rest is
| commercial.
| avianlyric wrote:
| The City of London allows corporations to vote because its
| existence as local authority predates anything else that
| exists in the UK. Mentions of The City of London's special
| rights exist in the Magna Carta, and it was never included in
| any of the local authority voting reforms the occurred since
| its creation.
|
| The local population number have absolutely nothing to do
| with the existence of corporate votes in The City of London.
| It's not even the smallest local authority by population, the
| Isles of Scilly are, and corporations have no votes there.
| pledg wrote:
| There's also the Golden Lane estate, and various other
| individual residential buildings.
| mnd999 wrote:
| I think most of the commenters missed this. It should also be
| taken in the context of the city not being an area many people
| drive to anyway. Many of these cyclists will have switched from
| the tube, and many of them will have taken a train to a
| terminal station and biked from there.
| worik wrote:
| Does the London tube have good facilities for carrying bikes?
| matth3 wrote:
| Nope, they are not allowed on the underground network
| unless they are folding bikes.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Outside peak hours they are allowed on the sub-surface
| lines (Circle etc) as those have larger trains and
| simpler emergency evacuation.
|
| It's still not something you'd want to do very often. I
| think I did it once with a new bicycle that I'd bought
| from the other side of London, where the route home would
| have been long and completely new to me.
|
| Map of allowed lines: https://content.tfl.gov.uk/cycles-
| on-public-transport.pdf
| oakesm9 wrote:
| No, but folding bikes are pretty common in London. Those
| can be taken on trains at any time whereas normal hikes are
| technically only allowed on off-peak trains.
| iams wrote:
| No. Non folding bikes are not allowed on most tube services
| in central london. The lines that do allow it don't allow
| it during rush hour.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Folding bikes are sometimes not allowed
| worik wrote:
| So how do all the bikes get into central London?
| mnd999 wrote:
| Lots of stations have large cycle racks. They just go
| from office to station and back again.
| yuliyp wrote:
| While there are certainly some areas like the City of
| London which are almost exclusively commercial/office,
| most of London, even the central parts, is a mashup of
| different land uses including residential. Not everyone
| commutes in from the suburbs.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Not sure I understand your question. I think people cycle
| them in...
| tim333 wrote:
| You can take them on overground trains, though that's
| kind of restricted at rush hour. I imagine people mostly
| either cycle from their homes or leave the bike near a
| station.
| DrBazza wrote:
| For non-UK people, particularly American readers, the City of
| London, and inner London in general has zero public parking.
| It feels like even saying 'zero' is being pretty generous.
| Every street is restricted in some way (no parking, or
| exorbitant parking meters), and there are decreasingly few
| car parks/parking lots.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| As someone who works in the City this isn't really that
| surprising. A lot of the roads around there are pretty much
| empty save for buses, cyclists and the occasional taxi.
| Congestion charge, lack of parking and excellent public
| transport links all contribute to that I guess. In other areas
| of London it's a very different story.
| DrBazza wrote:
| There's also the slight quirk of geography that it's next to
| the Thames, so therefore at the bottom of a hill, almost
| completely flat.
|
| TfL had the good fortune and opportunity to repurpose two lanes
| of Upper Thames St. and Victoria Embankment (one single road)
| into cycle lanes, and also Southwark Bridge.
|
| Without that last part, there's pretty much no other major
| 'through' routes that could be made safe for cyclists in the
| City. If there aren't any protected bike no one uses them. The
| vast majority of journeys into the City are along that new
| cycle 'superhighway'.
| matth3 wrote:
| Yes the City of London is also referred to as "the square mile"
| - a self explanatory title.
|
| Also worth noting they broke up all other forms of transport
| i.e cars, buses, vans, etc. So it's more like cyclists make up
| 25% of road traffic against powered vehicles in a very small
| area of London, at particular times of day.
|
| I do 40+ miles a day on road across London and would be really
| surprised if these figures hold up in general.
| muyuu wrote:
| not even all the financial district(s) fit inside the City
| these days
|
| I've marked them in the map, roughly:
| https://i.imgur.com/GieyqDm.png
| foobarian wrote:
| I wonder what fraction of that are E-bikes or others with a power
| source additional to the human.
| ehnto wrote:
| Combustion powered bikes are unlikely to be counted but e-bikes
| probably are. That would match the delineation that regulate
| bicycles at least.
| EGreg wrote:
| Just for reference:
|
| City of London is not greater London. It's a small part of
| London.
| ghusto wrote:
| My main transportation vehicle for anything under 15km is a
| bicycle. I go through rain, ice, snow -- doesn't make a
| difference to me, I'll be cycling. Yes, I've cycled through
| storms, can't see what the fuss is about really.
|
| I would still never cycle in London. It doesn't have proper cycle
| infrastructure, just some painted lines on roads designed for
| cars. You're taking your life in your hands there.
|
| The car drivers are absolutely entitled to be pissed off with the
| city. Where I live (Netherlands) they made cycling the obvious
| choice, because it's cheaper, faster, and more fun than anything
| else. In London, it's more like it's being smashed down
| everyone's throats by force. Cycling isn't _better_ there, it's
| just the only economically viable option after the greedy money
| grab that is the "punish all drivers" policy for the last 20
| years.
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| Ice scares me. Rain and snow are not a problem.
|
| But I usually bike in areas with shared infrastructure with
| cars. I wonder if I would be less worried about ice if slipping
| and falling wouldn't mean I will potentially get driven over by
| a car.
| dagurp wrote:
| Get studded tyres, they work incredibly well.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| This isn't about London. This is about the City of London,
| which is about 2 square km in the heart of London (and a
| separate city). The City of London is incredibly driver-hostile
| and pedestrian-friendly, so I was personally surprised that
| this hadn't happened already.
| ghusto wrote:
| The City of London couldn't have changed that much since the
| last time I was there, about 5 years ago. It's where all the
| banks and that are, right? Seemed very much a no-go in the
| same way to me.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| The City or London as a whole?
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