locking skewers for the tires, gears, seat and handle bars.
an ugly color
At this point, they'll need an angle grinder to get anything valuable off the bike. It's more expensive but so long its not the standard of ever biker, bike thieves'll target easier bikes to steal off.
It's, once again, comes with infrastructure. When I moved to Germany from the country with no bike infrastructure, I only thought of a bike as an expensive stuff, but here I bought a used commuter for 40 Euro and it's fucking great. I love it, but if it gets stolen, I would be mildly frustrated and buy another one of those for 40 Euro the next day.
Think of it that way - whoever stole your bike was probably more happy to get it than you are sad to lose it. The total happiness in the world increased. So, whatever.
Where I live (Oklahoma City), I wouldn't want to bike for at least 5 months of the year. Between mid April and late October, we are stupid hot and humid. We had lots of days this past summer that either got uncomfortably close to or passed 40°C. Dew points in the mid 20s all summer long. You'll break a sweat just standing outside for more than about a minute or two.
Can't imagine what it's like for those sorry saps in Houston or Florida.
The comfortable temp for biking is significantly higher than it is for walking, especially with the right gear. 40°C is definitely beyond reasonable tho. Planting trees and decreasing the amount of asphalt would go a long way to make it a better proposition more of the year. A societal expectation that you don't go or do anything when weather gets that hot could bridge the difference. Unfortunately that kind of philosophy is antithetical to capitalism's demands for productivity.
Even if the city is flat as fuck you'll still arrive sweaty if the climate is hot. Take Phoenix for example, you will sweat even if you are in the shade and doing no physical exercise because it's commonly 46 degrees.
The desert is the only reason it is habitable, if it were less arid the humidity would make it even worse. The largest desert on earth is Antarctica, deserts don't have to be hot, just low precipitation.
But what deserts do very well is solar potential due to lack of cloud cover and I don't know why we can't use solar to power electric rail for public transportation.
Hills are only the problem if you're not biking regularly. I'm way out of shape, but after a year on living in a country with good infrastructure, hills aren't a problem for me anymore, really. But first couple of months it was a bit brutal, for sure.
Biking in the cold and wet honestly isn't that bad. Biking is my primary way of getting around all year in the PNW. When it gets real cold I put on normal snow gear. It definitely makes going outside more of a production tho.
A lot of it has more to do with what people are used to and feel is reasonable than with the actual conditions. If people saw more folks riding and actually knew people who rode I think people would be more open to try it.
Unmanaged ice/snow, unhealthy wet bulb temperatures, and getting run over due to car first infrastructure are the most significant barriers to more people using bikes as transportation IMO. If a society chooses to, all those things can be mitigated.
My favorite part of riding is that I get moderate physical activity for free. I would not spend near as much time being active otherwise.
Teach me the non-sweaty ways. I love my bike, but theres no way I can arrive not sweaty. Before you say go slow, I’m not letting no bus take my god-damn glory.
Sure, but I assume the conversation was about mechanical bikes. Personally, for a PEV I would choose something lighter and cheaper and forego the pedalling altogether, but my commute is only about 7.5 km one way.
In Germany those are only allowed to assist you up to 25kph, which means they only help you going up hills, everywhere else will be the same amount of effort
An Ebike is extremely helpful, especially if there are hills. Wear a breathable long sleeve SPF shirt. I like hemp and some of the stuff Colombia makes. If your route is safe enough don't wear a helmet. Shorts and sandals are also helpful. I've had some success with lightweight merino clothes as well but they tend to get holey in a few years of frequent use
When I biked to work there was a YMCA right next to my office, so I would ride in early, get in a workout and a shower at the Y and then walk two minutes to work. The only downsides were 1) getting chased by pitbulls and 2) having to look at fat old judges lounging around the locker room stark naked before starting their day of sending probably-innocent black men to prison for decades (both hazards of life in Louisiana).
Obviously I can shower at work but then I need to get in 15 minutes early and then I have to blow-dry my hair and it is just a whole thing now.
You might not see the above as a problem but for me, the problem is I can for the life of me not get up earlier than I have to, I am just not a morning person. If I can manage to brew a pot of coffee and have a quick breakfast before I have to get out the door, that is a successfull morning.
No dude, two thirds of my office commutes in by bike. I'm just in decent shape and cycling at a reasonable pace doesn't make me break a sweat. For most people in decent shape it doesn't make you sweat more than walking.
If public transport can come without being subjected to people and whatever miserable state of mind they’re in, I’d like that. I can at least escape a dumbass in my car, but in a train they’re either right in front of me or nearby for a long time. How do we fix this?
Public transport is clean and safe when everyone uses it. In the US, the social expectation is that public transportation is for the poor. Like white flight out of US urban centers in the 60s, it’s a class thing, and owning a car becomes a self perpetuating class signifier. In most of the rest of the developed world, like London, Paris, Tokyo, etc. public transportation is for everyone, rich and poor. It’s just a question of investing in and valuing public transportation over cars.
Hmm idk about cars as a class signifier, they’re like phones now, everyone has one. I don’t disagree with you about public transport being for everyone, but I am not sure that examples of harassment and human misery will necessarily decrease because richer people are forced to commute. See for example, the price-based communal vans in Asian countries. I think it makes sense to actively work on making public transit better, but that requires an open eyed approach to acknowledging existing problems. Nothing can have perfect solutions, but an attempt needs to be made to at least acknowledge the issue and provide a preliminary solution.
The reason you're not afraid of being in public in any other circumstances are in public transportation is exactly, precisely because public transportation in US is shitty and stigmatized and the expectation is that only the poor are using it. This is the source of the problem, and the way to fix i is to improve it so everyone is using it, and the crowd in public transport will be the same as everywhere
The examples listed as better public transport still have the harassment and human misery issues. I don’t think it’s simply a matter of “get more people using it”. For one I think people who engage in harassment of any form should lose the privilege to use public transportation for a period of time, like we do with drunk drivers and their licenses. Or get them to go to classes like we do for road rage people. Maybe other countries are already doing this.
No, good public transportation will not eliminate all the misery in the people's lives, but also it isn't suppose to, and nothing will. Good public transportation however helps with making it the same level of misery as anywhere else, and usually even more. The particular issue of harassment isn't an issue in a good public transportation, because there are people there, there are structures, there are authorities and systems that can help. And besides, it's not like people just decide to harass other people the second they go into metro.
, because there are people there, there are structures, there are authorities and systems that can help.
Bystander effect is real, plenty of people have been harassed without the harasser facing any consequences. I think one improvement over our current system would be to disallow harassers the use of public transport for a period of time, or provide them with mental health help? I am not sure if it’s the best solution, but it’s kind of similar to what we do with people who drive drunk, or those who have to get anger management classes after road rage. Fines would also be a good idea.
An anecdote: there was a lady once on a subway platform who was yelling about colored people. She wasn’t bothering anyone in particular, though. There was at least one incident of someone stabbing and killing someone for defending minorities. These interactions are not safe for people and defenders alike. Moreover, you cannot react fast enough in some instances if someone wants to hurt you. For example, people have been pushed off train platforms. Regarding getting police help, if someone is walking around wearing a poster of “Christ hates gays” or something, the police might not do anything because of free speech laws (or because they agree sometimes).
These things are all kinda related, better housing policies lead to less homelessness and less instability, and therefore people with less mental issues. I don’t think simply having more efficient public transportation will make using public transport safer. Perfect solutions don’t exist, so at the very least I hope there are also anti-harassment policies like fines, losing privileges for a reasonable and proportionate amount of time, or having to take mandatory classes or providing mental health help for the harasser.
I want good public transportation as well, but for me the definition of good also includes having adequate safety measures.
That said, I really appreciate the passion some community members display for their topics of interest. What gets annoying for me though is what appears to be an utter lack of empathy or consideration for an alternative view. I think I am done, honestly—some people will think I am inconsiderate regardless of what I say. Whatever.
Here’s some news from places with great public transportation which supports my point that efficient does not equal safe:
This is my favorite argument from carfolk, because they'll treat walking one block from a bus station as some cardinal sin but will happily walk four blocks from a parking spot.
Cities with transit typically have several different ways of getting around.
For my last job, som e choices were:
express bus plus walk a couple blocks
train and walk a mile
train to subway and walk a couple blocks
drive to subway and walk a couple blocks
train to subway to another subway into basement of my building
I’m not even counting scooter and bike share but I chose each of these options depending g on what was best at the time. But my most common choice was the train and walk a mile. It was a bit of a walk but I didn’t have to deal with people or waiting and it was close enough. But maybe you prefer walking less or like the scooter or bike shares: great, make the choice that’s best for you
Edit to add: for those unfamiliar with transit - every place will be different but I paid a monthly train pass based on my distance from the city. That pass included unlimited express buses, and unlimited subway rides within the city. So much freedom and convenience! One monthly fee let me go anywhere in the city, so much cheaper and easier than dealing with a car!
It's blindingly obvious cycling is not a panacea for all transport and no one is suggesting it is. Yet here they are, all pointing out what everyone knows in response to a statement that was never made.
It's like you don't read your peers comments. Yes, people argue this ALL THE TIME.
If I had a dime every time someone said oh just rent a truck when you need it making blind assumptions about my life and what I need, I could buy a bike with it.
The Japanese used bikes to defeat the British in Singapore. The Vietnamese used bikes to defeat the Americans in Vietnam. The Chinese used bikes to destroy manufacturing in the west.
I'll be in the cold cold ground before I use some stupid commie machine powered by rice.
All other arguments for not using a bike are stupid.
Screw that. I love paying for car insurance, gas, oil change, tires, and random bolts maintenance. There is also the thrill of driving in traffic, and dealing with road rage. There is plenty that makes the car the ideal transportation mode loved by the masses.
My personal favorite is how if someone bumps you and you get the smallest scratch or dent on your door, you now have to be late for whatever you were doing, pull over (impacting other traffic) exchange insurance info deal with possible hostility for that and ultimately have a crappy day because of it.
How about the fact that cars are so complicated now that working on them yourself feels next to impossible but you also have to somehow find mechanics that you trust to fix your vehicle when you really have no objective way to know if the mechanics are just bullshitting you or are actually genuinely investigating the problem, not just tossing away what you are saying with a mental note that you are clueless. Fixing a bicycle on the other hand is almost comically simple in comparison.
Also can’t forget the thrill that it only takes a second or two of distraction at the wrong moment to kill yourself and other innocent people and irrevocably send your life down a worse path. To be clear, this experience is happening when you are tired, grumpy and stressed about getting to work or getting back from work. It’s a nice little detail that we aren’t all driving boats around or something where hitting other boats requires a bunch of really stupid choices chained together, all we have to do in a car is go slightly in the wrong direction for 3 seconds and boom just murdered somebodies kid.
Moved to the suburbs in my 30s. Got a new bike to hit the nearby bike trails. First bike ride turns into agonizing ordeal as it literally feels like someone ripped open my knees and poured broken glass in them. Diagnosed with arthritis in my knees.
There are plenty of reasons people don't use bikes, and health reasons are one of the main ones.
15 minute cities are about as organic as "two weeks to flatten the curve". There's a reason they don't exist, it's not a practical idea. Just like every other idea children come up with.
Start yelling at your city legislators then. Force them to change how the city zones so things are closer together. It will take a couple decades of work, but you have to be apart of that change for it to happen.
You can do what I did and move to another country. It just takes a lot of time, work, and money to get there (though money can accelerate the former two, in some cases).
I would've figured work starts once you're ready for work. If that includes showering and you need more time for that, you should come earlier so you can shower.
To me it's no different from taking the time to shower at home. You can sleep later if you don't shower but I take the time. No pay for that though.
While I was mostly joking with my comment and the context of having to bike to work in a hot climate.
I agree with you initially, that works starts when you’re ready to work. I think that definition of ready is a little subjective.
As far as I’m concerned the moment I deviate from my normal non-working behavior is when I am starting work.
Realistically I feel that begins at the commute to work for me, I have some personal bias here since I have an hour long commute when I do. I work from home a lot of the time, so again that also skews my perception of when I “start” work.
I would probably not even step outside unless absolutely necessary. At that temperature I would already suffer indoors, and if I stepped out I'd faint if I stayed out there for longer than thirty minutes.
I think even at the smallest company I've worked at, there was a shower in the building that people working at the companies there could use. First time I've really thought about it, but I guess it would be odd if a place didn't have at least one shower somewhere for the cyclists and runners. (I'm working in a British city for context)
Here in Palestine people drive bikes the most in the hottest city, Jericho. It reaches 40 degrees there. An ebike would make you get less hot from exertion. In combination with good urban planning with small streets and trees and buildings creating lots of shade it's workable. It's not sustainable to have air conditioned cars transport people everywhere. This is what living in a hot climate means.
So let's build more urban heat islands and parking lots. Exactly what a +40 C environment needs. Biking might be unpleasant in 40 C weather, and the cyclist might get a bit sweaty, but all of the positives are true. And cars are just going to make the planet hotter.
Or underdeveloped infrastructure that forces you to bike on the road. There's this road near my house thats like a quarter mile long and its 40mph and people usually speed up to 65mph.
Trying to get to work on my bike with that is fucking suicide, and my work is only a mile away.
Even walking is excrutiating. The weather is very cold, which is fine since it's only a mile, but the busy roads you need to cross make you wait so damn much. Waiting for the signal to walk is about 5 minutes. There are 5 busy crosswalks that turn my 10 minute walk into a 35 minute walk in the freezing fucking cold.
Yeah you could jaywalk but you can be arrested and trying to jaywalk a road with cars going 60 is like Russian roulette.
In most places jaywalking is a civil infraction resulting in only a fine (I can impede traffic and increase potential for injuries). In those places you cant be arrested.
In others you can be arrested then charged with criminal misdemeanor. If very serious (not sure what defines that) you can also get a felony.
Either way it's punishable, and I don't want to do that when most of the crosses are within line of sight of the local police station.
About that road Im not really sure why the limit is specifically 40, since roads that cross it are 20, and also that it has no sidewalk but leads to residential areas. You can't even walk on the grass there's a bridge that forces you onto the road.
There is another road but it's half a mile longer (1.1km) and also it has the busiest street near my house. I swear to god the pedestrian walk lights are broken because I sat my freezing ass next to that damn thing for 20 minutes before just jaywalking anyways (also scared cause that roads also a 40mph).
I really wish I could walk, for my health for the environment but ironic as it would be I'm not gonna die for my health lol.
While taking your kid on a 10km detour to the only child care center thats anywhere near your home or work that has availability. And dont forget to swing by the shops and grab milk on the way home.
That's an urban planning problem. My dad's detour to drop me off at daycare when I was little was a 10 minute bike ride. When I was old enough to go to school, there was no detour because it was on the way to his work. Shops are also on the way or at most a 5 minute detour.
Sounds like you live in a car dependent city. Imagine if it were built for walking or biking. Everything you need within 15 minutes walking rather than 15 minutes driving. Just try imagining it.
Bruh I live 26 miles from where I work by car, and 21 miles by biking per Google Maps. And most of it is highway travel. It would make my commute over 1.5 hrs.
It is the dream if/when we can move closer though.
if entire cities were designed around these the way they are with cars, everyone would be fine with it and you would live less than 6 miles from where you work.
But there is plenty of way to work from more remote or rural area. I could list some if you feel like reading a bit longer.
As for people who live very far from any human, why do that if it is to drive hours and hours a day into busier area?
You may live in a place that is the result of building car dependent infrastructure. To achieve a "bike city" op is describing, it would take decades, if not a century in your area for it to make sense to just bike everywhere. It takes time.
That's why you start small, and work up incrementally. Bike lanes are the first step: just make it possible. Next is paths that cut across town to allow bikes (and pedestrians) to avoid roads altogether. Just put them in wherever you can. Eventually you can start connecting them, and gradually it starts to make sense to say "let's just walk there" or "I'll meet you there on my bike."
It's literally just paint and gravel, and micro zoning. But it helps every step of the way, and it adds up quickly.
Oh it is. It's exploded like CRAZY in the past 10 years and it just keeps expanding outward instead of upward. City planners definitely designed this place to be the epitome of "urban sprawl".
For real though, if I had it my way, we'd live within 5-8 miles of where I work and I'd bike every day it wasn't raining.
Next duty station though! We're gonna buy/rent closer to the base, wherever that is!
An excellent bike city is a long process but there's a lot of simple stuff that could help folks cut down on car trips. Imminent domain a few side yards and put in walking and bike paths to make neighborhoods more walkable. Knock down some houses to put in corner stores with apartments on top. If you build dedicated bus lanes, light rail, and bicycle paths you're on a road to a safer and more connected city.
Since we're just sharing anecdotes: I save some time when commuting to my gym, because there's a path through a bunch of greenery in some public back lot community...greenery area type...thing. Anyway, it's nice, and the city just put it up a few years ago! I didn't care at first, but now I take it several times a week.
Also driving a car to the gym only to get on a stationary bike or treadmill there just feels hilariously braindead to me.
Yeah but the hypothetical is if there was better biking infrastructure and I suppose that would include not expecting people to travel so far to work.
Again if it was better public transport infrastructure you could take public transit and wouldn't need the car the problem is that these improvements have never been made.
I'm Dutch and live rural. Used to cycle to school daily, 22km per day.
Never again. I need a car for work as I visit clients alot. I think cities could use bike friendly environments, like we have. But rural, no way. Good luck cycling 2 hours to get somewhere decent if you can drive that in half an hour.
It simply costs too much time, and with the amount of wind and rainfall we had past year is absolutely no fun.
Yeah, rural areas will pretty much always need cars or something similar - not just for traversing the massive gaps between places, but also because most rural homes are their own logistics for most things.
It also doesn't help that this conversation itself is a pretty America-centric one. In the US and Canada, dense urbanism does not exist outside of major cities. NotJustBikes on YouTube has many videos talking about just how car-centric and space-inefficient it is here.
We have some big parking areas and garages specifically for bikes, especially at train stations, schools, city centres, etc. But at home, you don't need a lot of parking space
At least in Finland apartment buildings have "parking" for bikes in the sense that there's bike racks in front of staircases and usually a storage room specifically for bikes. "No need for parking" seems incorrect, even though it takes much, much less space than cars
The indoors bike storage room is for winter (and other longer term) storage so you don't have to leave them out in the elements and don't have to bring them inside the apartment either. It can be handy.
It takes like half a square meter outside
It does add up in bigger apartment buildings. Nothing compared to cars but if you don't factor it in during construction it can be annoying as shit.
(You definitely do need bike-specific parking when you get to those numbers though. And other good infrastructure, though it's rather the other way around: you need the good infrastructure to get to those numbers.)
I would love it if my city had bike only days. Or at least specific bike route that do not allow cars.
I don’t live in the us and there is a major road in my city that has a bike lane, but they just split one of the car lanes so there is a bike lane, half a lane for a car, and a full lane.
So cars have no choice but to drive in the bike lane. It’s also between the cars and a place with tons of right turns.
In addition to this, the city has some of the worst traffic in the world short distances can take hours. But it’s too dangerous to ride a bike.
Yeah! I just started driving in the country and stuff like that’s been really confusing for me. I feel bad, but there really is nowhere else to drive and merging is really hard due to all the motorcycles swerving around.
Here is another reason. I can't afford a reasonable sized apartment that can house my family near my work. So I have to travel further. Bikes are great for cities if you can afford to live in the city.
Also, what happens when it snows and you gotta get to work? Snow chains?
Cars were, and to some extent, still are, a statement of wealth. Having a "horseless carriage" back when personal vehicles were called that, was an easy way to distinguish that you were a successful person. As time went on, this transformed into having the latest vehicle or vehicles of a specific brand or type, or that cost x amount of dollars... Many of these points are still true today, unfortunately.
Because of the status you would demonstrate having a vehicle, demand for infrastructure from the affluent persons that owned these vehicles, most cities were built with space in mind so their richest could enjoy their personal vehicles as optimally as they could. As time went on, and more people bought cars due to the ease of transport they provided, that infrastructure demand only increased.
Specifically in America, further pressure was given to state and local governments by automobile manufacturers to build better and better roads to more places so more people would have access to roads and therefore see value in owning a personal vehicle.
Then there's the interstate. Again, specifically talking about the states here, mostly... The Interstate systems were desired by the auto makers and people, but we're not strictly required. AFAIK the largest push for interstate freeways came from the military, so they could rapidly move equipment from one location to another. This is why interstates are so built up; if you compare the underlying structure of most roads with what's done for interstate freeways, the difference, at least, historically, is quite significant. The interstate was designed to have a batallion of tanks roll from place to place, something that would utterly destroy most roadways. Of course they can also move other equipment on it, since the majority of the remainder of what they would need to move is less damaging to the road than tanks.... Like planes. Many interstates are designed, on purpose, to act as impromptu runways to land or take off from. This enables the military to set up shop pretty much anywhere they need to, in order to defend the land.
The existence of the interstate only drove (no pun intended) more people to want and buy cars. Further compounding the problem.
Now, many years later, city streets are generally not built for you. They're not built with regular human lives in mind. They're built to act as conduits for emergencies so personnel or equipment can move from place to place with ease and relative speed. Public emergency services (police, ambulance, fire) are all geared around the existence of roads for transit. Because of this and a multitude of other, somewhat less notable reasons, roads continue to be a fixture in most cities and urban areas.
Another stupid (mostly American) reason is how far away everything is. The reason everything is so distant is a simple explanation: zoning. Commercial and residential zoning created problems where getting a plot of land re-zoned to build a strip mall or plaza is challenging at best. So since you live in a residential zone, all the commercial zoned services that you use, must be on different land in different areas. The nice thing about this is that residential zones tend to be much quieter than commercial most of the time, so homes can sit in quiet area while all the hustle and bustle of the city stays separate. This has somewhat changed on recent times but it still exists as a significant issue. Since zones of residential and commercial are generally not very small, unless you live at the edge of a residential zone that borders a commercial zone, essential services like grocery stores and shops are generally a significant distance away. Owning a vehicle and road infrastructure makes this a minor inconvenience at most, unfortunately it also makes this a major inconvenience for anyone who does not (thus driving sales of personal vehicles, again, compounding the problem). Again, in recent years, maybe the last 20-30, this has been changing, and we're starting to see, at least in large Metro areas, the rise of condos. Usually intermixed with commercial areas, it's a home you can buy that is surrounded by commercial services within walking distance (copy/paste for apartments).
Unfortunately, due to the military and historical reasons, as well as continued demand for roads from people living in residential zones that are further away, roads are and continue to be built, and maintained, in cities.
If you look "across the pond" to Europe, there are many examples of cities that existed long before zoning was even considered and where automobiles didn't exist that are very convenient to bike or walk through. Homes are intermixed with shops, and generally living in the city, while a bit more noisy than a residential zone, is otherwise very convenient for walking and cycling where you need to go. Mainly because cars were not a consideration at the time that those cities were constructed. Walking was common and cycling was not unusual, so the infrastructure reflects that.
We're seeing a resurgence of this kind of anti-vehicle infrastructure thinking among people, and with the rising costs of everyday living and the expense that vehicles can incur, both in operating them, storing them and maintaining them, it's easy to see why, especially when housing, in the form of apartments and condos, is getting closer to the commercial services that people want and use. However there seems to be a growing animosity among those that want more walkable and cycling friendly cities, with their car-driving counterparts.
I'm impartial. I own a car and live in a rural area, so I need one to get pretty much anywhere. My situation is not that of a city dweller and I see the merit in the walkable city. At the same time, I see the merit in drivable cities too. I wouldn't mind driving to a parking structure and taking a bus/subway/bike/whatever to get into any major city, since I do so very rarely. But I can't deny the convenience of driving into a city and parking less than a block away from my destination. Both arguments have merit and ultimately, I don't really have any "skin in the game" (so to speak), so what happens shouldn't be up to me, and cities should sort that out among their populous. I just know way too much about the issue, so I decided to comment. Sorry for the wall of text.
For real. No matter how much I rode when I was really into cycling, I always got saddle sore pretty bad by the end of the session. Dunno why bike seats are designed so poorly in regards to comfort.
I'd still love a bike-centric infrastructure though.
Saddle comfort is highly dependent on the shape of the sit bones of the individual. Your local bike shop may have the tools required to measure them, to get you a properly fitted saddle.
ain't gonna survive sleeping in your bike for a few years scraping by on the few places willing to hire you under the table.while all the shitstain hiring managers complain "nobody wants to work anymore" as they fucking shred your application over and over and over again.
Nobody should be forced to live in a car in the first place though. That’s a separate problem altogether from transit, which could be solved with reform to labour rights and housing provision.
yes, it would be nice if this were not the shape of the world we lived in
where vacant homes are piggybank tokens for foreign billionaires and their real estate holdings firms while families are left vagrant on the street.
where all the currency liquidity of our market has pooled at the top like a brain hemorrhage and our entire economy goes through seizure after seizure as we watch pieces of it die.
where basic human rights and necessities for life are commoditized, gatekept, and sold at a premium, to the extent that some people can't afford to live
but unfortunately, one must make do with the tools one can access...
Metaphorically speaking, our civilization is flooded and we are traped underwater.
It is indeed a problem that we are trapped underwater.
People are drowning every day.
Yes, no one should have to need SCUBA gear.
Yes, it sucks that we've built our entire infrastructure around facilitating the use of SCUBA gear.
Let us not mislead ourselves, however, into thinking that criticism of SCUBA gear would ever change the fact that we are trapped underwater,
or that someone would be any less likely to drown down here if we took their SCUBA gear away.
What about the people who can't even afford a car they are even worse off? Society should not waver on its social services, or sociietal norms to only meet the needs of unhoused people with cars. Many managers won't hire housed people who don't have a car, or even share a car with a spouse. Societally mandated car ownership just makes everyone more poor and hurts those who cannot afford a car.
My problem is that I have terrible balance on a bike, and the last time I tried to ride one I had an anxiety attack. I still am strongly for bike usage, though.
Being able to travel almost 100 miles in just an hour is a pretty significant advantage to motor vehicles. Not everything is within cycling distance. Not everybody lives in your overcrowded city.
Cause you can't actually GO anywhere on a bike. If you want to go somewhere 200 miles away for a week, it'd take a day and a half each way, minimum, and you can't bring anything with you bigger than a backpack. It's also physically strenuous to go literally anywhere, even the places you are allowed to go.
They say that you never truly quit the game. I played for a week or two when COVID started, before that it'd been maybe a year or two. So ~5-6 years with little to no contact.
I'm gonna look like a moron here, but I genuinely have no idea what I'm looking at or how it works haha. Is the bar across the top used as a handlebar..? It doesn't look like the front wheels turn.. Where the hell do you feet go? I think I can see pedals, they're just lined up with the frame so I didn't catch them at first.
Don't even need that. My parents used to have a kid seat on the front and the back of the bike so they could take us both. When you're getting too big to fit on the seat, you learn how to ride a bike yourself.
I am an ESL teacher who is at war with the word rucksack. It is a gnomic word that blocks understanding. Backpack, a pack for the back. Is that a back pack? Why yes it is Ming! It is a pack on someone's back! Is that a rucksack teacher? Fucked if I know, I have never seen a ruck nor would I know what kind of sack I would need for it.
Yes you are right, this prson should get a rucksack.
There's these things called "bikes for kids". There's over a million Dutch people who do soccer (out of 17 million people), and almost all of them go by bike.
Wear a raincoat or winter jacket, much cheaper than a car.
I have a trailer that can hold 40 kilos. That's enough for anything I need regularly. I rent a moving van for the once in a couple year big item hauls.
Cars spread things apart making places take long to get to not using a car.
When you say takes long to get anywhere by bike, it is a self report you don't live anywhere meaningful with anything fun around you
Living on the border with Canada, I tell you now that I bike during the winter. It is in fact as simple as wearing the right layers. Even some of the coldest regions in the world have bike commuting.
I don't think the second part is a criticism. It's pointing out that you live in a place who's infrastructure has been completely fucked by car-centrism. Were it designed with walking, biking, or even just public transit of any kind as a priority, the distance between points would actually be short (public transit benefits from shorter distance between stops by having shorter routes Which cuts fuel and maintenance costs).
In order for cities to have changes in their structure, mixed-use zoning needs to be allowed, along with various other reforms to current infrastructure law - laws which disinsentivise driving (car-centric people label it as 'punishment' when it's more just revokal of massive amounts of privilege). It takes several decades, but overtime city footprints would shrink and become much more walkable - and safer - and more quiet.
Not sure what you're meaning by "... blaming the victims of car-centric city designs." Is this going back to the comment before saying it's a "weird thing to criticise someone for."
Since you didn't quote a portion of my comment, I have no idea which portion you are saying is blaming people for car-centric city design.
I think you've misenterpretted these convos. I am not blaming those people for not riding a bike, I literally pointed out the amount of effort and time needed to make their cities more walkable. That's not coming from a place of judgment, I'm just disseminating information I've gathered over time.
The post explicitly states "if entire cities were designed around [bikes] the way they are with cars, everyone would be fine with it", and I think it's important to keep that in mind.
The top of this comment thread states bikes don't protect you from the cold, among other things. The following comment says just to wear a jacket. There's a reply stating the guy saying 'wear a jacket' hasn't lived in cold climate. I then chimed in stating that in-fact, you just need the proper layers to bike in winter.
All of that above is one convo going on parallel to the other.
During this, the original comment also says bikes don't get you anywhere. The second person points out that the original commenter must live in the middle of nowhere, away from anywhere important. That's why I stated I don't think the comment was criticism. I think its just observation.
The reason someone can be in the situation is because A) they live rurally, which is a minority of people globally - or B) they live in/near a car-centric city. I detail the work they'd need to do to change that, and they changes they would have to allow. That isn't blaming them, it's giving a roadmap.
Biking during Finnish winters sucks for sure and bike and public transport is slower than car, but it's a tradeoff. Owning a car here is fairly expensive and has downsides of its own.
For hauling bigger stuff I can rent a van or see if any of my friends with one are up to it.
I'm all for biking everywhere, but depending on the state of the roads in your city, you'll want a decent enough bike to handle potholes and the general shakiness you'll get from uneven road. That makes the inexpensive part utter bullshit, especially because bike theft is a huge problem. I've had enough stolen that I now don't cycle anywhere without indoor secure parking.
It's a bike, you just... Don't hit the pot hole. They are small and agile vehicles, it really isn't that hard unless it'd a literal sink hole in which case a car isn't going over it either
Maybe the roads are pretty good where you are, but in the UK you're forced to the side of the road, and there are loads of holes that wear down your bike. They're bad enough that I've had to switch away from my ebike and road bike into using a mountain bike to get around.
Being "agile" is good and all when you're not sharing the road with dozens of 1T killing machines...
I hit one once because it was dark and I didn't see it it time (despite the streetlights and my own light). Literally hit the road head first (thank fuck for helmets)
Plus because my bike is my primary vehicle, I've customised it and kitted it out with everything I need, from rear rack to trailer mounts, I added turn signals and extra safety lights, kevlar lining for my wheels because the shit roads shred my tires.
The bike itself was expensive, but affordable, the additional kit, and the time and labour I put into making it a transport system that perfectly works for me is much harder to replace.
But I'm lucky to live in an area where you can find secure bike cages at transport hubs, and there are enough other bikes around that my clunky 30kg step through frame isn't as desirable as a lightweight carbon fibre roadster frame when someone is going around with the bolt cutters.
My front strobe light has been stolen 8 times though.
That one is baffling. Because I keep my saddle bags on my bike at all times, so you'd think someone would take those, or at least have a rummage through them and take my tool kit or pump or stuff. Or steal any number of the expensive fixtures I have, like the tail light that plugs into my brakes, or the actual bike flood lamp that's attached to the handlebars with a quick release scew.... But no, they keep stealing the $3 headlamp I buy from the dollar store that's cable tied onto the handlebar stem.
I live in a mid-sized city in the UK, and if I lock my bike outside, someone will try to steal it within 30 mins, almost without fail. We've tried getting public bike cages set up, but then motorists get shitty because those portable cages end up taking up space that cars could use.
I've dropped hundreds on bike locks alone, and despite this have had parts of my bike stolen when someone decided that they couldn't get through the lock, or couldn't cut through where I've secured the lock.
I do wish licensing and insurance was required. I've been hit by 3 cyclists. 3 claims that would need to use uninsured motorist coverage and I had to go out of pocket on the deductible if I wanted to fix my car even though none were my fault. The one time damage was bad enough to where I did submit a claim, the insurance company tried to shake down the cyclist for my deductible, but failed, so I was out $500 or so. The other 2, I just accepted that my car now has a scratch there which was shitty too.
It doesn't seem too farfetched imo, but I got downvoted to hell for it so whatever. I get that I'm pretty unlucky to get hit by 3 cyclists, but it would have been nice to have been able to get their info and settle things though insurance rather than them just fucking off, and me getting screwed. Whatever. It is what it is.
Tell you what, we could do that once car drivers start paying for all the damage that their mode of transportation causes to the world.
All of the trillions of dollars of damage that climate change causes - all of the trillions of dollars that it costs to construct their infrastructure (no, gas tax doesn't pay enough, don't even go there), all of the insane amounts of damage caused by all of the death and other bodily harm caused by vehicle collisions.
Once you pay for all of that, then you can have a few bucks to buff out that tiny little scratch of yours.
You'd be bankrupt by that point though, and left without a vehicle, of course.
Unusable by almost everyone that's disabled, most of the elderly, and cannot carry any significant amount of goods.
Difficult to impossible to carry more than a single passenger as well, which reduces range and energy efficiency steeply when it is done.
You can negate part of those difficulties with variations on the bicycle, including tri and quad bikes, but you still run into range limitations that are incompatible with living anywhere but a city.
The posted text is yet another example of someone with a narrow view of how life actually works outside of their own situation. I used to love riding a bike. Can't now because of disability, but it also would have made my main job impossible back when I could still work. You can't ride a bike thirty miles across mountainous terrain in snow and ice to get to a patient's house. You simply can not do it with any regularity at all, no matter what condition you're in.
Even in cities, you're still limited by weather and time.
Unusable by almost everyone that's disabled, most of the elderly, and cannot carry any significant amount of goods.
Damn, I should call my 80 year old mom and tell her to stop doing her shopping on her bike. She'll pass it along to all her friends of similar age when they bike to the community centre together, I'm sure.
you still run into range limitations that are incompatible with living anywhere but a city.
Damn, so it only works for 274 million Americans and 555 million Europeans who don't live rural.
but it also would have made my main job impossible back when I could still work. You can't ride a bike thirty miles across mountainous terrain in snow and ice to get to a patient's house.
Oh no, it doesn't work for everyone all the time everywhere. Since this isn't a perfect solution for everything always, we should just completely ignore it and never use it.
I do 90% of my trips by bike, but sometimes I have to work at a construction site or a factory complex or some other middle-of-nowhere place, so I go by car. But when I go grocery shopping, or to a cafe, or out for dinner, or to my friends nearby, I go by bike. Most of the time I go to the DIY store, or clothes shopping, or just for fun, I go by bike.
And when it doesn't work, I take the car, but it's by far the minority of trips.
I completely agree with your arguments, but may I kindly ask you to not use such aggressive tone? This place is generally very kind, and it is saddening to see aggression coming from seemingly nowhere. The same arguments can be listed politely.
Most elderly people can at least easily ride electric bikes. At the point where they can't, they also shouldn't be allowed to drive a car anyway.
You can haul anything you need for daily life with a cargo bike (or even a regular one depending on your circumstances). When you do need more you can just rent a car for those rare occasions.
Disabled people yes but they don't need anything as big as current cars either.
if an old person falls, they will likely be injured quite severely. it's also likely that they won't heal quickly or properly.
this is going to be compounded on an electric bike, due to the fact that they will be able to reach higher speeds than they would on a conventional bike.
much like cars, the addition of extra power will keep them riding long after they should've hung it up.
My dad is 75 and rides an ebike. He wrecked a few months back going about 20mph into a costco parking lot. He strained a groin muscle pretty bad. But he healed up and was fine 1-2 months later, and you know why? Because he wasn't a lazy fat ass his whole life.
A car crash would injure an elderly person just as much. Cars claim they are safer by just getting bigger. But when big car hits big car, injury and death will inevitably happen
As a disabled person, I am lucky to ride my bike. I know other disabled people who can't. But I know plenty of disabled people who can't drive too. When people advocate for human centric cities instead of car centric cities, disabled people benefit the human centricity. Less cars on the road makes it convenient for other disabled people to get around in their cars. Also bike lanes are wheelchair accessible.
You've (potentially accidentally) made a great comment in support of bikes. You've listed some pretty specific and niche situations which I don't think cover 99% of car usage. If those are the sum of the exceptions, we can advocate for reducing car usage to 1% of what it is today.
You will never get rid of cars entirely, because of course not everyone can cycle. Reducing it by a factor of 100x benefits everyone, even those who still need to use one for disability or work reasons.
First of all, google cargo bikes for significsnt capscity
Second of all needing capacity is a Us thing because you only go shopping once a week because your wallmart is 30 minutes away and you dont want to do that every day or two days
I didn't realize he'd mentioned public transit anywhere in the post. I believe he said he intends to get anywhere he needs to go using only "determination and what I ate for breakfast"... I'm no mechanic but I don't think a bus can run on that
if entire cities were designed around these instead of cars...
The only reason you can't live the majority of your life within that radius is because it was designed otherwise. The vast majority of human society has been within 15 mile radii, and many parts of the world still are that way.
European here. Most of what I need are within 2 miles, so for most things everyday I ride a bike. For things further away, there's great public transportation. For when we need to transport bigger things or go where it's hard to go by public transport, we do have a car. However, the car gets used at most once per week.
We wouldn't strictly need a car either. There's several car pools around where you can book a car for a few hours when you need it.
Non european here, the only reason I don't have a bike is because of space and hassle (have a tiny apartment with no garage), I could and would do my commute and most errands on bike, it would even be easier and faster.
I can do 90% of my life within 35km of my house, except occasionally work and visiting friends and the occasional hobby. So I can easily do 9 out of 10 trips on a bike
Just because you use a bike once does not mean you are forbidden from using cars. If you have to go further, you can still take a shared/rented car or your own, if noone lives around you.
You had me till the BuY AnOthER OnE, Pay me imaginary strawman. I do love bikes though, so do the fuckers that keep taking mine.
You have enough money for a pair of bolt cutters.
Yeah Yeah I do have some of those, where you parked again you say?
If you're big enough, you just need money for a balaclava.
Hmmmm baklavas
I think the point was to contrast this with cars. Having your car stolen is 10x worse than having your bike stolen
10x? What car can be so cheap?
Ironically, a stole one
At this point, they'll need an angle grinder to get anything valuable off the bike. It's more expensive but so long its not the standard of ever biker, bike thieves'll target easier bikes to steal off.
It's true although it sucks. You could have several bikes stolen a year and it's still cheaper than a car.
It's, once again, comes with infrastructure. When I moved to Germany from the country with no bike infrastructure, I only thought of a bike as an expensive stuff, but here I bought a used commuter for 40 Euro and it's fucking great. I love it, but if it gets stolen, I would be mildly frustrated and buy another one of those for 40 Euro the next day.
Think of it that way - whoever stole your bike was probably more happy to get it than you are sad to lose it. The total happiness in the world increased. So, whatever.
There it is.
The stupidest thing I'll read all day.
And the sun's not even up yet.
It's a reference to this comic https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1314087-my-bike-got-stolen-recently
Thank you; I had no idea.
I take it that the idea is that it's supposed to be stupid?
I never know if the artist is serious or not.
With trains, you don’t arrive sweaty, you can’t get run down by cars, and someone else parks it
I ride a bike to work every day. I'm never sweaty. The infrastructure to cycle exists so I won't get run over by cars.
Where I live I wouldn't want to bike. Too many freaking hills
Where I live (Oklahoma City), I wouldn't want to bike for at least 5 months of the year. Between mid April and late October, we are stupid hot and humid. We had lots of days this past summer that either got uncomfortably close to or passed 40°C. Dew points in the mid 20s all summer long. You'll break a sweat just standing outside for more than about a minute or two.
Can't imagine what it's like for those sorry saps in Houston or Florida.
The comfortable temp for biking is significantly higher than it is for walking, especially with the right gear. 40°C is definitely beyond reasonable tho. Planting trees and decreasing the amount of asphalt would go a long way to make it a better proposition more of the year. A societal expectation that you don't go or do anything when weather gets that hot could bridge the difference. Unfortunately that kind of philosophy is antithetical to capitalism's demands for productivity.
I live in a somewhat hilly city. That is why I have an electric bike. I'm never sweaty when I arrive at work
Even if the city is flat as fuck you'll still arrive sweaty if the climate is hot. Take Phoenix for example, you will sweat even if you are in the shade and doing no physical exercise because it's commonly 46 degrees.
Phoenix is not a great example of how we should design cities. Putting a city in a desert is a bad idea from the outset.
The desert is the only reason it is habitable, if it were less arid the humidity would make it even worse. The largest desert on earth is Antarctica, deserts don't have to be hot, just low precipitation.
But what deserts do very well is solar potential due to lack of cloud cover and I don't know why we can't use solar to power electric rail for public transportation.
I have an electric bike for the hills.
Where I used to work it was downhill all the way there and uphill all the way back stupid way round of having it don't want to get to work early.
Hills are only the problem if you're not biking regularly. I'm way out of shape, but after a year on living in a country with good infrastructure, hills aren't a problem for me anymore, really. But first couple of months it was a bit brutal, for sure.
Where I live biking to work wouldn’t be popular because it’s too cold and Americans hate exercise
Biking in the cold and wet honestly isn't that bad. Biking is my primary way of getting around all year in the PNW. When it gets real cold I put on normal snow gear. It definitely makes going outside more of a production tho.
A lot of it has more to do with what people are used to and feel is reasonable than with the actual conditions. If people saw more folks riding and actually knew people who rode I think people would be more open to try it.
Unmanaged ice/snow, unhealthy wet bulb temperatures, and getting run over due to car first infrastructure are the most significant barriers to more people using bikes as transportation IMO. If a society chooses to, all those things can be mitigated.
My favorite part of riding is that I get moderate physical activity for free. I would not spend near as much time being active otherwise.
Teach me the non-sweaty ways. I love my bike, but theres no way I can arrive not sweaty. Before you say go slow, I’m not letting no bus take my god-damn glory.
E bike.
Sure, but I assume the conversation was about mechanical bikes. Personally, for a PEV I would choose something lighter and cheaper and forego the pedalling altogether, but my commute is only about 7.5 km one way.
In Germany those are only allowed to assist you up to 25kph, which means they only help you going up hills, everywhere else will be the same amount of effort
30 in Canadaz that's enough speed for commuting.
An Ebike is extremely helpful, especially if there are hills. Wear a breathable long sleeve SPF shirt. I like hemp and some of the stuff Colombia makes. If your route is safe enough don't wear a helmet. Shorts and sandals are also helpful. I've had some success with lightweight merino clothes as well but they tend to get holey in a few years of frequent use
You just don't treat it as a competition, but as a relaxed stroll. Don't care about any buses, just vibe with the flow.
Thats the thing though, for me the flow to vibe with is some banger tunes and pedalling as hard as I can. 😅
When I biked to work there was a YMCA right next to my office, so I would ride in early, get in a workout and a shower at the Y and then walk two minutes to work. The only downsides were 1) getting chased by pitbulls and 2) having to look at fat old judges lounging around the locker room stark naked before starting their day of sending probably-innocent black men to prison for decades (both hazards of life in Louisiana).
Obviously I can shower at work but then I need to get in 15 minutes early and then I have to blow-dry my hair and it is just a whole thing now.
You might not see the above as a problem but for me, the problem is I can for the life of me not get up earlier than I have to, I am just not a morning person. If I can manage to brew a pot of coffee and have a quick breakfast before I have to get out the door, that is a successfull morning.
He's sweaty...he's the BO guy in his office.
No dude, two thirds of my office commutes in by bike. I'm just in decent shape and cycling at a reasonable pace doesn't make me break a sweat. For most people in decent shape it doesn't make you sweat more than walking.
Must be nice 🥲
It is.
And you don't need to worry about driving
I love trains but they give me so much anxiety. I have stories of facing harassment on public transport. But it’s not just me though, here’s some idea of why public transport can suck for women or other people in case my anecdotes are just that: https://www.metro-magazine.com/10111994/sexual-crime-and-harassment-on-public-transportation-a-study
California had to make a law for race-based harassment, so it’s not just a one place or just sex-based harassment issue: https://19thnews.org/2023/02/california-introduces-bill-harassment-safety-public-transit-systems/
If public transport can come without being subjected to people and whatever miserable state of mind they’re in, I’d like that. I can at least escape a dumbass in my car, but in a train they’re either right in front of me or nearby for a long time. How do we fix this?
Public transport is clean and safe when everyone uses it. In the US, the social expectation is that public transportation is for the poor. Like white flight out of US urban centers in the 60s, it’s a class thing, and owning a car becomes a self perpetuating class signifier. In most of the rest of the developed world, like London, Paris, Tokyo, etc. public transportation is for everyone, rich and poor. It’s just a question of investing in and valuing public transportation over cars.
Hmm idk about cars as a class signifier, they’re like phones now, everyone has one. I don’t disagree with you about public transport being for everyone, but I am not sure that examples of harassment and human misery will necessarily decrease because richer people are forced to commute. See for example, the price-based communal vans in Asian countries. I think it makes sense to actively work on making public transit better, but that requires an open eyed approach to acknowledging existing problems. Nothing can have perfect solutions, but an attempt needs to be made to at least acknowledge the issue and provide a preliminary solution.
The reason you're not afraid of being in public in any other circumstances are in public transportation is exactly, precisely because public transportation in US is shitty and stigmatized and the expectation is that only the poor are using it. This is the source of the problem, and the way to fix i is to improve it so everyone is using it, and the crowd in public transport will be the same as everywhere
The examples listed as better public transport still have the harassment and human misery issues. I don’t think it’s simply a matter of “get more people using it”. For one I think people who engage in harassment of any form should lose the privilege to use public transportation for a period of time, like we do with drunk drivers and their licenses. Or get them to go to classes like we do for road rage people. Maybe other countries are already doing this.
No, good public transportation will not eliminate all the misery in the people's lives, but also it isn't suppose to, and nothing will. Good public transportation however helps with making it the same level of misery as anywhere else, and usually even more. The particular issue of harassment isn't an issue in a good public transportation, because there are people there, there are structures, there are authorities and systems that can help. And besides, it's not like people just decide to harass other people the second they go into metro.
Bystander effect is real, plenty of people have been harassed without the harasser facing any consequences. I think one improvement over our current system would be to disallow harassers the use of public transport for a period of time, or provide them with mental health help? I am not sure if it’s the best solution, but it’s kind of similar to what we do with people who drive drunk, or those who have to get anger management classes after road rage. Fines would also be a good idea.
An anecdote: there was a lady once on a subway platform who was yelling about colored people. She wasn’t bothering anyone in particular, though. There was at least one incident of someone stabbing and killing someone for defending minorities. These interactions are not safe for people and defenders alike. Moreover, you cannot react fast enough in some instances if someone wants to hurt you. For example, people have been pushed off train platforms. Regarding getting police help, if someone is walking around wearing a poster of “Christ hates gays” or something, the police might not do anything because of free speech laws (or because they agree sometimes).
These things are all kinda related, better housing policies lead to less homelessness and less instability, and therefore people with less mental issues. I don’t think simply having more efficient public transportation will make using public transport safer. Perfect solutions don’t exist, so at the very least I hope there are also anti-harassment policies like fines, losing privileges for a reasonable and proportionate amount of time, or having to take mandatory classes or providing mental health help for the harasser.
I want good public transportation as well, but for me the definition of good also includes having adequate safety measures.
That said, I really appreciate the passion some community members display for their topics of interest. What gets annoying for me though is what appears to be an utter lack of empathy or consideration for an alternative view. I think I am done, honestly—some people will think I am inconsiderate regardless of what I say. Whatever.
Here’s some news from places with great public transportation which supports my point that efficient does not equal safe:
from Japan: https://tankenjapan.com/how-common-is-chikan-unwanted-touching-on-trains-in-japan/
From 6 days ago: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8829ked1x3o
on buses, https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/bus-crime-statistics
from Germany: https://www.thelocal.de/20230301/which-german-train-stations-have-the-highest-crime-rates
Note that I am not using one-off incidences as examples, but what you’d expect to be routine crime on a given day.
Wouldn't it be great if we could each have our own private pods?
Yes actually, not sure if sarcastic.
Not sarcastic. It would be such a relief.
Only if you live at one train station and work at another.
You can also do this thing called walking. Although I am aware that in the United States that is considered suspicious behavior.
Im from europe, train stations here are a little more than walking distance apart.
The public transit isn't that great where I live by European standards. I use a Brompton folding bike to make up the difference. It's great for trains
This is my favorite argument from carfolk, because they'll treat walking one block from a bus station as some cardinal sin but will happily walk four blocks from a parking spot.
Cities with transit typically have several different ways of getting around.
For my last job, som e choices were:
I’m not even counting scooter and bike share but I chose each of these options depending g on what was best at the time. But my most common choice was the train and walk a mile. It was a bit of a walk but I didn’t have to deal with people or waiting and it was close enough. But maybe you prefer walking less or like the scooter or bike shares: great, make the choice that’s best for you
Edit to add: for those unfamiliar with transit - every place will be different but I paid a monthly train pass based on my distance from the city. That pass included unlimited express buses, and unlimited subway rides within the city. So much freedom and convenience! One monthly fee let me go anywhere in the city, so much cheaper and easier than dealing with a car!
It's common to bus to the train station, and yes train stations downtown are where many people work.
ITT: Carbrains
As soon as bicycles are mentioned, everyone suddenly has to transport their washing machine 200 miles in sub zero temperatures.
I think it's more that when someone is suggesting something as a perfect thing, people naturally try to challenge that by finding faults in it.
It's blindingly obvious cycling is not a panacea for all transport and no one is suggesting it is. Yet here they are, all pointing out what everyone knows in response to a statement that was never made.
It's like you don't read your peers comments. Yes, people argue this ALL THE TIME.
If I had a dime every time someone said oh just rent a truck when you need it making blind assumptions about my life and what I need, I could buy a bike with it.
Yes, people argue all the time and say exactly the same stupid things all the time and it gets really tedious.
I think you're getting too upset about that. That's just how people argue online.
Glad that my city has a cargo bike renting program for 10€/day or 25€/week up to 4 weeks (selection from 17: 15 electric, 2 acoustic)
I would take the acoustic, then I wouldn’t have to supply my own cards to put in the spokes every time!
Seriously though cargo bike rental sounds like a pipe dream, too bad they roads where I am wouldn’t be able to handle such a thing by design!
Every time someone mentions acoustic bikes I habe to laugh and it will still be as hilarius the next time.
Both directions and against 100 km/h headwinds
Really hurts I guess 🤷♂️
Turns out it's not so perfect but bike nuts don't fit everyone's needs.
The Japanese used bikes to defeat the British in Singapore. The Vietnamese used bikes to defeat the Americans in Vietnam. The Chinese used bikes to destroy manufacturing in the west.
I'll be in the cold cold ground before I use some stupid commie machine powered by rice.
All other arguments for not using a bike are stupid.
Can't tell if satire
Poe strikes again.
Screw that. I love paying for car insurance, gas, oil change, tires, and random bolts maintenance. There is also the thrill of driving in traffic, and dealing with road rage. There is plenty that makes the car the ideal transportation mode loved by the masses.
My personal favorite is how if someone bumps you and you get the smallest scratch or dent on your door, you now have to be late for whatever you were doing, pull over (impacting other traffic) exchange insurance info deal with possible hostility for that and ultimately have a crappy day because of it.
Don't forget punished for literal years by your insurance company
How about the fact that cars are so complicated now that working on them yourself feels next to impossible but you also have to somehow find mechanics that you trust to fix your vehicle when you really have no objective way to know if the mechanics are just bullshitting you or are actually genuinely investigating the problem, not just tossing away what you are saying with a mental note that you are clueless. Fixing a bicycle on the other hand is almost comically simple in comparison.
Also can’t forget the thrill that it only takes a second or two of distraction at the wrong moment to kill yourself and other innocent people and irrevocably send your life down a worse path. To be clear, this experience is happening when you are tired, grumpy and stressed about getting to work or getting back from work. It’s a nice little detail that we aren’t all driving boats around or something where hitting other boats requires a bunch of really stupid choices chained together, all we have to do in a car is go slightly in the wrong direction for 3 seconds and boom just murdered somebodies kid.
Stay out of the road with the heavy machinery. Cars won. Get out of the way or get run over.
Moved to the suburbs in my 30s. Got a new bike to hit the nearby bike trails. First bike ride turns into agonizing ordeal as it literally feels like someone ripped open my knees and poured broken glass in them. Diagnosed with arthritis in my knees.
There are plenty of reasons people don't use bikes, and health reasons are one of the main ones.
Distance. An hour commute or a 20 minute trip to the grocery store. We killed walkable neighborhoods so now here we are. Trapped.
But we can't have 15 minute cities because...that's tyranny somehow?
Too much democracy! Tyranny of the majority!
15 minute cities are about as organic as "two weeks to flatten the curve". There's a reason they don't exist, it's not a practical idea. Just like every other idea children come up with.
That used to be the model. Go look at old pictures. Those people were not walking hours to get groceries.
Yeah, except all of those old European cities and newer Soviet built ones had (and in most cases still have) everything close to 15 minutes away.
Oh boy lmao
Nice bait.
Start yelling at your city legislators then. Force them to change how the city zones so things are closer together. It will take a couple decades of work, but you have to be apart of that change for it to happen.
Open your own grocery store. Or allow others to do so.
A car cuck utopia
You can do what I did and move to another country. It just takes a lot of time, work, and money to get there (though money can accelerate the former two, in some cases).
Every time I see this kind of post I just wish they would try to go to work in a +40 degree Celsius environment.
It must be nice to work in a place that won't mind if you arrive drenched in sweat.
Edit: I love the hive mind
It would be one thing if all employers offered locker rooms and adequate time to get ready along with safe storage.
But doesn't that depend on you? If you arrive earlier you have more time
I don’t get paid to arrive earlier, so it’s gonna depend on them for me dawg
I would've figured work starts once you're ready for work. If that includes showering and you need more time for that, you should come earlier so you can shower.
To me it's no different from taking the time to shower at home. You can sleep later if you don't shower but I take the time. No pay for that though.
While I was mostly joking with my comment and the context of having to bike to work in a hot climate.
I agree with you initially, that works starts when you’re ready to work. I think that definition of ready is a little subjective.
As far as I’m concerned the moment I deviate from my normal non-working behavior is when I am starting work.
Realistically I feel that begins at the commute to work for me, I have some personal bias here since I have an hour long commute when I do. I work from home a lot of the time, so again that also skews my perception of when I “start” work.
Well that sucks.
Figure it out.
Oh I have it figured out.
You probably should do the same.
Excellent👍
There is a way to get all of this and more
coughs nervously in works-from-home
But yeah, it's more weather dependent for sure
Remote jobs are unironically super good for environment, aside from all other amazing advantages they offer.
BuT WhAt aBoUt cOlLaBoRaTiOn? - some boomer executive somewhere
Honestly, no matter the mode of transportation, I'd arrive drenched in sweat in a 40° environment.
I would probably not even step outside unless absolutely necessary. At that temperature I would already suffer indoors, and if I stepped out I'd faint if I stayed out there for longer than thirty minutes.
Tbf you could just take a shower at workplace after the commute, assuming you have showers at work.
How many people actually have showers in their workplace?
Probably more if cities were designed around bicycles in the way they currently are around cars.
Where I live, more and more. For this specific reason.
+the fact that some other people do Real Work^TM where you get dirty and shit and need to have shower before going home. Factories and shit.
Do factories have showers where you are? We’re expected to shower when we get home
Some factories are required to have at least emergency shower. Not that you want to take shower there regularly.
Well yeah though I don't to much of that, so the workplaces I know have them because of bikes.
I think even at the smallest company I've worked at, there was a shower in the building that people working at the companies there could use. First time I've really thought about it, but I guess it would be odd if a place didn't have at least one shower somewhere for the cyclists and runners. (I'm working in a British city for context)
No idea, every place I've worked in at least.
Pretty common to have at least one where I live, but it depends on which sector you work in for sure.
How many people actually have car storage(called parking spot by some idiot, although there are no trees) in their workplace?
Here in Palestine people drive bikes the most in the hottest city, Jericho. It reaches 40 degrees there. An ebike would make you get less hot from exertion. In combination with good urban planning with small streets and trees and buildings creating lots of shade it's workable. It's not sustainable to have air conditioned cars transport people everywhere. This is what living in a hot climate means.
But Texas exceptionalism!
Where do you live that it's 40+ degrees at ~8am in the morning, the entire year round?
Or could you simply be looking for an excuse?
Australia
Also Brazil
Edit: not to mention the flash-flooding thunderstorms, tree-shattering winds, and so, so many hills.
Most tropical/subtropical areas will have a heat index in this range for the majority of the year thanks to humidity.
I live in Florida and maybe for two months of the year I could cycle around without getting soaked, either by rain or humidity.
I do cycle around for fun though.
Not everyone lives in sunny California, some people live in the perpetual 100% humidity tropical climate.
Also screw second and third shifters, right?
I live in a 'perpetual 100% humidity tropical climate'. 8am would be 20-22 degrees. Afternoons would be hot though.
So let's build more urban heat islands and parking lots. Exactly what a +40 C environment needs. Biking might be unpleasant in 40 C weather, and the cyclist might get a bit sweaty, but all of the positives are true. And cars are just going to make the planet hotter.
Or underdeveloped infrastructure that forces you to bike on the road. There's this road near my house thats like a quarter mile long and its 40mph and people usually speed up to 65mph.
Trying to get to work on my bike with that is fucking suicide, and my work is only a mile away.
Even walking is excrutiating. The weather is very cold, which is fine since it's only a mile, but the busy roads you need to cross make you wait so damn much. Waiting for the signal to walk is about 5 minutes. There are 5 busy crosswalks that turn my 10 minute walk into a 35 minute walk in the freezing fucking cold.
Yeah you could jaywalk but you can be arrested and trying to jaywalk a road with cars going 60 is like Russian roulette.
How?
So, 60 units of imperialism is about 96 units of true freedom. How the fuck your city allows it?
In most places jaywalking is a civil infraction resulting in only a fine (I can impede traffic and increase potential for injuries). In those places you cant be arrested.
In others you can be arrested then charged with criminal misdemeanor. If very serious (not sure what defines that) you can also get a felony.
Either way it's punishable, and I don't want to do that when most of the crosses are within line of sight of the local police station.
About that road Im not really sure why the limit is specifically 40, since roads that cross it are 20, and also that it has no sidewalk but leads to residential areas. You can't even walk on the grass there's a bridge that forces you onto the road.
There is another road but it's half a mile longer (1.1km) and also it has the busiest street near my house. I swear to god the pedestrian walk lights are broken because I sat my freezing ass next to that damn thing for 20 minutes before just jaywalking anyways (also scared cause that roads also a 40mph).
I really wish I could walk, for my health for the environment but ironic as it would be I'm not gonna die for my health lol.
Have you considered, that different places need different infrastructure?
I might also remark, that your houses are utterly unprepared for the -5C where I'm at currently, but that would be stupid.
+40? I wonder why...
While taking your kid on a 10km detour to the only child care center thats anywhere near your home or work that has availability. And dont forget to swing by the shops and grab milk on the way home.
Sounds like a purposeful car dependent design
Well what do you want me to do about it?
That's an urban planning problem. My dad's detour to drop me off at daycare when I was little was a 10 minute bike ride. When I was old enough to go to school, there was no detour because it was on the way to his work. Shops are also on the way or at most a 5 minute detour.
Sounds like you live in a car dependent city. Imagine if it were built for walking or biking. Everything you need within 15 minutes walking rather than 15 minutes driving. Just try imagining it.
Imagine living in ex-USSR country. Daycares everywhere.
Bruh I live 26 miles from where I work by car, and 21 miles by biking per Google Maps. And most of it is highway travel. It would make my commute over 1.5 hrs.
It is the dream if/when we can move closer though.
if entire cities were designed around these the way they are with cars, everyone would be fine with it and you would live less than 6 miles from where you work.
Public Transport
EDIT: looking back it seems I replied to wrong comment
Indeed. Maybe not even me.
But there is plenty of way to work from more remote or rural area. I could list some if you feel like reading a bit longer.
As for people who live very far from any human, why do that if it is to drive hours and hours a day into busier area?
You may live in a place that is the result of building car dependent infrastructure. To achieve a "bike city" op is describing, it would take decades, if not a century in your area for it to make sense to just bike everywhere. It takes time.
That's why you start small, and work up incrementally. Bike lanes are the first step: just make it possible. Next is paths that cut across town to allow bikes (and pedestrians) to avoid roads altogether. Just put them in wherever you can. Eventually you can start connecting them, and gradually it starts to make sense to say "let's just walk there" or "I'll meet you there on my bike."
It's literally just paint and gravel, and micro zoning. But it helps every step of the way, and it adds up quickly.
Oh it is. It's exploded like CRAZY in the past 10 years and it just keeps expanding outward instead of upward. City planners definitely designed this place to be the epitome of "urban sprawl".
For real though, if I had it my way, we'd live within 5-8 miles of where I work and I'd bike every day it wasn't raining.
Next duty station though! We're gonna buy/rent closer to the base, wherever that is!
An excellent bike city is a long process but there's a lot of simple stuff that could help folks cut down on car trips. Imminent domain a few side yards and put in walking and bike paths to make neighborhoods more walkable. Knock down some houses to put in corner stores with apartments on top. If you build dedicated bus lanes, light rail, and bicycle paths you're on a road to a safer and more connected city.
Already fairly interesting how you can still manage to save five miles by bike in a system designed for cars.
Biking would add two miles onto my commute.
That's more like it.
Mine would be identical because its just the same roads.
Since we're just sharing anecdotes: I save some time when commuting to my gym, because there's a path through a bunch of greenery in some public back lot community...greenery area type...thing. Anyway, it's nice, and the city just put it up a few years ago! I didn't care at first, but now I take it several times a week.
Also driving a car to the gym only to get on a stationary bike or treadmill there just feels hilariously braindead to me.
Bikes + Metro would be the ideal
But that would require politicians who aren't in the pockets of oil billionaires
Space. Scooters + Metro.
Please. Skate shoes + metro.
Meh
Yeah but the hypothetical is if there was better biking infrastructure and I suppose that would include not expecting people to travel so far to work.
Again if it was better public transport infrastructure you could take public transit and wouldn't need the car the problem is that these improvements have never been made.
Well yeah that's for a big ol artery - that's never going away, but within-region is different.
Like I'm not going to take a bike to go visit my brother in the town over. That's just not appropriate use of the tech
Yeah, just look how Nederlands or Belgium looks like xD
Rookie numbers.
Have you ever seen a walmart parking lot in person? You can fit the Netherlands and part of Belgium in one.
I'm Dutch and live rural. Used to cycle to school daily, 22km per day.
Never again. I need a car for work as I visit clients alot. I think cities could use bike friendly environments, like we have. But rural, no way. Good luck cycling 2 hours to get somewhere decent if you can drive that in half an hour.
It simply costs too much time, and with the amount of wind and rainfall we had past year is absolutely no fun.
Yeah, rural areas will pretty much always need cars or something similar - not just for traversing the massive gaps between places, but also because most rural homes are their own logistics for most things.
It also doesn't help that this conversation itself is a pretty America-centric one. In the US and Canada, dense urbanism does not exist outside of major cities. NotJustBikes on YouTube has many videos talking about just how car-centric and space-inefficient it is here.
We have some big parking areas and garages specifically for bikes, especially at train stations, schools, city centres, etc. But at home, you don't need a lot of parking space
At least in Finland apartment buildings have "parking" for bikes in the sense that there's bike racks in front of staircases and usually a storage room specifically for bikes. "No need for parking" seems incorrect, even though it takes much, much less space than cars
Pretty much no one parks their bikes inside in the Nerherlands, I'm guessing that's a climate thing. It takes like half a square meter outside.
The indoors bike storage room is for winter (and other longer term) storage so you don't have to leave them out in the elements and don't have to bring them inside the apartment either. It can be handy.
It does add up in bigger apartment buildings. Nothing compared to cars but if you don't factor it in during construction it can be annoying as shit.
Now imagine if all those bikes were cars.
(You definitely do need bike-specific parking when you get to those numbers though. And other good infrastructure, though it's rather the other way around: you need the good infrastructure to get to those numbers.)
All I’m saying is nobody ever got a great ass because they drove a car a lot.
The opposite of that, actually, prolonged sitting on your ass without much movement linked to all sorts of problems down there
"Cars are freedom! *
Except for the monthly finance payment, the legal obligation to insurance companies, the dependance on oil companies, etc"
I would love it if my city had bike only days. Or at least specific bike route that do not allow cars.
I don’t live in the us and there is a major road in my city that has a bike lane, but they just split one of the car lanes so there is a bike lane, half a lane for a car, and a full lane.
So cars have no choice but to drive in the bike lane. It’s also between the cars and a place with tons of right turns.
In addition to this, the city has some of the worst traffic in the world short distances can take hours. But it’s too dangerous to ride a bike.
This is brilliant. Imagine their surprise when cars did not shrink to accommodate the change.
Yeah! I just started driving in the country and stuff like that’s been really confusing for me. I feel bad, but there really is nowhere else to drive and merging is really hard due to all the motorcycles swerving around.
IIRC Bogotá did this and might still do it. They were called cyclovias or something similar
Here is another reason. I can't afford a reasonable sized apartment that can house my family near my work. So I have to travel further. Bikes are great for cities if you can afford to live in the city.
Also, what happens when it snows and you gotta get to work? Snow chains?
How many corpses can you fit in the trunk and where would you even put the shovel while you ride?
MUCH slower, no protection from the elements, most can only support one person at a time. Great for shorter distances, but that's about it.
I live in the hills. bikes are a pain in the dick over here :(
Cars were, and to some extent, still are, a statement of wealth. Having a "horseless carriage" back when personal vehicles were called that, was an easy way to distinguish that you were a successful person. As time went on, this transformed into having the latest vehicle or vehicles of a specific brand or type, or that cost x amount of dollars... Many of these points are still true today, unfortunately.
Because of the status you would demonstrate having a vehicle, demand for infrastructure from the affluent persons that owned these vehicles, most cities were built with space in mind so their richest could enjoy their personal vehicles as optimally as they could. As time went on, and more people bought cars due to the ease of transport they provided, that infrastructure demand only increased.
Specifically in America, further pressure was given to state and local governments by automobile manufacturers to build better and better roads to more places so more people would have access to roads and therefore see value in owning a personal vehicle.
Then there's the interstate. Again, specifically talking about the states here, mostly... The Interstate systems were desired by the auto makers and people, but we're not strictly required. AFAIK the largest push for interstate freeways came from the military, so they could rapidly move equipment from one location to another. This is why interstates are so built up; if you compare the underlying structure of most roads with what's done for interstate freeways, the difference, at least, historically, is quite significant. The interstate was designed to have a batallion of tanks roll from place to place, something that would utterly destroy most roadways. Of course they can also move other equipment on it, since the majority of the remainder of what they would need to move is less damaging to the road than tanks.... Like planes. Many interstates are designed, on purpose, to act as impromptu runways to land or take off from. This enables the military to set up shop pretty much anywhere they need to, in order to defend the land.
The existence of the interstate only drove (no pun intended) more people to want and buy cars. Further compounding the problem.
Now, many years later, city streets are generally not built for you. They're not built with regular human lives in mind. They're built to act as conduits for emergencies so personnel or equipment can move from place to place with ease and relative speed. Public emergency services (police, ambulance, fire) are all geared around the existence of roads for transit. Because of this and a multitude of other, somewhat less notable reasons, roads continue to be a fixture in most cities and urban areas.
Another stupid (mostly American) reason is how far away everything is. The reason everything is so distant is a simple explanation: zoning. Commercial and residential zoning created problems where getting a plot of land re-zoned to build a strip mall or plaza is challenging at best. So since you live in a residential zone, all the commercial zoned services that you use, must be on different land in different areas. The nice thing about this is that residential zones tend to be much quieter than commercial most of the time, so homes can sit in quiet area while all the hustle and bustle of the city stays separate. This has somewhat changed on recent times but it still exists as a significant issue. Since zones of residential and commercial are generally not very small, unless you live at the edge of a residential zone that borders a commercial zone, essential services like grocery stores and shops are generally a significant distance away. Owning a vehicle and road infrastructure makes this a minor inconvenience at most, unfortunately it also makes this a major inconvenience for anyone who does not (thus driving sales of personal vehicles, again, compounding the problem). Again, in recent years, maybe the last 20-30, this has been changing, and we're starting to see, at least in large Metro areas, the rise of condos. Usually intermixed with commercial areas, it's a home you can buy that is surrounded by commercial services within walking distance (copy/paste for apartments).
Unfortunately, due to the military and historical reasons, as well as continued demand for roads from people living in residential zones that are further away, roads are and continue to be built, and maintained, in cities.
If you look "across the pond" to Europe, there are many examples of cities that existed long before zoning was even considered and where automobiles didn't exist that are very convenient to bike or walk through. Homes are intermixed with shops, and generally living in the city, while a bit more noisy than a residential zone, is otherwise very convenient for walking and cycling where you need to go. Mainly because cars were not a consideration at the time that those cities were constructed. Walking was common and cycling was not unusual, so the infrastructure reflects that.
We're seeing a resurgence of this kind of anti-vehicle infrastructure thinking among people, and with the rising costs of everyday living and the expense that vehicles can incur, both in operating them, storing them and maintaining them, it's easy to see why, especially when housing, in the form of apartments and condos, is getting closer to the commercial services that people want and use. However there seems to be a growing animosity among those that want more walkable and cycling friendly cities, with their car-driving counterparts.
I'm impartial. I own a car and live in a rural area, so I need one to get pretty much anywhere. My situation is not that of a city dweller and I see the merit in the walkable city. At the same time, I see the merit in drivable cities too. I wouldn't mind driving to a parking structure and taking a bus/subway/bike/whatever to get into any major city, since I do so very rarely. But I can't deny the convenience of driving into a city and parking less than a block away from my destination. Both arguments have merit and ultimately, I don't really have any "skin in the game" (so to speak), so what happens shouldn't be up to me, and cities should sort that out among their populous. I just know way too much about the issue, so I decided to comment. Sorry for the wall of text.
Hurts my ass
there is a seat you can use, you know.
Doesn't feel as good
There's another set of buttons on the side of it. Should save on jaw fatigue too.
Sure is better than dealing with airports though
I know what you're talking about, and those sensitive bits toughen up pretty quick.
For real. No matter how much I rode when I was really into cycling, I always got saddle sore pretty bad by the end of the session. Dunno why bike seats are designed so poorly in regards to comfort.
I'd still love a bike-centric infrastructure though.
Saddle comfort is highly dependent on the shape of the sit bones of the individual. Your local bike shop may have the tools required to measure them, to get you a properly fitted saddle.
Try a bigger saddle, that made the difference for me.
Install a seat
For some reason the slow and relaxed franchise with Vin diesel doesn't sound like a blockbuster to me.
I never learned how to ride a bicycle, I should really get to it someday. I just walk everywhere I need to go, or use carpooling/bus/subway..
Lemme just bike from Lansing to Detroit lmfao
The US is huge, I love bikes but they aren't really the solution for like 85% of the country
HVAC and shelter.
ain't gonna survive sleeping in your bike for a few years scraping by on the few places willing to hire you under the table.while all the shitstain hiring managers complain "nobody wants to work anymore" as they fucking shred your application over and over and over again.
Nobody should be forced to live in a car in the first place though. That’s a separate problem altogether from transit, which could be solved with reform to labour rights and housing provision.
yes, it would be nice if this were not the shape of the world we lived in
where vacant homes are piggybank tokens for foreign billionaires and their real estate holdings firms while families are left vagrant on the street.
where all the currency liquidity of our market has pooled at the top like a brain hemorrhage and our entire economy goes through seizure after seizure as we watch pieces of it die.
where basic human rights and necessities for life are commoditized, gatekept, and sold at a premium, to the extent that some people can't afford to live
but unfortunately, one must make do with the tools one can access...
Metaphorically speaking, our civilization is flooded and we are traped underwater.
It is indeed a problem that we are trapped underwater.
People are drowning every day.
Yes, no one should have to need SCUBA gear.
Yes, it sucks that we've built our entire infrastructure around facilitating the use of SCUBA gear.
Let us not mislead ourselves, however, into thinking that criticism of SCUBA gear would ever change the fact that we are trapped underwater,
or that someone would be any less likely to drown down here if we took their SCUBA gear away.
What about the people who can't even afford a car they are even worse off? Society should not waver on its social services, or sociietal norms to only meet the needs of unhoused people with cars. Many managers won't hire housed people who don't have a car, or even share a car with a spouse. Societally mandated car ownership just makes everyone more poor and hurts those who cannot afford a car.
Just think of what you will save in car payments! /s
Scooter, pic unrelated
My problem is that I have terrible balance on a bike, and the last time I tried to ride one I had an anxiety attack. I still am strongly for bike usage, though.
Being able to travel almost 100 miles in just an hour is a pretty significant advantage to motor vehicles. Not everything is within cycling distance. Not everybody lives in your overcrowded city.
Cause you can't actually GO anywhere on a bike. If you want to go somewhere 200 miles away for a week, it'd take a day and a half each way, minimum, and you can't bring anything with you bigger than a backpack. It's also physically strenuous to go literally anywhere, even the places you are allowed to go.
The fact is goes as far as as fast as you can isn't really a good thing. Also collisions are more likely to kill you.
Ride bikes every day!
Can't sleep in it. Gotta haul your groceries. Won't get you to the next state and back.
Y'all are deluded.
Does not protect you from weather
Cannot haul anything
Takes forever to get anywhere
Thats what your jacket is for.
You can get bike trailers.
Infrastructure issue rather than the bike itself.
What are you hauling anyway?
Robotics to Jita
Oh Jesus. I haven't touched that beast in years. Don't think I've seen a reference to it in about as long
I was away for 10 years but got sucked back in
They say that you never truly quit the game. I played for a week or two when COVID started, before that it'd been maybe a year or two. So ~5-6 years with little to no contact.
I think that means I'm due.
Even online still going strong
Indeed it is :)
Let me present to you:
I'm gonna look like a moron here, but I genuinely have no idea what I'm looking at or how it works haha. Is the bar across the top used as a handlebar..? It doesn't look like the front wheels turn..
Where the hell do you feet go?I think I can see pedals, they're just lined up with the frame so I didn't catch them at first.These are all over the place in Denmark. Look up Christiania Bikes
Don't even need that. My parents used to have a kid seat on the front and the back of the bike so they could take us both. When you're getting too big to fit on the seat, you learn how to ride a bike yourself.
What in the world, how do you see anything behind that... thing?
You sit the way your head is above, so you see the road.
Seen such things in Amsterdam.
Seems annoying tbh.
And honestly looks a little awkward, including IRL.
But some still drive those and feel fine
Shorts, t-shirts and football boots? Have you heard of rucksacks?
Or a little basket in the bike
I am an ESL teacher who is at war with the word rucksack. It is a gnomic word that blocks understanding. Backpack, a pack for the back. Is that a back pack? Why yes it is Ming! It is a pack on someone's back! Is that a rucksack teacher? Fucked if I know, I have never seen a ruck nor would I know what kind of sack I would need for it.
Yes you are right, this prson should get a rucksack.
A rucksack is a Sack on someone's Rücken.
That's what I get for refusing to google the etymology of things.
Kids can ride bikes in soccer gear...
There's these things called "bikes for kids". There's over a million Dutch people who do soccer (out of 17 million people), and almost all of them go by bike.
Football soccer is the main sport where I live, everyone walks with their stuff just fine with one of these, if that even.
Do you guys carry the grass around or something?
I have winter cycling gear, btw. It doesnt make it not suck.
I'm not hauling a car, motorcycle, toolboxes, tires, materials, etc. with a bike trailer.
My bad for having a job, apparently.
Oh no, it can only do 99% of my transportation needs instead of 100%
Ironically also the reason people shit on EVs with 200 mile real world range
More like 10% but you do you fam
Wear a raincoat or winter jacket, much cheaper than a car.
I have a trailer that can hold 40 kilos. That's enough for anything I need regularly. I rent a moving van for the once in a couple year big item hauls.
Cars spread things apart making places take long to get to not using a car.
When you say takes long to get anywhere by bike, it is a self report you don't live anywhere meaningful with anything fun around you
This reads like someone who doesn't live somewhere that it gets cold
What a weird thing to criticize someone for
Living on the border with Canada, I tell you now that I bike during the winter. It is in fact as simple as wearing the right layers. Even some of the coldest regions in the world have bike commuting.
I don't think the second part is a criticism. It's pointing out that you live in a place who's infrastructure has been completely fucked by car-centrism. Were it designed with walking, biking, or even just public transit of any kind as a priority, the distance between points would actually be short (public transit benefits from shorter distance between stops by having shorter routes Which cuts fuel and maintenance costs).
In order for cities to have changes in their structure, mixed-use zoning needs to be allowed, along with various other reforms to current infrastructure law - laws which disinsentivise driving (car-centric people label it as 'punishment' when it's more just revokal of massive amounts of privilege). It takes several decades, but overtime city footprints would shrink and become much more walkable - and safer - and more quiet.
Except that youre blaming the victims of car-centric city designs. Good one.
Not sure what you're meaning by "... blaming the victims of car-centric city designs." Is this going back to the comment before saying it's a "weird thing to criticise someone for."
Since you didn't quote a portion of my comment, I have no idea which portion you are saying is blaming people for car-centric city design.
"You should ride bikes, bro"
"It sucks"
"Well yeah, your infrastructure is designed for cars!"
That about sum it up?
I think you've misenterpretted these convos. I am not blaming those people for not riding a bike, I literally pointed out the amount of effort and time needed to make their cities more walkable. That's not coming from a place of judgment, I'm just disseminating information I've gathered over time.
The post explicitly states "if entire cities were designed around [bikes] the way they are with cars, everyone would be fine with it", and I think it's important to keep that in mind.
The top of this comment thread states bikes don't protect you from the cold, among other things. The following comment says just to wear a jacket. There's a reply stating the guy saying 'wear a jacket' hasn't lived in cold climate. I then chimed in stating that in-fact, you just need the proper layers to bike in winter.
All of that above is one convo going on parallel to the other.
During this, the original comment also says bikes don't get you anywhere. The second person points out that the original commenter must live in the middle of nowhere, away from anywhere important. That's why I stated I don't think the comment was criticism. I think its just observation.
The reason someone can be in the situation is because A) they live rurally, which is a minority of people globally - or B) they live in/near a car-centric city. I detail the work they'd need to do to change that, and they changes they would have to allow. That isn't blaming them, it's giving a roadmap.
This person is seriously shitting on me for living 20 minutes from my job. What an moronic ciriticism.
Biking during Finnish winters sucks for sure and bike and public transport is slower than car, but it's a tradeoff. Owning a car here is fairly expensive and has downsides of its own.
For hauling bigger stuff I can rent a van or see if any of my friends with one are up to it.
Aww, you don't list showing up for work drenched in sweat or with frozen fingers 😰
Skill issue.
There's these things called gloves. You should look into them.
We have a lot of days in the upper 30s here every summer. I don't know how anyone can do anything without being drenched in sweat here.
👌👍
I bike to work when I go into the office, it's about an 8 mile ride. I go at a speed where I'm not sweating. I'm not a pro athlete or anything either
For the love of God, don't ride to work naked.
Bikes are ableist aren’t they? They work well for you if you don’t have any physical or cognitive issues.
I'm all for biking everywhere, but depending on the state of the roads in your city, you'll want a decent enough bike to handle potholes and the general shakiness you'll get from uneven road. That makes the inexpensive part utter bullshit, especially because bike theft is a huge problem. I've had enough stolen that I now don't cycle anywhere without indoor secure parking.
It's a bike, you just... Don't hit the pot hole. They are small and agile vehicles, it really isn't that hard unless it'd a literal sink hole in which case a car isn't going over it either
Maybe the roads are pretty good where you are, but in the UK you're forced to the side of the road, and there are loads of holes that wear down your bike. They're bad enough that I've had to switch away from my ebike and road bike into using a mountain bike to get around.
Being "agile" is good and all when you're not sharing the road with dozens of 1T killing machines...
Some roads are absolutely mangled
I hit one once because it was dark and I didn't see it it time (despite the streetlights and my own light). Literally hit the road head first (thank fuck for helmets)
Plus because my bike is my primary vehicle, I've customised it and kitted it out with everything I need, from rear rack to trailer mounts, I added turn signals and extra safety lights, kevlar lining for my wheels because the shit roads shred my tires.
The bike itself was expensive, but affordable, the additional kit, and the time and labour I put into making it a transport system that perfectly works for me is much harder to replace.
But I'm lucky to live in an area where you can find secure bike cages at transport hubs, and there are enough other bikes around that my clunky 30kg step through frame isn't as desirable as a lightweight carbon fibre roadster frame when someone is going around with the bolt cutters.
My front strobe light has been stolen 8 times though.
That one is baffling. Because I keep my saddle bags on my bike at all times, so you'd think someone would take those, or at least have a rummage through them and take my tool kit or pump or stuff. Or steal any number of the expensive fixtures I have, like the tail light that plugs into my brakes, or the actual bike flood lamp that's attached to the handlebars with a quick release scew.... But no, they keep stealing the $3 headlamp I buy from the dollar store that's cable tied onto the handlebar stem.
I live in a mid-sized city in the UK, and if I lock my bike outside, someone will try to steal it within 30 mins, almost without fail. We've tried getting public bike cages set up, but then motorists get shitty because those portable cages end up taking up space that cars could use.
I've dropped hundreds on bike locks alone, and despite this have had parts of my bike stolen when someone decided that they couldn't get through the lock, or couldn't cut through where I've secured the lock.
I do wish licensing and insurance was required. I've been hit by 3 cyclists. 3 claims that would need to use uninsured motorist coverage and I had to go out of pocket on the deductible if I wanted to fix my car even though none were my fault. The one time damage was bad enough to where I did submit a claim, the insurance company tried to shake down the cyclist for my deductible, but failed, so I was out $500 or so. The other 2, I just accepted that my car now has a scratch there which was shitty too.
Tokyo actually requires bicycle insurance to be carried by riders now. Nothing nationwide here.
It doesn't seem too farfetched imo, but I got downvoted to hell for it so whatever. I get that I'm pretty unlucky to get hit by 3 cyclists, but it would have been nice to have been able to get their info and settle things though insurance rather than them just fucking off, and me getting screwed. Whatever. It is what it is.
Tell you what, we could do that once car drivers start paying for all the damage that their mode of transportation causes to the world.
All of the trillions of dollars of damage that climate change causes - all of the trillions of dollars that it costs to construct their infrastructure (no, gas tax doesn't pay enough, don't even go there), all of the insane amounts of damage caused by all of the death and other bodily harm caused by vehicle collisions.
Once you pay for all of that, then you can have a few bucks to buff out that tiny little scratch of yours.
You'd be bankrupt by that point though, and left without a vehicle, of course.
Unusable by almost everyone that's disabled, most of the elderly, and cannot carry any significant amount of goods.
Difficult to impossible to carry more than a single passenger as well, which reduces range and energy efficiency steeply when it is done.
You can negate part of those difficulties with variations on the bicycle, including tri and quad bikes, but you still run into range limitations that are incompatible with living anywhere but a city.
The posted text is yet another example of someone with a narrow view of how life actually works outside of their own situation. I used to love riding a bike. Can't now because of disability, but it also would have made my main job impossible back when I could still work. You can't ride a bike thirty miles across mountainous terrain in snow and ice to get to a patient's house. You simply can not do it with any regularity at all, no matter what condition you're in.
Even in cities, you're still limited by weather and time.
This can be applied to your own comment.
Going out of your way to find exceptions doesn't make the idea wrong, nor make you right
Damn, I should call my 80 year old mom and tell her to stop doing her shopping on her bike. She'll pass it along to all her friends of similar age when they bike to the community centre together, I'm sure.
Damn, so it only works for 274 million Americans and 555 million Europeans who don't live rural.
Oh no, it doesn't work for everyone all the time everywhere. Since this isn't a perfect solution for everything always, we should just completely ignore it and never use it.
I do 90% of my trips by bike, but sometimes I have to work at a construction site or a factory complex or some other middle-of-nowhere place, so I go by car. But when I go grocery shopping, or to a cafe, or out for dinner, or to my friends nearby, I go by bike. Most of the time I go to the DIY store, or clothes shopping, or just for fun, I go by bike.
And when it doesn't work, I take the car, but it's by far the minority of trips.
I completely agree with your arguments, but may I kindly ask you to not use such aggressive tone? This place is generally very kind, and it is saddening to see aggression coming from seemingly nowhere. The same arguments can be listed politely.
Their tone is downright pleasant compared to much of lemmy
Wanna some good old Internet toxicity?
:)
Most elderly people can at least easily ride electric bikes. At the point where they can't, they also shouldn't be allowed to drive a car anyway.
You can haul anything you need for daily life with a cargo bike (or even a regular one depending on your circumstances). When you do need more you can just rent a car for those rare occasions.
Disabled people yes but they don't need anything as big as current cars either.
if an old person falls, they will likely be injured quite severely. it's also likely that they won't heal quickly or properly.
this is going to be compounded on an electric bike, due to the fact that they will be able to reach higher speeds than they would on a conventional bike.
much like cars, the addition of extra power will keep them riding long after they should've hung it up.
My dad is 75 and rides an ebike. He wrecked a few months back going about 20mph into a costco parking lot. He strained a groin muscle pretty bad. But he healed up and was fine 1-2 months later, and you know why? Because he wasn't a lazy fat ass his whole life.
A car crash would injure an elderly person just as much. Cars claim they are safer by just getting bigger. But when big car hits big car, injury and death will inevitably happen
As a disabled person, I am lucky to ride my bike. I know other disabled people who can't. But I know plenty of disabled people who can't drive too. When people advocate for human centric cities instead of car centric cities, disabled people benefit the human centricity. Less cars on the road makes it convenient for other disabled people to get around in their cars. Also bike lanes are wheelchair accessible.
You've (potentially accidentally) made a great comment in support of bikes. You've listed some pretty specific and niche situations which I don't think cover 99% of car usage. If those are the sum of the exceptions, we can advocate for reducing car usage to 1% of what it is today.
You will never get rid of cars entirely, because of course not everyone can cycle. Reducing it by a factor of 100x benefits everyone, even those who still need to use one for disability or work reasons.
First of all, google cargo bikes for significsnt capscity
Second of all needing capacity is a Us thing because you only go shopping once a week because your wallmart is 30 minutes away and you dont want to do that every day or two days
It's a great plan if you intend to live the entirety of your life within a 15 mile radius of your house!
GENIUS! 🤯
Or anywhere with public transit. Basically not most of the US
I didn't realize he'd mentioned public transit anywhere in the post. I believe he said he intends to get anywhere he needs to go using only "determination and what I ate for breakfast"... I'm no mechanic but I don't think a bus can run on that
You should be able to have everything you need within 15 miles. Everything I need is within 10 miles from me except my work.
A lot of cities in the world aren't really designed with the 15 mile thing in mind. Sucks.
True, but doesn't mean we can't redesign them. Mixed use zoning would help immensely.
Absolutely, but it's rather a solution for the future and doesn't help them in their current situation, which is probably what they are talking about.
No one tell this guy about Europe!
Moving isn't an easy option. I'm assuming they're commenting from their POV as someone without good public transport etc.
You appear to have missed a line in the OP
The only reason you can't live the majority of your life within that radius is because it was designed otherwise. The vast majority of human society has been within 15 mile radii, and many parts of the world still are that way.
You're probably not going to believe this but not everybody lives in the city.
You're probably not going to believe this but 83% of the us population lives in the city.
You know, it is possibe for a person to have both a bike and a car. A bike is impractical for some situations, a car is wasteful for others.
European here. Most of what I need are within 2 miles, so for most things everyday I ride a bike. For things further away, there's great public transportation. For when we need to transport bigger things or go where it's hard to go by public transport, we do have a car. However, the car gets used at most once per week.
We wouldn't strictly need a car either. There's several car pools around where you can book a car for a few hours when you need it.
Non european here, the only reason I don't have a bike is because of space and hassle (have a tiny apartment with no garage), I could and would do my commute and most errands on bike, it would even be easier and faster.
I can do 90% of my life within 35km of my house, except occasionally work and visiting friends and the occasional hobby. So I can easily do 9 out of 10 trips on a bike
Bikes for intracity, trains for intercity. Rural populations may have specific use cases for cars and trucks, but trains could also be useful.
Just because you use a bike once does not mean you are forbidden from using cars. If you have to go further, you can still take a shared/rented car or your own, if noone lives around you.