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I'm sorry for your pain. You seem to think that bicycles and/or busses in an urban setting under ideal weather conditions are the answer to all transportation

I'm sorry for your pain. You seem to think that bicycles and/or busses in an urban setting under ideal weather conditions are the answer to all transportation questions. Unfortunately in the real world bicycles fail to protect against inclement weather (and are nearly unusable in winter time in some climates); can leave their passengers sweaty, wet, or dirty; have limited cargo capacity; and are not as useful for those with long commutes. So while they are a great solution for some situations, they are not ideal for others. Busses have great bandwidth and do not have to be parked or stored by passengers, but are not efficient fuel and space unless they have enough passengers. Busses (and trains) often run empty or nearly so. They are less convenient than bicycles and cars in terms of pickup and drop off locations. Autonomous electric cars could be made of various sizes (including as small as a bicycle) for various cargo and passenger loads, could pick up and drop off passengers anywhere, would not necessarily have to be parked (or would have to be parked for shorter periods than private cars), would protect against inclement weather, and might be safer for passenger and pedestrian alike than individual cyclists or bus drivers.

titzer 10y ago
The Bay area has one of the most ideal climates for bicycle commutes in the world. Denmark, on the other hand, which can have a rather suboptimal climate for cycling, has incredibly high bicycle commute rates: http://denmark.dk/en/green-living/bicycle-culture/copenhageners-love-their-bikes http://denmark.dk/en/green-living/bicycle-culture/copenhagen... The answer is that it's partly cultural, and partly incentives. But you can go ahead and keep enforcing the cultural bias against bikes if you prefer.
- cgriswald 10y ago
  A foot of snow, sub zero temperatures, and icy roads are not cultural bias.
  - titzer 10y ago
    Feel free to call me at home the next time Silicon Valley has a foot of snow.
    - cgriswald 10y ago
      >>>>>>>> It's sad that for most of the world cheap enough electric self driving cars will come faster than good public transport (emphasis added) >>>>>>> I'm not sure why you think cheap enough electric self driving cars can't be public transport. This is the context in which my post was placed. I'm not sure why you've chosen to limit the scope to the Bay Area. The poster I was arguing with was claiming that space is the deciding factor and the hands-down-answered-long-ago-reason why electric cars have no place whatever in public transportation. Unless you are arguing that people should commute by bicycle in Minnesota winters, we're not really arguing here.
      - titzer 10y ago
        Your comment directly complained about bicycles using an array of tired excuses. I would encourage you to visit a city where bicycle commuting works really well to get a different perspective. As for the bay area, I was making the point that even in one of the most optimal set of conditions in the country we still ignore biking which works well in other countries because we seem to be culturally blind. Instead we pursue techno-fantasy when we should really just be buying everyone a $300 bike and putting bike lanes everywhere. We should also build subways and trains and use buses and all the other things, but we can't even seem to get anyone to take bicycles seriously.
        kbenson 10y ago
        Since the bay area has a very high amount of people that commute a long distance (50 miles or more)[1], how well bikes work for getting around locally is secondary to the fact that a large group of people would have to spend a significant amount of their non-working time on biking to get to work. People prefer to raise families in a more suburban setting, and as long as proponents of alternative transport ignore that, their plans are doomed to irrelevance. 1: https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/03/05/san-francisco-bay-area-nations-capital-for-megacommuting https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/03/05/san-francisco-bay-area-...
lorenzhs 10y ago
Denmark and the Netherlands both have lots of shit weather and enormous amounts of cycling. As titzer pointed out, the Bay area has neither. Weather is not a problem with a raincoat, rain pants, and the right attitude :) I always reach the office dry. Admittedly, my commute is fairly short by US standards (5km / 15 minutes), but that's not atypical for cities in Germany. Winters are no problem with the right tyres, as bike paths are cleared of snow by the city. As for luggage: Panniers are awesome. I have 30 year old Ortlieb bags (see https://www.ortlieb.com/en/Back-Roller%20City/ https://www.ortlieb.com/en/Back-Roller%20City/ for the modern version), 40 litres of cargo volume right there. That's enough for my weekly grocery shopping and you still have space on the luggage rack for a basket or whatever. Oh, and to your last point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSZPNwZex9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSZPNwZex9s - like that? ;)
- cgriswald 10y ago
  As I responded to titzer, my comments here are about "the world" and whether electric cars have a place in public transit. As I've already mentioned, bicycles have a place, but that place is not everywhere at all times. I'm aghast at how hostile I feel some of the responses have been. I am for multiple forms of transit, and I think public electric have a place that other forms don't quite fill. I think the Google self-driving bicycle (which is awesome) is a strong argument in favor of electric cars having such a place. Just imagine a vehicle roughly the size of a bike, but enclosed instead. :) But the "cars" could be many shapes and sizes, intended for different passenger and cargo loads.
  - lorenzhs 10y ago
    Yes, I saw your pointless reference to Minnesota winters. Let me just point out that a typical city car also requires roads to be cleared. If you live in rural Minnesota, you need a different vehicle than for a California city. Surprise, surprise. There is no "one size fits all"-solution, and your premise is absurd. The Google self driving bicycle was an April fool's joke, and if today was April 1st then I'd assume your argument was, too. Ubiquitous self-driving electric vehicles for all are an absurd techno-fantasy. When such vehicles become reality, they'll be a luxury product for a niche clientele of high earners (like SV engineers) for quite a while. Even when they reach a mass market, they won't be for all. They'll be a nice replacement for taxis, sure. But what about people who can't afford to regularly take a taxi today? There is no way that they could ever come close to the price of a bicycle. Most students here ride used bikes, most of which probably cost around $100. How do you suggest they afford such vehicles for their daily commute to university? You're suggesting a solution that might work in Silicon Valley in a few years as a panacea. Bicycles work in lots of places around the world today, and have for decades.
uola 10y ago
The fundamentals hasn't changed. Everything else being equal the increased convenience of self-driving cars and the low running costs of electric cars will put a lot more cars on the road that will take longer journeys. There's no escaping the need for public transport, especially if SF wants to grow denser. I do have to mirror the parent posters sentiment, people really need to start paying attention to fundamentals. In an optimal efficient future (which of course won't happen) there would essentially be no car ownership. A car is a huge compromise (which is why people like them) that can't go particularly fast (because of drag at speed and kinetic energy in a crash), is over-engineered at lower speeds and have low bandwidth (especially in urban environments). Of course having cheap fully autonomous cars (without steering, that can go anywhere) is still more likely decades than years away.
melling 10y ago
No, the picture demonstrates why cars are bad; they require too much space. You are free to think outside the box. Let me help you with that. Here"s something that didn't exist 20 years ago, for example: http://www.china.org.cn/business/2016-05/30/content_38560697.htm http://www.china.org.cn/business/2016-05/30/content_38560697... http://www.shanghaidaily.com/national/Maglev-on-trial-run-in-central-China/shdaily.shtml http://www.shanghaidaily.com/national/Maglev-on-trial-run-in... A smooth quiet ride at 60 mph through NYC, San Francisco, or Los Angeles seems like a great way to travel.
- cgriswald 10y ago
  > No, the picture demonstrates why cars are bad; they require too much space. Cars take more space, but not nearly as much more space as that picture tries to imply. It shows a single bus with full capacity, but one car per passenger. If it treated cars equally with buses, there would be significantly fewer cars, smaller cars, or many more busses. You can have a smooth, 60 mph ride through San Francisco, or you can have enough stops and capacity to serve the entire city. You won't have both. I've heard promises of rail for 40 years and maglev for 20. I think they can be very useful, but they won't serve all the needs of an entire city, much less an entire metropolitan area. Cars and future car analogs will probably always be necessary, and a public system which uses them could be very helpful and both save and free up a lot of space. But this is about a lot more than just space.

titzer 10y ago

The Bay area has one of the most ideal climates for bicycle commutes in the world. Denmark, on the other hand, which can have a rather suboptimal climate for cycling, has incredibly high bicycle commute rates: http://denmark.dk/en/green-living/bicycle-culture/copenhageners-love-their-bikes http://denmark.dk/en/green-living/bicycle-culture/copenhagen... The answer is that it's partly cultural, and partly incentives. But you can go ahead and keep enforcing the cultural bias against bikes if you prefer.

cgriswald 10y ago
A foot of snow, sub zero temperatures, and icy roads are not cultural bias.
- titzer 10y ago
  Feel free to call me at home the next time Silicon Valley has a foot of snow.
  - cgriswald 10y ago
    >>>>>>>> It's sad that for most of the world cheap enough electric self driving cars will come faster than good public transport (emphasis added) >>>>>>> I'm not sure why you think cheap enough electric self driving cars can't be public transport. This is the context in which my post was placed. I'm not sure why you've chosen to limit the scope to the Bay Area. The poster I was arguing with was claiming that space is the deciding factor and the hands-down-answered-long-ago-reason why electric cars have no place whatever in public transportation. Unless you are arguing that people should commute by bicycle in Minnesota winters, we're not really arguing here.
    - titzer 10y ago
      Your comment directly complained about bicycles using an array of tired excuses. I would encourage you to visit a city where bicycle commuting works really well to get a different perspective. As for the bay area, I was making the point that even in one of the most optimal set of conditions in the country we still ignore biking which works well in other countries because we seem to be culturally blind. Instead we pursue techno-fantasy when we should really just be buying everyone a $300 bike and putting bike lanes everywhere. We should also build subways and trains and use buses and all the other things, but we can't even seem to get anyone to take bicycles seriously.
      - kbenson 10y ago
        Since the bay area has a very high amount of people that commute a long distance (50 miles or more)[1], how well bikes work for getting around locally is secondary to the fact that a large group of people would have to spend a significant amount of their non-working time on biking to get to work. People prefer to raise families in a more suburban setting, and as long as proponents of alternative transport ignore that, their plans are doomed to irrelevance. 1: https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/03/05/san-francisco-bay-area-nations-capital-for-megacommuting https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/03/05/san-francisco-bay-area-...

lorenzhs 10y ago

Denmark and the Netherlands both have lots of shit weather and enormous amounts of cycling. As titzer pointed out, the Bay area has neither. Weather is not a problem with a raincoat, rain pants, and the right attitude :) I always reach the office dry. Admittedly, my commute is fairly short by US standards (5km / 15 minutes), but that's not atypical for cities in Germany. Winters are no problem with the right tyres, as bike paths are cleared of snow by the city. As for luggage: Panniers are awesome. I have 30 year old Ortlieb bags (see https://www.ortlieb.com/en/Back-Roller%20City/ https://www.ortlieb.com/en/Back-Roller%20City/ for the modern version), 40 litres of cargo volume right there. That's enough for my weekly grocery shopping and you still have space on the luggage rack for a basket or whatever. Oh, and to your last point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSZPNwZex9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSZPNwZex9s - like that? ;)

cgriswald 10y ago
As I responded to titzer, my comments here are about "the world" and whether electric cars have a place in public transit. As I've already mentioned, bicycles have a place, but that place is not everywhere at all times. I'm aghast at how hostile I feel some of the responses have been. I am for multiple forms of transit, and I think public electric have a place that other forms don't quite fill. I think the Google self-driving bicycle (which is awesome) is a strong argument in favor of electric cars having such a place. Just imagine a vehicle roughly the size of a bike, but enclosed instead. :) But the "cars" could be many shapes and sizes, intended for different passenger and cargo loads.
- lorenzhs 10y ago
  Yes, I saw your pointless reference to Minnesota winters. Let me just point out that a typical city car also requires roads to be cleared. If you live in rural Minnesota, you need a different vehicle than for a California city. Surprise, surprise. There is no "one size fits all"-solution, and your premise is absurd. The Google self driving bicycle was an April fool's joke, and if today was April 1st then I'd assume your argument was, too. Ubiquitous self-driving electric vehicles for all are an absurd techno-fantasy. When such vehicles become reality, they'll be a luxury product for a niche clientele of high earners (like SV engineers) for quite a while. Even when they reach a mass market, they won't be for all. They'll be a nice replacement for taxis, sure. But what about people who can't afford to regularly take a taxi today? There is no way that they could ever come close to the price of a bicycle. Most students here ride used bikes, most of which probably cost around $100. How do you suggest they afford such vehicles for their daily commute to university? You're suggesting a solution that might work in Silicon Valley in a few years as a panacea. Bicycles work in lots of places around the world today, and have for decades.

uola 10y ago

The fundamentals hasn't changed. Everything else being equal the increased convenience of self-driving cars and the low running costs of electric cars will put a lot more cars on the road that will take longer journeys. There's no escaping the need for public transport, especially if SF wants to grow denser. I do have to mirror the parent posters sentiment, people really need to start paying attention to fundamentals. In an optimal efficient future (which of course won't happen) there would essentially be no car ownership. A car is a huge compromise (which is why people like them) that can't go particularly fast (because of drag at speed and kinetic energy in a crash), is over-engineered at lower speeds and have low bandwidth (especially in urban environments). Of course having cheap fully autonomous cars (without steering, that can go anywhere) is still more likely decades than years away.

melling 10y ago

No, the picture demonstrates why cars are bad; they require too much space. You are free to think outside the box. Let me help you with that. Here"s something that didn't exist 20 years ago, for example: http://www.china.org.cn/business/2016-05/30/content_38560697.htm http://www.china.org.cn/business/2016-05/30/content_38560697... http://www.shanghaidaily.com/national/Maglev-on-trial-run-in-central-China/shdaily.shtml http://www.shanghaidaily.com/national/Maglev-on-trial-run-in... A smooth quiet ride at 60 mph through NYC, San Francisco, or Los Angeles seems like a great way to travel.

cgriswald 10y ago
> No, the picture demonstrates why cars are bad; they require too much space. Cars take more space, but not nearly as much more space as that picture tries to imply. It shows a single bus with full capacity, but one car per passenger. If it treated cars equally with buses, there would be significantly fewer cars, smaller cars, or many more busses. You can have a smooth, 60 mph ride through San Francisco, or you can have enough stops and capacity to serve the entire city. You won't have both. I've heard promises of rail for 40 years and maglev for 20. I think they can be very useful, but they won't serve all the needs of an entire city, much less an entire metropolitan area. Cars and future car analogs will probably always be necessary, and a public system which uses them could be very helpful and both save and free up a lot of space. But this is about a lot more than just space.