Switching from gas to electric is something I can do all on my own. Switching from gas car to cycling is something that would require major investments from my city and developers.
Both are noble goals, but let's not let perfect be the enemy of good. Switch to electric now, and also encourage new roads and new developments to be bike friendly, so that switching to a bike is something that will be viable in 20 or 30 years for most cities in America.
Edit: To clarify, the investment I'm referring to is rezoning entire cities and tearing down single family homes and replacing them with mixed use buildings to bring commercial spaces closer to residential spaces. Most American cities have commercial centers and are then surrounded by residential, with very little mixing of the two. For example the closest place for me to buy food is .75 mile away, but the closest supermarket is 1.5 miles and I have to cross two major roads and a Freeway to get there.
People have been making individual choices to improve CO2 emissions for decades and the only thing that reduced global emissions was a pandemic.
You need structural change or it all really doesn't matter. Now maybe you think that structural change is unlikely to happen, and I agree with you, but then we're in really big trouble.
> let's not let perfect be the enemy of good.
This is not the perfect vs the good, the is that meaningless versus the possibility of having an impact. We need to do so much more than have only bikes in cities that it is almost impossible to image we make the changes necessary to avoid climate catastrophe. If you think even that is out of the realm of possible, then there's no need to worry about what type of fuel powers your car, it quite literally will make no difference. The gas you don't use on your car will just be used by amazon delivery trucks to further reduce shipping costs and increase sales.
But it doesn't require major investments. It's really minor investments compared to other infrastructure projects. The issue is taking away even a tiny fraction of car space basically triggers some kind of political road rage.
They're minor investments practically, and major investments politically.
As you say, for many motorists, giving up space on even some roads to cyclists is treated like some sort of war crime. There's very much of attitude of, "we can't just have a majority of the road space -- we need nearly all of it!"
It can be a real winner politically, depending on the electoral boundaries. Roads have such limited throughput that a new bike lane might inconvenience only a few hundred people in cars, while opening up the city to thousands of people on bikes. Once politicians figure out that calculation, it can go very quickly.
An issue in that "political favor" calculus is money:
A) Cars have a tall stack of interest groups with money to throw around politically. Manufacturers, Dealerships, Gas corporations. lobbying groups including, especially, but not limited to the AAA all have skin in the game and have thrown money at politics. (In general bicycle groups are rarely as organized, rarely have much in the way of profits or income to burn on political favors.)
B) Taxes. Today roads are partly paid for with gas taxes and sometimes vehicle property taxes. A lot of motorists feel so entitled to the roads simply because they see those tax numbers directly on their gas bills and vehicle registration fees and think that they own the roads because they feel like they have the receipts. (Nevermind that there is no state in the US that entirely pays for roads out of such taxes, and the "I paid for it, so I own it" fallacy seems to refuse to ever actually prorate its "ownership" against the actual small percentages any individual contributes to the total budget.)
Those are potholes. A little 2-crew job. We're talking about roadwear. Where the actual asphalt grinds down to the expose the substrate. And in particularly bad cases the substrate breaks down and the road develops ruts. Potholes are a few hundred dollars in repair, roadwear is tens of thousands.
The bike lanes in my city are often left basically unmaintained since the seventies and are still usable. They are of course not as nice as freshly paved.
Reducing lanes, when combined with other optimizations, can actually _improve_ travel time for cars. The problem is you have to actually implement the changes in order to prove this to people.
Even more so when combined with reducing the number of cars, which adding a bike lane can easily do.
If you replace 3 car lanes with n cars/lane/hour by 2 car lanes plus a bicycle lane, car traffic/lane/hour goes down as soon as you have over n cyclists/hour on that bike lane. At that density, that bike lane looks empty (https://www.boredpanda.com/space-required-to-transport-60-pe...)
I couldn’t find it in a quick search, but there aren’t videos comparing similar groups getting going from stopped. Because of the delay between cars getting going it takes significantly longer for an equivalent number of cars to move through a light than the bikes.
That's a fair point. But demographically, often the people most protective of car space are the ones who show up loudly at community meetings. That can have an impact.
> Roads have such limited throughput that a new bike lane might inconvenience only a few hundred people in cars, while opening up the city to thousands of people on bikes.
I think that is massively underselling the disruption to traffic. Depending on the city and the traffic patterns, hundreds of thousands or even millions of people could be commuting into a city on a given day. Reducing the car throughput on a significant portion of roads will cause backups to spread across the road network, affecting thousands.
Maybe switching to bike lanes can be a net positive, but it all depends on the commuting patterns of people living and working the city. Then again, maybe if car commuting is made painful enough, it will accelerate shifts in commuting patterns.
With careful planning the interests of vehicle commuters and cyclists can be balanced for maximum benefit, but I think in the long term changing zoning and development strategies will be what's needed to really make the shift.
Potentially. Sometimes a bike commuter is someone who would've taken the bus or subway to get to work.
That said, it still depends on commuting patterns, road topography, etc. Some cities have a majority of workers driving in from distances that would be impractical for most people to bike. Making a big shift to bike lanes without making other changes to reroute and accommodate traffic would just cause gridlock and frustration for most.
If shifting city centers to being bike centric is done on a longer timeline then capital improvements and redevelopment can be done to support it in a way that makes it more efficient for everyone. Some cities can do that on a shorter timeline based on current constraints, others would take longer. Ultimately I think it's the right direction to go in.
> Roads have such limited throughput that a new bike lane might inconvenience only a few hundred people in cars, while opening up the city to thousands of people on bikes.
You can maintain throughput and accommodate even more people on bikes if they just ride on the streets themselves rather than confining them in narrow bike lanes. A general purpose traffic lane can accommodate far more bikes than any bike lanes possibly could.
I think you got it backwards mate. your basically asking hundreds of thousands of cars to suffer in favor of a few hundred bicyclists. Most people who bike strangely think most people want to bike but just cant. most dont want to. as an aging nation, most cant.
We can't all drive though. There is not physically enough space in an urban environment. If you don't provide good alternatives - cycling is one, trains and buses are also key - then everyone will be stuck in traffic.
Imagine if we decided to completely eliminate sidewalk, how would it change traffic?
It is not about forcing others, it is about freedom of choice. Bycicle is just one of the modes of transportation. People without choice have to use car.
that's a strawman. and also not very much. A lot of places either have no sidewalk or were already designed with a side walk and street in mind. so given that side walks usually don't even have enough space for a full lane of traffic, it would have 0 impact on traffic.
Personally, I think subways should be the backbone of every city transportation system. But surprisingly even very environmentally conscious cities choose to forgo subway systems.
Yes, that's a strawman. Subways, roads and no sidewalk at all.
And your answer is 0... How? Bridges and tunnels between buildings? People evolving to fly?
Every person would require door to door taxi — tremendous increase in traffic. Same with bike lanes, take them away from Amsterdam and city would choke. Every Amsterdam driver benefits from less cars on the road.
>City streets are narrow and extremely uncomfortable to drive on as it is.
I agree. I live in a city and am constantly afraid of all the gigantic cars that fly by me whenever I walk anywhere. I'm also constantly (albeit much less) afraid of someone stepping out onto the street when they're not supposed to and not being able to stop in time. But maybe, just maybe, the cars (that get bigger every year) are the problem? Maybe instead of declaring that roads are for cars and roads are too small so nothing can be improved, we could make it easier to get around cities without a car?
I just find it ridiculous that anyone who lives in a city has to live with the fact that a 3 inch curb is all that's stopping a massive hunk of metal from running them over. I find it ridiculous that bike (or non-car) lanes are considered evil because of the idea that not being able to park directly in front of your destination means that no one will go there. And I say this as someone who drives a car and rides a bike in a city, because I'm well aware that a lot of people who ride bikes do so in a very unsafe way. But I'd take getting hit by someone on a bike over getting hit by even a moped every single time.
People live in cities, not cars. I shouldn't have to fear for my life while walking down the street.
> In Stockholm, Sweden there's 36 cars to a 100 people, the rest use a combination of walking, cycling, electric scooters, taxis and public transport.
I can’t really tell from your comment whether you think this is a high or low number of people using cars(?) but I certainly hope you’re not trying to give the impression that Stockholm or Sweden in general is some sort of haven for cycling, because it’s a terrible country for cyclists.
Country roads are notoriously dangerous to cycle on, and cycle infrastructure in towns and cities is most often under-dimensioned and very poorly designed - often with dangerous features such as posts or obstacles stuck in the cyclist’s path.
I wish Stockholm was better than this, but it’s a hellhole for cyclists - unlike Oslo or Copenhagen.
The first time I went to Stockholm my expectation was for it to be very similar to Copenhagen. It could not be more different. The downtown highway area reminds me of some dystopian hellhole.
Living in a democratic country means the will of the voters will most always win so I wouldn't expect there to be any changes anytime soon in the USA for more than minor accommodations for pedestrians, certainly cities will not decrease cars on the road for the foreseeable future save maybe a city here and there.
That's weird, I don't remember consenting to mind reading.
Of course I've driven in big cities. I agree that it's not great...which is why the solution is to make alternative options as viable as possible: walking, biking, transit. Then you don't have to drive in big cities, and more space on roads is freed up for those who do.
Cities are defined by their population density, and cars by their nature are geometrically inefficient. The solution is higher efficiency modes, not doubling down on something ill-suited to its environment.
Seriously. Driving in NYC or SF can be obnoxious and frustrating, sure...but it virtually never feels downright life-threatening, the way biking can very frequently feel.
Your lawful right on roads in both cities is that you may occupy any traffic lane at any time on a bicycle. Be sure to ride in the center (maybe even slightly to the left) to avoid encouraging those behind you to try to squeeze by.
Motorists are used to cyclists being slow because of this overly cautious approach that novice cyclists take to riding bikes on roadways. Another way to help retrain motorists' expectations is to do better to keep up with traffic. If you are causing traffic blockages while on a bike, then you are not riding fast enough. There are multiple ways to address this, the simplest (though not easiest) being improving your cardio and strength. A more long-term, better solution would be to redesign infrastructure either to keep cyclists separate from motor traffic or to make motor traffic slow enough that bikes don't seriously impede traffic flow when they take the lane.
> Another way to help retrain motorists' expectations is to do better to keep up with traffic.
Whether a cyclist can maintain 20 mph or just 10 mph isn't going to make a difference to the motorists. But taking the lane by default will train them to change lanes to pass like they would when encountering any other slow vehicle.
How does the bicyclist get hurt when the driver changes lanes to pass? Bicyclists actually get more lateral clearance when that happens compared to when they're keeping further right and the motorist tries to squeeze their vehicle between them and oncoming traffic.
When they 'learn to change lanes to pass'. Because they're not doing that now, and won't all learn the same day. Until then bicyclist put their life on the line every time they go out on the road.
Do you have any statistics to back up your assertion that faster traffic does not change lanes to pass a cyclist taking the lane where taking the lane is defined as riding between the center of the lane and left your track? One experiment [1] demonstrated that motorists consistently changed lanes to pass when cyclists rode in the position I described.
I do ride at least 1000 miles a year on roads with traffic speeds ranging from 0 to 50 mph. I've been doing this for over 15 years at this point and my personal experience matches up with the results of that experiment I linked to in my previous comment.
Do you cycle? Do you ride in the primary position that I described earlier by default?
>A more long-term, better solution would be to redesign infrastructure either to keep cyclists separate from motor traffic
That's what I'd propose. Carving up the already scarce roadways to try and squeeze in a "safe" lane for cyclists is going to make it far more dangerous for both bikes and cars. Bike lanes that run above the street would be far safer.
That's a ridiculous proposal. Imagine the cost of creating a whole secondary road network above the current road network and the extra spaces needed for ramps up and down the elevated cycleway. This is something you can do in very special circumstances, but nowhere close to a general solution.
Imagine not being able to imagine something as simple as what most European cities have already figured out, which is to put the bike lane between parked cars and the pedestrian sidewalk.
And suggesting that we try and squeeze cyclists onto already-overcrowded streets is any less ridiculous? I should have known that you're not allowed to speak ill of bikes here, jesus christ.
On the contrary, if you act like a car, using the same streets as the cars is quite safe in my experience. I've safely cycled with a cello on my back by simply following the rules most cyclists claim to follow but ignore: stopping at stop lights, signalling when I'm about to turn.
You know, looking out for my own safety.
EDIT: If following the same rules as everyone else is too much to ask, maybe you should just stay off the road no matter what you're driving.
This is victim blaming. Plenty of cyclists follow the rules and then get slammed by cars.
The last year before I moved to Germany, I got hit by cars twice, and neither time was I at fault. Once I got t-boned by someone who didn't look before turning, the other time someone suddenly went across the bike lane to pull into a parking lot. Neither crash was serious, but the first rattled me quite a bit -- my son was on my bike with me and got a scratch (and the bike rear wheel was totaled).
For that first crash, the more serious one, a cop showed up and wrote a report, but didn't even give the guy a ticket. In the US, driving a car makes you the privileged class, and you can get away with a lot.
My near misses have never been at intersections or due to missing hand signals.
My near misses have been because some idiot decides to hug or even drive in the cycling lane (usually while texting) or when someone parks a car in the cycling lane forcing me to move into the road (with cars being incapable of waiting for me to get around the idiot that decided to park in the cycling lane).
Those are instances of following the road rules perfectly yet still nearly getting in a dangerous wreck.
It's not a problem of rules, it's a problem of cyclists not having safe places to cycle. It's a problem of cities not planning for cyclists. It's a problem of cities not enforcing rules that ultimately protect cycling.
There simply aren't enough cyclists to be a voting block so it's a chicken and egg problem. People aren't going to cycle because it's dangerous because there aren't enough people to vote in change for cyclists. It just goes around in circles.
Correct. Where you do get progress, it's mostly an ideology thing: more politically progressive people view more support for biking and transit as good things even when they don't currently use those things themselves.
Cyclists encounter problems at intersections because they're in the wrong position. They should be in the lane that serves their destination so that same direction traffic didn't have to cross their path when making a turn. For example, when proceeding straight through an intersection, the cyclist should be to the left of right turning traffic and directly in line with traffic going straight.
While this is correct, people often make outrageous last minute decisions in cars because they’re not paying attention. If you’re not taking the time to really look at your mirrors and blind spots you’re not going to see a cyclist. This is common behavior that I witness as both a driver and a cyclist.
How can you think that every bike accident or bike death is caused by the person on the bicycle, and not the person in the 4,000 lb ram?
there will be cases of fault by all kinds of parties, but to type out something like "Well I've never died and I'm safe, so if you died you must be dangerous" is mind-numbingly shallow.
If the only way to cycle safely in the city is to pretend you're a full sized motor vehicle, it sounds like you understand how ridiculous it is that the roads are designed for and devoted to cars.
I think this is the wrong framing. The correct framing is, each lawful user of a roadway has equal rights to occupying space on that roadway.
As a frequent city cyclist, I take the lane early and often as is my lawful right, signalling unequivocally my intention and impending action to merge into the traffic lane. Most often I use this right when avoiding someone double-parked in the bike lane, or when turning left at an intersection.
In the eyes of the law, sure it's not the right framing. But I'm looking at what I think makes sense for the future. I think our cities would be better with more cyclists and less cars.
I don't think that's accomplished by encouraging equal use of roadways. I think that means space currently designated for cars should be reduced to make way for other modes of transportation.
No, because cycling is not for everyone. Multiple modes of transportation should be equally available, but that doesn't mean you should expect that everyone be able to use every mode.
For instance I don't see any particular utility to making infrastructure so that there's enough room for every person to use a motorized wheelchair.
The point was about, or at least could be made, beyond just cycling.
Replace "Accessible Cycling" with "Accessible form of transport that does not endanger other people not using that form." Whether that's bicycles or wheelchairs or scooters, etc.
The point is that putting them with cars is dangerous.
So what, you want to intentionally exclude people from the benefits of biking? Why? How is that better than making biking accessible to a wide range of people, like some countries already do?
If you're just used to regular US cities, this is hard to grasp. Average US cities -- even bigger ones -- the public transport is slow, sparse, and unreliable; biking is uncomfortable and dangerous; and everything is so spread out that walking is mostly impractical.
When you're thinking in that context and imagine switching modes...it just sounds terrible. Because it is.
That doesn't mean the solution is everyone driving forever though: the solution is improving the infrastructure and land use to where other options ARE more viable. They should be good enough to where you don't have to convince anyone to use them; their usefulness should speak for themselves.
Obviously it's not ideal weather, but I think people maybe exaggerate how much that matters relative to infrastructure. I haven't heard of any examples in the more southern US (or comparable parts of the world) where they built great infrastructure and people ignored it because of the heat.
People say the same thing about winter in the Northeast. Then when they see how convenient and freeing it is to ride a bike, they quickly learn to deal with the weather.
If you're claiming that they won't, I'll happily be your counterexample. Buying a Brompton and riding 3 miles from the end of public transit to work through pretty much all weather in Boston was about the best thing I did for my sanity in all of 2019. Yes, on the snowy and icy days too.
I did a fair amount of bike commuting in Cleveland as well, though the drive was less hellish and I drove some of the lousier days.
The worst part of moving to Vermont, perversely, is that I get less exercise because it's a 25 mile one-way trip to the shop I work out of.
I mean, no offense, of course some people like you will bike in all weather, but the reality is that a lot of people will not. See this study, and that's for the Netherlands, not NA winter.
I know a lot of people that ride their bikes at work at such temperatures, and one of the biggest issues with doing that isn't the cold - exertion really warms you up - but badly maintained, snowy shoulders and a higher risk of cars crashing into you.
I'm not sure how to convince someone that people stop going outside when the weather sucks. But hey, you've got a New York Times article, so that obviously means my eyes are wrong, right?
I don't know how to convince someone that people stop going outside when the weather gets cold. I thought that was a normal fact of life for everyone who doesn't have an outdoor job.
You have to in the US. What part of that is so hard to understand? Our public transit is trash, so there's no other option for people who live outside the city and have to go there. If you want to fix something, fix that.
I drive a Nissan Juke when I go to the city. If you consider that a big car, I don't know what to tell you.
EDIT: Since I can't respond to the comment below me, the Juke is slightly taller than a Mini Cooper and about as long and wide. I literally can't find a smaller car that I'd be comfortable driving on the highway.
That's an SUV/crossover. Yes, it is too big. Cars got way too big since a few decades, especially in North America, and that is a huge part of why people feel that roads are too small.
This is easily the stupidest excuse for logic I've ever heard. The PT cruiser is classified as a truck. Does that mean it's the same size as a RAM 3500?
By definition, if the streets feel too small, then the car you're driving is too big.
The Juke, while smaller in length than those cars, is wider than both the Prius (by a longshot) and the Golf. And ultimately it's width that matters for the feeling of street size.
Also, by European standards the Golf or the Prius isn't a tiny car, it's more or less average (though that's changing). Small would be a Polo, a Citroen C1, a Mercedes B-Class, etc...
There's no arguing with cyclists. They're worse than vegans in that regard. Pushy, smug, arrogant, completely irrational, and overall extremely ableist people that expect everyone else to bend to their way of life because "well if I can do it, then having no legs is no excuse, you ecoterrorist!"
Having lived and cycled in Amsterdam to me it did seem like a major investment. Sure if one were to design a greenfield city then it’s not a big deal. But to pivot a car centric city to safely accommodate cyclists is a major change. The city residents have to go through the transition process which isn’t going to be fun.
I’ve seen it done half ass way in India and US which end up being deadly for cyclists.
I am all for cycling, I absolutely loved my two year stint at Amsterdam. It’s a life changing experience. But let’s not underestimate the costs involved in transition. Also, the city residents have to be onboard with the process, as they are the biggest stakeholders. Otherwise the implementation will get dumped half way through with disastrous results.
The second part there is the key. Bikes work just fine on roads built for cars and building bike lanes is dirt cheap compared to pretty much any other kind of infrastructure project. You do, however, need the political will to actually take that space from cars and reallocate it to bikes and pedestrians.
In urban areas that are already dense this can be done without any significant infrastructue investments by simply changing how the traffic patterns work on existing roads.
The principle is simple: In designated spots, prevent through traffic for cars while allowing bicycles to go through. This massively reduces car traffic on those streets. In Ghent they did that by simply placing obstructions on the road that only bicycles can maneuver around.
Once more people are cycling, you'll have increased political will to spend money on more ambitious infrastructure such as in Amsterdam.
Amsterdam had to figure it out the hard way. When they did it, nobody even knew what to do. Now that they have done the hard work, the patterns can be copied elsewhere. What I am talking about are the junction designs, bike path designs, etc. These need to be taught to every road engineer in the world.
Cycling is suited to distances of a few miles. Within a few miles of a sprawl house there are only other sprawl houses. The mix and layout of buildings and uses also needs to be overhauled so that putting reasonable numbers of hours/calories into a bike gets you somewhere useful.
in the summer i commute to/from work 3 times a week on my bike. It is 50km (31 miles) one way. So i ride to work monday, home wednesday, to work friday type of thing.
This trip takes me around 2 hours and people think i am crazy for doing this.. but those same individuals will spend an hour commuting and then go to the gym for an hour?
Cycling isnt suited to a few miles.. I have never been "athletic" and can do a 50KM ride with a bit of training.
If the ground is fairly flat i'd say 10 miles is reasonable.
They seem to count ALL forms of travel (walking, biking, driving). Also the definition of a trip is to go from one address to another. So when I walk over to my neighbors house across the street it is technically a trip.
I don't think "usually" is close to accurate. People go to work, restaurants, friends' homes, etc without transporting any cargo. Big grocery runs are maybe once a week.
Yes, single family zoning must be abolished. Doing so will cost governments no money and is among the most effective changes to improve housing affordability and climate change.
In the US we'd be better off refactoring cities with a goal of 'Caves of Steel' (Asimov), which would put far more within biking and walking distance as the core of the city expanded outwards.
This seems likely to work better in areas that aren't as geographically constrained. Seattle, for example, has far too much water around it and industrial areas near that. It'd be a good one-shot conversion though.
>The issue is taking away even a tiny fraction of car space basically triggers some kind of political road rage.
I don't think that's a fair comparison. I live in what many outsiders consider a bike friendly city though in reality it's impractical and unsafe to bike most places. If you're willing to also walk/bus your bike, flout local law on bicycling in pedestrian areas, and bike on major thoroughfares without bike lanes between travel lanes and parked cars then I suppose you'll be happy. That is until you get door checked, run off the road, ticketed, or hit.
Redesigning just the main streets and their auxiliaries would require making tough choices like one way roads that you'll cause you to drive considerably further to your destination. Removing on street parking, when our city already has a parking deficit. Removing the verges where they exist to accommodate bike lanes. On the many streets without verges the options are one way traffic or no parking, mixed use lanes for truck traffic and bicycles is unsafe. I suppose the buildings on one side could be seized under eminent domain, but that just balloons the cost and time scale.
All this is too say that without widespread infrastructure, especially between cities, biking is facing an uphill climb to widespread adoption. People want to be safe on their commutes. They want their bikes and cars safe while they work and shop. Designing And building infrastructure for bikes in cities that have been maximally developed is an incredibly and wastefully expensive exercise in compromise that does little to meaningfully reduce vehicular traffic.
> Removing on street parking, when our city already has a parking deficit.
Building free/cheap parking spaces creates a dependency spiral where there's never enough. Counterintuitively, the best way to meet parking demand is to start reducing the number of spaces and charge more for them.
I'm not disagreeing with that. What I'm saying, because my city has tried this, is that removing parking pushes people into residential neighborhoods and illegal parking.
Despite spending a lot of money of adding bike lanes to a few roads the number of bikers in my city remains flat. To change this we'd need to massively expand public transportation and convert all non-residential roads into dual use vehicle and bike divided roads. It sucks but people don't change easily.
That's because there are so few people who bike. Around here it's probably 2 or 3% max (Austin) if that. Also drivers here are so aggressive towards bikes (and the USA in general) it's just not safe. Bikes really need dedicated routes as far away from cars as possible.
The major investment I’m referring to is tearing down houses and building mixed use buildings. Otherwise in most cities biking is impractical because of a lack of commercial space near residential.
1. If you change the laws to simply allow more density and mixed use, things will start changing soon. Especially in high-cost cities. Governments don't need to invest any money here, just time.
2. People tend to underestimate how far you can easily go on a bike. The house I grew up in on the outskirts of a rural town is 5 miles from the supermarket, which sounds far but should take only about 20 minutes.
> The issue is taking away even a tiny fraction of car space basically triggers some kind of political road rage.
How do you take "a tiny fraction" away from a street that has one lane in each direction to build a dedicated bike lane? Make it a one-way street and just kill traffic? It's not as simple as you make it out to be. Don't infer motivations, I don't own a car and ride my bike everywhere.
It's mostly a money issue, at least where I live. That part of the budget is spent on "climate managers" (for a city of 20k) instead of improving bike infrastructure.
And that looks trivial to work with. I'm from Europe where most towns have grown very organically over centuries, there are fewer multi-lane streets (and it's essentially unheard of in residential areas) and it's crowded. Quite a few people would welcome better bike infrastructure over here, but it's hard to do. The opposite seems to be true in the US.
The political cost within a democratic society is a reality and a real cost you have to contend with if you want to reshape how public roads are used. So, yes, the cost is high compared to switching cars.
> Where I’m at it’s mostly NIMBYs and small business owners.
It's business owners here too. There are many studies showing that bike lanes create more customers than parking spaces, but the owners don't believe it and consistently act against their own interest.
I don't know if you've ever driven in an American city, but those streets can barely fit a single lane of car traffic in some cases. Philadelphia in particular has streets so narrow that the line of parked cars along the side is enough to basically block the whole street. It's already incredibly uncomfortable to drive on those streets, so I don't get why you're so surprised that people would be angry about further increasing their already quite high levels of discomfort.
It should not be comfortable to drive around in a city. You are in a place with lots of people you can harm with your vehicle if you drive around fast, you should be driving slowly and paying close attention to your surroundings.
Proper bicycle infrastructure (separated bike lanes etc.) and quality public transportation is the solution - the comfortable option should generally be to take a train/metro/bus/tram/boat.
If uncomfortable drivers were good drivers tanks and fork lifts wouldn't have seat cushions.
Unless cars are different than every piece of heavy equipment and industrial machinery ever (which have been studied into oblivion because there's money at stake) comfortable drivers are safe/effective/better drivers because it reduces cognitive load allowing operators to be more attentive to second order things (mirrors, what the car in front of the car in front of them is doing and so on).
I agree we need much more public transit and bike lanes. I think most car commuters would switch to subway at the city outskirts if the value prop was good enough.
In addition to the other response, I suggest you check out https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_calming - these are all measures that make it slightly less comfortable to drive in order to create safer environments for non-protected trafficants.
Please. Try to make the public transport comfortable. That means a seat (I get that in a car), not having to crawl over somebody else next to me or have them sit too close.
It means not having to worry is a fight is about to break out, having some punk shine a laser in your eyes (happened to me), having space to put down my bag and some place to put my feet (I am short, I don't reach the floor in most busses). It means no crying children (meaning no small children on the buss at all). It means that and a million other things.
It also means I don't have to stand in the rain to wait for a bus, ever.
Oh, and it means no pandemic. I am not going to sit in an enclosed space with strangers at this time.
>Please. Try to make the public transport comfortable. That means a seat (I get that in a car), not having to crawl over somebody else next to me or have them sit too close.
I agree that investments should be made to keep the capacity of public transportation at not too crowded levels at all times. However, have your legs been weakened enough by spending time in a car that you're unable to stand occasionally?
>It means not having to worry is a fight is about to break out,
This is probably a socio-economic issue if anything
>having some punk shine a laser in your eyes (happened to me),
Sad to hear that has happened to you.
>having space to put down my bag and some place to put my feet (I am short, I don't reach the floor in most busses).
I agree that the design of certain means of public transportation suffers from poor design.
>It means no crying children (meaning no small children on the buss at all). It means that and a million other things.
Might I suggest moving to the remote wilderness, instead? There you will be fully insulated from the rest of mankind.
>It also means I don't have to stand in the rain to wait for a bus, ever.
This problem is mostly solved by covered bus stops (roof + a few walls), that protects against the elements.
>Oh, and it means no pandemic. I am not going to sit in an enclosed space with strangers at this time.
The pandemic is the exception. Just because traveling by car (second to not traveling at all, by the way) is better than public transportation during the pandemic does not mean that we should ignore the incredible harm that car-centric design is inflicting continuously on the world.
I do not irrationally hate cars - I just have the perspective that we should design our shared spaces in a manner that leads to the least amount of deaths.
The majority of streets in American cities are massive. Single lane streets are generally slower traffic so separated cycle lanes aren't necessary...just some markings to remind drivers that cyclists might use this part of the road. Paris has a lot of those.
The bike lanes in the east coast cities I've been to aren't safe for cyclists and do nothing but take up breathing room for drivers. It's not uncommon to see a bike lane disappear after 50 feet because there was no space to continue it.
Having biked in Philadelphia, only Center City has anything approaching usable bike lanes, and even there they come and go seemingly at random in places.
Doesn't it worry you to live in a city whose infrastructure is not compatible with global emission goals? Within the next decades either of too scenarios will realize: a) your home will loose most of its market value as nobody will be able to live there, OR b) we are all royally f*ked. Neither sounds too good.
> Doesn't it worry you to live in a city whose infrastructure is not compatible with global emission goals?
It does. I'm constantly pushing to rezone the entire city as multi-use and multi-dwelling. The city council has ignored me, and most of my fellow citizens vehemently disagree, as they believe that would devalue their property.
Well it just sounds like your neighbors are not really open for change. You can of course try to change their opinions in town-hall meetings and so on, and that's commendable.
Another option would be to vote with your feet and money. If you move to an area where the zoning is e.g. more dense or bike-friendlier, it will add to the property market demand in those areas. OTOH you selling your property in your current area adds a tiny bit of negative market pressure. If that happens on scale, it drives down the prices in less friendly areas and drives up the prices in climate-friendlier areas.
Though I honestly don't know how realistic it is really currently to find a densely-zoned districts in American cities that are not plagued by rampant crime, run-away poverty and under-performing schools. I live in Europe, and my image of American zoning is mostly based on content of two YouTube channels: "Not Just Bikes" and "City Beautiful". You have probably heard of them, and if not I think you might find their videos quite interesting (or the "Strong Towns" initiative, if you prefer reading.)
In my European home city the council is actually already taking concrete measures to increase the density of zoning and actually discourage sub-urbanization / urban sprawl, even though the scale of the problem pales in comparison to typical the American city AFAIK. One of the concrete measures I myself pledge to is to always prioritize availability of biking and public transport when moving - if not for my own sake then for the sake of my children. This is a natural choice for me since I have always lived in the city myself.
I think the difference to US cities might be that in my home town the real estate prices in the city are very high because a sufficient large portion of the people who have the economical means to choose their place of living choose to live in the smaller apartments of the densely-populated city center districts, as opposed to the larger single-family housing in the suburbs. This is because the city center is actually filled with desirable services and urban culture, which just does not exist as much in the suburbs.
But I do understand that bootstrapping a lively and livable downtown is not as simple as just moving there if the area is currently dangerous and undesirable. The city council has to encourage this trend for it to be a viable option for residents who want to live there.
It is very hard to motivate people to act on a problem decades in the making. With health problems people will continue to smoke and overeat despite their doctor warning them. Besides the time element, climate change is the ultimate example of private gain (your income and consumption) and socialized cost (literally the entire planet).
It’s worth noting that this is an article written by a U.K. author, and mostly references European cities.
While obviously the same principle applies in the US, achieving higher rates of cycling in Europe is substantially easier, both politically and practically, in Europe than the US. Europe is significantly more compact cities, and public transport is usually very good, additionally many European cities have already invested heavily in cycling infrastructure.
- physically separated bike lanes wide enough for safe overtaking, with a gap between them and a parking lane that protects cyclists from open car doors and people leaving the car from cyclists
- an actual network of bike paths instead of vanity paths
What if they added posts? Either metal driven down into the road that a car would not go through or plastic ones that would deter a driver from running into them? I think that would provide more of a sense of physical separation.
I can already see this happening in San Francisco. With the market street being closed to cars before pandemic hit. During pandemic, a lot of streets were marked "slow", so no entry to cars there and city plans to keep it that way. Some good hangout spots like JFK drive in GGP and Great highway are also marked car-free, I also heard something similar about Embarcadero in planning. City is also moving to make outdoor dining parklets permanent. All these moves discourage car ownership in every way and when you also consider transportation services like Revel scooters, Lyft electric bikes and Lime scooters, you can start seeing SF as a leader in USA. Not to mention, it is impossible to buy a used bike on CL at a reasonable price last entire year.
I agree - plus there's already enough culture war arguing just with EVs, now we're going to pivot to the NIMBY battlefield that is cycling?
Make progress where you can.
I'd love for their to be more cycling options (and things are way better than they used to be), but no reason to disincentivize transitioning to EVs too (or framing it as some battle between them).
I agree. Good analysis. I bought an ebike for myself instead of a second car for the family, otherwise there's no way I could realistically travel the needed distances on a daily basis.
The biggest hindrance to me right now is no way to park a bicycle safely. Even carrying bulky bike locks is risky in NY for someone who wanted a nice ebike.
You can also move. I'm not saying it's a feasible solution for everyone, or even that one should move solely to get to a more bike-friendly location, but the next time you move, maybe consider that as one of the main factors in choosing where to live. If everyone does that, the infrastructure will follow.
I'm quite tired of Americans saying - but I NEED a car. I mean, maybe YOU do. But most people can live in a lot of different areas, if not cities & states.
You chose to live a lifestyle that requires a car. Which is fine. But it's a choice.
> You chose to live a lifestyle that requires a car
I don't think this is true. People move because of job opportunity, family, weather or cost of living. Very rarely because they want a change of scene. Car is the often the requirement where they move to in America.
It's almost as if the average American is so thoroughly inured to automotive and suburban culture that they're completely unable to imagine anything but the status quo.
Aren't those all pretty much lifestyle choices in the end? I chose to live where there are many jobs, but the cost of living is high (but also where I can reasonably commute by bike or transit). I could have stayed where I was and enjoyed a low cost of living, but a worse job. Whether or not to have a family is probably the biggest lifestyle choice that most people make in their lives.
Rather than switching people who already own a car to bikes, it’s much much easier to keep people who bike biking: i.e. India, Vietnam, Indonesia, etc. and not let them adopt a car centric pony of view (as well as students in the US/Can. who are 16 going on 18 and steer them towards bikes.
Motorbikes, not bicycles, are the dominant transportation method in all those countries. Also, because of the hot weather and pollution it's just much more comfortable to sit in an air conditioned car. And then there is the factor of owning a car, used to be the symbol of wealth but is now more affordable.
> Switching from gas to electric is something I can do all on my own.
Even this depends on where you live, though to a lesser degree. In particular, if you live somewhere that you have to park on the street, you're 100% dependent on others for charging infrastructure.
What major investment would be required from the city or developers to set up cycling infrastructure? Painting some cycle lanes onto the roads? Marking a few car parking places as bike parking places? That's all that cycling infrastructure really is, so it's super cheap. A lot cheaper than, say, building charging stations for electric cars.
* City roads are narrow and don't have empty space just waiting to be painted green. Bike lanes will cost you parking spots or a car travel lane. This gets huge pushback.
* Dangerous drivers must be removed from roads. You can be hit, killed even, with video evidence and the driver may escape punishment entirely.
* Cities (or specifically NIMBY residents) must stop resisting increased density, mixed use, and useless parking minimums. Not everyone wants to live in a suburban development, miles from useful amenities.
* Bikes and alternative transportation are compliments and need to be developed together. Biking to transit hubs is huge. It's not just green paint wherever it fits.
>City roads are narrow and don't have empty space just waiting to be painted green. Bike lanes will cost you parking spots or a car travel lane. This gets huge pushback.
Both should be sacrificed in order to break the car-infested cities. I imagine the pushback must be annoying to deal with, yes, but there's just no way you're going to be able to reconstruct your cities to be safe with this absurd amount of space dedicated to cars in cities of all places.
I suppose we might be on the same page here, though it's not entirely clear to me at the moment.
Dangerous <everything> must be removed from roads. There is a non-negligible amount of bikers skipping red lights, or using the sidewalk (forbidden in many cities), or even going the opposite way on one-way streets. The rationale in most cases is that a bike is not a motor vehicle and thus should not observe the same rules. This is a problem even in a scenario without cars, as it leads to collision vs. other bicyclists or pedestrians.
This behaviour from a few individuals pushes anti-bikers to protest even more, making it harder for these initiatives to thrive.
As ridiculous as it sounds, a deterrent similar to a license plate may become a necessity.
Not to say that behavior is okay but you're comparing apples and oranges. Drivers kill tens of thousands of people a year. Bikes are responsible for <1 person a year on average. People citing misbehavior by some cyclists need to get some perspective.
Meanwhile, the driver who hit me (in a bike lane) defended himself to the cop by saying "it's hard to not hit bikers". He was not even given a warning. I had video evidence from a helmetcam.
Setting up a cycle lane in place is cheap, but not easy (at least in North America, people will always complain about the "war on cars").
Also, setting up a good cycle lane can be more expensive than you think. If you have a nice bike lane that spreads over 5 km but there's a 200 meters gap in it because of a bridge which was too narrow to keep the bike path, then you don't have a nice lane at all.
I've never understood why bicyclists can't just use the sidewalk for most of the commute. I get that it becomes impractical in dense areas where people are actually walking but most of the roads I travel along have vacant sidewalks.
Assuming we're not talking about the extra-wide sidewalks common in city centers which sometimes also host designated bike lanes, ordinary sidewalks that I've seen throughout the US and Europe are nowhere near wide enough to fit even a single cyclist passing alongside a pedestrian without a risk of collision. Add multiple pedestrians walking alongside each other, other hazards such as parked cars, less competent cyclists such as children, or pets (on or off leashes) and it quickly becomes a recipe for disaster for one or both of the sidewalk users.
Also, bicyclists in cities tend to travel closer to the speeds of cars than pedestrians, and tend to have more similar dynamics such as turning radius and stopping distance which infrastructure for cars is already designed around. Additionally, car drivers are licensed and there is an expectation of awareness that they must exhibit. This makes it far easier to place slower-moving "hazards" in their path than adding faster-moving vehicles in the path of pedestrians.
The most dangerous part of a sidewalk for a cyclist are places where they intersect roads. Drivers just aren't expecting sidewalk users moving at bike speeds.
Some areas have long stretches of sidewalk without intersections those are fine for cycling assuming they have little pedestrian traffic or are wide enough to pass safely.
Another thing to consider is that in many areas it's not legal for cyclists to use the sidewalk.
Most sidewalks aren't appropriate for cycling. The exceptions I was describing are mostly found in big commercial developments, target, walmart, etc. Around me they tend to build wide sidewalks, well separated from the busy road. Here's an example:
But most sidewalks aren't like that they are crossed regularly with driveways and end at a road every block. Every driveway is dangerous because drivers just don't look for people moving at bike speeds(2-3x faster than a pedestrian) on sidewalks. I personally know two people hit while cycling on a sidewalk because somebody pulled into a driveway and didn't see them.
Imagine you're a cyclist, on the sidewalk, trying to cross a four-way stop. If you cross at the sidewalk, you're at extreme danger of being hit by a car making a right turn. This is called a right-hook.
The road infrastructure in the US was built without consideration for bikes and so it's really annoying to many drivers when cyclists use roads but that doesn't mean the right place for cyclists is on the sidewalk.
OK, I'll imagine I'm a cyclist, trying to cross a four-way stop. When I was a teen, I used to do exactly that, riding my 10-speed on the sidewalk. This is how it goes:
Approach the intersection, coasting and then braking. Come to a stop, with feet on the ground. Optionally, dismount. Wait for a big gap in the stream of cars. Walk or ride across the intersection, remounting as necessary, and then continue on riding.
I'm not seeing the extreme danger here. It's not possible for a car to make a right turn because there isn't any car. The cyclist doesn't cross until the cars are gone.
Urban adjustment: there might be a "walk button", and there is a chance that it is actually connected to a traffic signal. Cross only with the walk indicator active.
I don't see any reason why this should be illegal. It's far safer than the alternatives.
For sure, one of the advantages of cycling is that you can at any time become a pedestrian by dismounting. This allows you to take advantage of pedestrian crossings. It's going to be really annoying to dismount at every intersection or every ~500ft/155m.
> The cyclist doesn't cross until the cars are gone.
There's a four-way stop by my house that continuously has traffic for a hour twice a day during rush hour.
> remounting as necessary
A key to road safety is behaving in a predictable manner. Cars are supposed to yield to pedestrians at crosswalk but bikes are vehicles.
It's far safer at the intersection to merge into traffic, take the lane and yield the intersection with the same rules as other vehicles.
> It's far safer than the alternatives.
History shows it's not. Sidewalks aren't designed for use by vehicles going 3x the speed of pedestrians.
It's not safe for the pedestrians and it's not safe for the cyclists.
At the four-way stop by your house that continuously has traffic for a hour twice a day during rush hour, how do pedestrians cross? Is it even safe for them to cross?
Whatever the answer, that works for cyclists. Simply dismount, then act like a pedestrian. Maybe the intersection is unsafe for pedestrians, in which case it is also unsafe for cyclists.
The idea that "bikes are vehicles" is a load of nonsense. It's clear that the only cyclists talking to legislators are the ones in the top 0.01% for acceleration and speed. For all the rest of us, we're pedestrians, even if the law pretends otherwise.
The speed difference, mass difference, and energy difference are all terrible for bikes against trucks. Pretending otherwise is silly. We might as well compare an little old person on a bike, just 120 pounds total going 10 MPH, with 210-pound Usain Bolt running at 28 MPH.
The problem of running down pedestrians with a bike is simply solved by not doing that. The cyclist must slow down and give a wide gap or get some sort of acknowledgement that passing is OK. This isn't hard.
Cars and bikes mix better than bikes and walkers. Which is to say not very well. Walkers move in unpredictable ways and freeze when a bike is heading at them. Bikes move more like cars - they get a bit better handling, and are not as fast, but overall they act like cars.
I wouldn't want to bike when there are many cars in the same lane as me, but it is still safer than biking on sidewalks where are many pedestrians.
Riding on the sidewalk is dangerous. Cars do not look for you when moving between the street and a parking lot/driveway/etc.
I have had more close calls with cars riding on at most 10 miles of sidewalk (and that's being generous to be honest) in the past decade than with ~6000mi riding in the road.
Depends how walkable the city is.The more walkable it is the more people you will see on the sidewalk.Sidewalks are for pedestrians not for fast moving vehicles.
You know how many in the cycling movement view automobiles as being fast, dangerous, machines clogging up the roads? Many pedestrians view cyclists as a similar fast, dangerous (often rude and inconsiderate) presence on the sidewalk.
There is so much more to cycling safety than this. Many roads don't have shoulders, or don't have the width for dedicated bike lanes. Drivers are often very hostile to bike riders who take up car lanes, esp. if the bikes go under the speed limit and if the cars have to wait at all.
Blindspots. Intersections. Parallel parking/parking in bike lanes. Safe and clean parking of bikes at destinations.
The entire design and build requirements of roads have to be reconsidered to make cycling/scooters first class citizens in cities. As it stands in the US, most cities are pretty dangerous for cyclists.
I live on the west coast in Canada. We have lots of bike lines. It's 30KM of them up and down multiple hills (most people would consider mountains) for me to get to work.
Realistically, you've got to convince me to leave my 3000+sqft house (with bedrooms for all my kids) and yard to move to a 1000sqft apartment in the city (and make my kids share a room) and take on a bigger mortgage so that I'm closer to work. Also how do I get groceries for a family of 5 home on my bike?
Life for the majority of people where I live has not been set up to be bicycle friendly and bike lanes don't change that barrier.
A more realistic proposal is making your neighborhood slightly denser and more pedestrian/bike/transit friendly. Most of the neighborhood can remain single family homes, but a central area should be slightly denser (3ish story buildings with retail on the bottom floor and residential apartments above). Your major transportation needs can now avoid cars in the following ways:
1. This central area should have a connection to a frequent public transit option which can get you to your job. BRT would be the easiest to roll out, but the ideal for most people would probably be some sort of medium/commuter rail with decent WiFi onboard and enough seating/frequent enough trains so that the average commuter can sit and work if they'd like. Obviously this won't take everyone out of their car, but the majority of commuters in your neighborhood could use this instead since it would be faster and more convenient. Ideally there would be trains/buses running at least every 10 minutes.
2. Because there is a retail area close to your residence you can realistically walk/bike to get groceries and do routine errands. Bike paths in your residential neighborhood make this easier because they feel (and are) much safer for everyday people to use instead of sharing streets with cars. Ideally the paths are safe enough for you to feel comfortable with your elderly relatives or children biking on them.
This is obviously very different from how North American suburbs are set up today and would require a large amount of investment and changes in the way that we do public policy and planning. However, it is certainly possible to have suburbs that are bike/pedestrian friendly if you put the infrastructure in place to do so.
Ah. interesting. I generally agree and fully support this method of urban planning, but the results here haven't resulted in more cycling.
What you describe is exactly how my suburb is set up. There are several clusters of mixed housing (single family, town houses, apartments) built around a few retail centers (and the retail centers usually have housing built on top of them). There is also both light rail and regular rail for transportation from the retail centers. I live 3-5K from the various central areas.
Here are my observations:
* cars are really only avoided for people in the residential apartments above or directly attached to the grocery stores. Nobody here rides their bike to shop (based on never seeing bicycles at the grocery store).
* there's still ~ 200M of elevation change inside of that 3-5K range. Only the most hard core are interesting in cycling that on a regular basis.
* It's a 5 minute drive or 30 minute bus ride to get to the light rail centre from my location (others are closer, some are farther). Some are content to take a bus, but many others drive. There are some who cycle but it's a tiny percentage.
* It's wet here all year long, but uncomfortably cold 5 months of the year. Those who cycle for transportation tend to only do it during May/June/July/August.
My guess is that it's not purely elevation/weather based, but that certainly is a factor for people's comfort. E-bikes can help with the elevation issue at the cost of being more expensive of course.
What's the level of bike infrastructure available? It can be surprising how protected people need to feel from cars to use bikes over other modes of transit. I personally only bike in bike lanes and will avoid sharrows and walk my bike on the sidewalk if there isn't a lane available. My partner will only bike on grade separated paths. This leads to us mostly walking or taking public transit since we're in an urban area, but both of us would gladly bike if we had a good network of bike lanes to do so.
E-bikes are magical--riding straight up steep grades without breaking a sweat. They really aren't even that expensive. The tax credit for a single EV car could pay for three decent ebikes in the US.
> It's a 5 minute drive or 30 minute bus ride to get to the light rail centre from my location (others are closer, some are farther). Some are content to take a bus, but many others drive. There are some who cycle but it's a tiny percentage.
That's simply not close enough. The station must be within a 10-minute bike ride to disrupt the car-centric commute. Ideally the rail stops must be spaced about 3km apart, then there's a corridor 5km wide that lets everyone inside use their bikes to commute.
> Also how do I get groceries for a family of 5 home on my bike?
Cargo bike. Also used for getting the smaller kids (too small to bike safely/fast enough) to daycare etc.
Or when living in a properly dense city just bring it with you one backpack at a time. This is what my mother did when I was a kid. Just stopped by the shop on her way home from work.
In the city you should be close enough to the store that you just get the days groceries as you go by.
The lack of affordable 2500sq ft apartments is the big failure. It doesn't cost that much more to build them, and so rent shouldn't be any more than a house payment ($1500/month!). If that doesn't exist it is because zoning won't let them build it. (or more likely they can, but why do that when you can get more $$$ from 3 800sqft apartments each at $1000/month. Until the high profit apartments are filled nobody will build the ones families would actually live in.
Or to put it a different way: it isn't 1880. People have always wanted more space, now with cars we can afford it in the suburbs.
Where I live the numbers your suggesting would be amazing!
In Vancouver proper, Average 3 bedroom house price is $2.1M. A townhouse or condo of that size is $1.5M. Your typical house payment is going to be much higher than $1500/month. Rents are probably in the $3K+ range -- I don't actually have data on this. Lots of factors there. I don't think zoning is one of them as there is constantly land assemblies and razing blocks of houses for town houses and condos. I suspect it's more geography: we're up against and ocean, a border and a mountain range.
The cost of building a new house that size is about 200-250k. Everything else is land value. Note that I was taking about apartments ,when land value us as high as you say that supports tall buildings to divide the land costs between more units.
The mountains don't help, but nobody is building the apartments people want to live in.
If you want a good impression of the type of shift that it's going to take to make U.S. streets more bike friendly, you can watch the great YouTube channel NotJustBikes, which overviews some of way the Netherlands' infrastructure is built from the ground up to be not car dependent. While the investment required to build physical bike infrastructure is small compared to other infrastructure projects, building cities for bikes requires overcoming political opposition and indifference, rethinking zoning laws and other harmful, bureaucratic rules and slowly reshaping cities to not rely on cars. It's not simply a matter of chucking a line of paint on a 35 mph road and then complaining when cyclists don't use it.
A very large percentage of the population are uncomfortable biking when there’s only a line of paint between them and automobiles. Separated bike lanes (ideally with physical barriers) increase the percentage of the population that will be willing to bike very considerably. If biking is going to make a major impact, we need that level of infrastructure change on at least some set of major thoroughfares in cities.
Things like protected bike lanes and bike only routes are essential if you want mass adoption. They cost more than paint and require political leadership that is currently lacking.
Often in old European cities there is no space to take away from, unless you cut from pedestrian side, or rebuild whole block to have wider gap. Or you completely remove that single one way lane, and good bye resupplies for the shops/restaurants and good luck to those poor folks that will move in/away. The bigger the city, usually the older it is, and center looks like this - tons of single lane one-ways.
US roads always stroke me as super wide and at least those I saw myself had plenty of space for this.
One example to illustrate the difference - on say Swiss or French car parks, if you park perfectly in the center of the parking spot and if cars around you do the same, even with regular car (say BMW 3 series) you can't just open the door fully, often not even that half-open position in the middle. Significantly wider cars effectively take 2 spaces, but then again not many folks buy them here also for this reason.
>Or you completely remove that single one way lane, and good bye resupplies for the shops/restaurants and good luck to those poor folks that will move in/away.
This is not true - we have streets that have been converted to be fully pedestrian+bicycle, and resupplies/moving in is not really an issue because these vehicles get exceptions. The sign combination 'Motor traffic forbidden / Exception for authorized vehicles' is pretty damn common in my European city.
That's crappy infrastructure that's effectively inaccessible to most.
Good biking infrastructure is physically segregated infrastructure, which is less trivial to build (though still way cheaper and easier than infrastructure for cars).
Building offices and commercial buildings closer to homes. Most cities are not bikeable because it's just too far to get to anything that isn't a home.
The trick is to get drivers to follow those markings. Where I live I see cars/trucks regularly park on bike lanes with little repercussion. Add to that a hostility between drivers and cyclists sharing the road; this might just be an issue where I live (Toronto)
Cycling lane poles would be ideal, but a lot of drivers push back on this since they see it as precious space being taken away from them.
In places where adequate protection was added, in some cases it was removed because drivers couldn't keep from leaving their lane. I guess drivers getting into accidents on their own is worse than lethal accidents involving cyclists on a bike lane.
It is space taken away from drivers, but drivers will treat a painted bike line as more space for a car. This is why the only safe bike lanes on a road with cars are ones that have physical protection from cars.
1.5 miles is not just doable, it's trivial. 10mph is a pretty easy speed on a bike, which would make it take 9 minutes. If you build up some strength and/or upgrade to an ebike you can cut that in half.
The sad fact is that most bicycles sold in America are not equipped properly for inclement weather or for utility. They should all have fenders and bike racks/baskets and the utility increases immensely. Fenders alone are super helpful. Without them you can't really even ride right after it is done raining because there will be spray up your back.
Chiming in from Minneapolis, major bike paths/routes are generally plowed just as often as the roads. It can be a hurdle, but it’s not as bad as you might think.
We used trucks with snow plows constantly in Finland too when it snows. The city where I'm from is called Tampere. I thought that the city used to be quite hostile towards bicycles ten years ago but since then they have built so many new biking lanes or removed lanes for the cars and replaced them for pedestrians and cycles. It was just faster to go everywhere with bicycle and with bicyclr6you don't need to spend time to search for a free parking place. If it rained a lot I used rain jacket or used the public transportation. In the winter we used tires with spikes in them (to battle the slippery ice).
Removing some lanes makes the city much more enjoyable for everyone but ofc this is harder to do in really old cities which were designed for horses or big metropolitan areas wherr extra land is scarce.
We moved to Tallinn, Estonia last year and compared to Finland the cycle lanes here are poorly designed and many local politicians still support cars over cycles which is a sad.
That's great for the hour after the snowplow passes, but what about after that? Snow + ice on a bike is a pretty easy crash. Even a slow speed crash on a bike can break bones, unlike cars.
Snowplows don't remove all the snow usually because it would damage the road a lot, so you are left with packed snow which is fine to ride on.
You can also use studs tires if you worry.
I ride my bike in Sweden frequently even with a lot of snow without trouble. The only thing to worry about is when spring comes and the snow melts by day and freezes at night but on the main bicycle lanes the problem is solved by salting them once the weather gets mild.
I use a regular gravel bike (so not huge tires, 38mm) without stubs tires. Never fell.
I just don't ride during snowstorms directly of course but in those cases even buses and trains can be canceled until it calms down a bit.
As a fellow swede I don't think your argument holds against the real argument they're not mentioning. People want to ride cars because they're lazy and they don't want to experience the elements, but since it's shameful to admit they'll come up with any other excuse to sit in their car, drink soft drinks, eat junk food and listen to the radio with perfectly controlled climate surrounding them.
I bought myself a Xiaomi scooter and wear a good jacket while listen to music through my Sony overears riding to work. I'll have to wait with the soft drink and junk food til I arrive though. I also wear a backpack to carry whatever.
There's a level of risk associated with the activity, there's no denying that. Risk mitigation factors can be applied to reduce the risk to a palatable level for a lot of people. Snow tyres, riding slowly, using lights in low light etc.
The opportunity is to convince more people that cycling is a legitimate option for a large group of people. Infrastructure investment instills confidence and further education for both cyclists and drivers help to manage that risk.
Whilst cycling in the snow might not be your cup of tea, there's a cohort of people who could consider it as a net positive to get from A to B, exercise and put less wear into the road. And we need to support those people.
Jacket might be ok for small rain, but for heavy rain and thunderstorm? No.
Employers expect employees to come to work every business day, and people expect business to open every business day, even under heavy rain and thunderstorm.
Watch! Heavy rain/wind! Most people can't go to work! Most businesses are closed! Teachers can't go to schools! Nurses can't go to clinics and hospitals! What a ridiculous picture of a modern city.
New proposal: this city only allows residents who are 20s/30s years old and healthy and fit.
I realized there is an easier solution: the whole city is a huge building, everyone lives and works inside. And you get time to go out once a while. ^_^.
You dress up better. For the past several years, biking was the only way I went to work, the only exception being if my bike was in the shop for repairs when I'd take public transport.
You'll notice that regardless of the weather, people bike. Chuck some rain pants and a rain coat on, or carry an umbrella, or get a bike poncho thing, or all of the above. It's not hard.
If it's seriously shitty weather, the public transport is a bit more full than otherwise, but still people are out biking because that's how you get from A to B.
You are only thinking the situation where biking is a minority choice. If you want biking become a choice for most people, these solutions do not work.
Huh? I'm literally thinking of the opposite. I'm describing where I live, which is somewhere where biking is not really a minority choice, it's what most people do.
Couple of things from my anecdotal experience. Firstly, people already do this, yeah there are less cyclists in winter but the dedicated still ride. Secondly, nobody is advocating for bikes and nothing else, bike infrastructure in combination with a proper public transport system. Finally I see older people riding bikes regularly, often with a grandkid on the back or front and I'd guess they're in better shape for it.
Why does everything have to be discussed in absolutes? It can be the default choice for most people most of the time and yet you've decided that it can't ever be because of a small set of scenarios in which you've decided it doesn't work. Like I said, not advocating for bikes and nothing else but the default choice for most people should not be owning and driving a car everywhere, electric or not.
It's funny, no matter how I post about cities that have made cycling for transport work, there's always someone downplaying how meaningful it is.
You could look at Stockholm or Amsterdam or Copenhagen or Munich for biking, too. Those are all colder cities (but not as cold as Oulu) with decent or better bike infrastructure and cycling rates.
I'm in Munich and can speak to my experience here. Munich isn't as good as Dutch cities, but it's still better than any US city I've visited or heard of, by a fair margin. Weather is similar to Seattle, so kind of cold on average, but not horribly so. This winter we definitely had a fair amount of freezing though, and actually the last couple days we had snow again.
Munich makes it work with lots of protected bike lanes that clearly used to just be sidewalk. That's not ideal -- it cuts into walking space, obviously -- but it's still better than no bike infra, or painted bike lanes. There's also a fair number of off-street trails, multi-use paths (half the time these are just sidewalks where bikes are allowed, really) and walk/bike cut-throughs in neighborhoods. Oh, and the default road width in residential neighborhoods is small, which helps a lot.
How will good be moved? How will the infirm get around? I admire the cyclist ideal that they are fixing the problems of the world by not driving/owning cars... but it seems like a very superficial, quasi-moralistic solution that's really not likely to have the impact that is desired/needed.
Honestly these are such lame points that I hear again and again. I lived in Toronto, bad bike infrastructure, and now live in Amsterdam with great infrastructure. People here with limited mobility use electric wheelchairs in the bike lanes and therefore have more and cheaper and safer mobility options than in Toronto. A person in an electric mobility scoter can safely go from the city centre to the airport on the edge of the city. They also have the option to take a cab or a car of course, cars are still an option but they are not priorities over bikes here — you’re also totally ignoring that it’s dangerous for some disabled people to even use cars — but mobility scooters can be a safer option. Deliveries come in the morning on trucks, but that’s less necessary with more electric cargo bike being used every day.
No dude, there would still be cars for these use cases, come on. All we need is some protected bike lanes, maybe like 10% of the space allocated to cars.
They use mobility cars or scooters in the bike lanes, is what happens in bike friendly places like where I live.
Funny, I always hear this question from right wing people who otherwise have no interest in helping "the infirm". I'm sure you aren't one of those people, right?
> it seems like a very superficial, quasi-moralistic solution
The alternative solution seems to be "Burn all the fossil fuels, die miserably," so I welcome some sort of alternative.
There's nothing like cars to lower quality of life. They are noisy, require huge areas to be paved over, thus removing prime property in cities from more useful purposes. Particulate matter emissions from the engines, but also from brake and tire wear are unhealthy[1][2]. We don't let kids play outside anymore because we are afraid they will be hit by drivers. We kill animals after they hurt one person, yet we fear to cross a street anywhere for fear of being hit by someone recklessly driving a few tons at speed and defend the right to drive as though it were primordial. And really, who finds a street lined with parked cars and stuffed with traffic inching forward esthetic.
A few cars are hugely useful to grant mobility to the few people who cannot get around otherwise, provide emergency services, and move bulky goods. I'm not saying plumbers shouldn't be able to arrive with their truck full of tools, just that the overabundance of cars really lowers the quality of life of the vast majority of people.
I agree with all of that, but people mostly perceive that they can't live in a large house on a large plot of land. Spread out living with requisite car transportation also creates a stratified society where you don't have to be near those you do not want to be near, which people might also perceive as a benefit.
More people on bikes means fewer cars. Coupled with frequent public transport means that your ambulance will not be stuck in traffic and that the bus that lets you not be homebound will take as long as the car you currently drive to get to the same places. And if you still need to drive, you will still be able to, it just won't be the only option available.
Both are noble goals, but let's not let perfect be the enemy of good. Switch to electric now, and also encourage new roads and new developments to be bike friendly, so that switching to a bike is something that will be viable in 20 or 30 years for most cities in America.
Edit: To clarify, the investment I'm referring to is rezoning entire cities and tearing down single family homes and replacing them with mixed use buildings to bring commercial spaces closer to residential spaces. Most American cities have commercial centers and are then surrounded by residential, with very little mixing of the two. For example the closest place for me to buy food is .75 mile away, but the closest supermarket is 1.5 miles and I have to cross two major roads and a Freeway to get there.