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I wonder what will happen when electric bikes start to dominate. Let's assume that an electric bike can easily do 25 km/h (15 mph) and slower bikes will do roug

by phicoh 9y ago

I wonder what will happen when electric bikes start to dominate. Let's assume that an electric bike can easily do 25 km/h (15 mph) and slower bikes will do roughly 15 km/h (10 mph). In Dutch cities, especially in Amsterdam, you now have a problem with the slower class of mopeds. Legally they can only go 25 km/h. In practice they go faster, but not as fast as a regular moped. But they tend to be as big and bulky as scooters. Too big for narrow cycle paths. So people on bikes feel unsafe. Currently, electric bikes still look like bikes. Just like the really early mopeds. But there is no reason for that. You can make them big en bulky. Completely protect the person riding them from the elements. And then people on regular bikes not only have cars to fear, but also electric bikes. Only solution is to have really wide bicycle paths. Which turns into 'bike streets' where bicycles and cars share the road. And then we have come full circle.

peatmoss 9y ago
The problem you describe sounds like a very nice utopia to have here in the United States :-) We have this issue today in Seattle with regular push bikes—no electricity needed. We have people who are more than capable of maintaining speeds in excess of 15mph on facilities like the Burke-Gilman Trail. And those people strike me as jerks when I watch them exasperatedly blow past slow-moving families. Most of the "Burke-Gilman Racing Team" eventually figures out that they'll have a better riding experience mixing with cars on the road. When you have a lot more people riding, you start to see those kinds of norms reinforced. Last, bike-on-bike serious injury / fatality collisions are rare. If, in the United States, we get to this dystopian bicycling hellscape of... Amsterdam... that you describe, I'll gladly throw my all into helping to mitigate the problem you describe.
- phicoh 9y ago
  Maybe norms work differently in the US. Bikes are the majority on cycle paths. But that doesn't stop 'mopeds' from passing left and right. Car drivers don't have much patience with bikes and mopeds that should be on the bike path but are blocking the main road instead. So the slow mopeds stay on the bike path (where they legally have to be as well). Bike paths are good for avoiding accidents where car and bike travel in the same direction. Certainly outside cities they are much better than having bikes on the road. Unfortunately, they don't help much on intersections. So that's where lots of accidents now happen. In fact they make the situation worse, because when a truck tries to take a right turn, bikes continue going straight on the bike path.
  - nbanks 9y ago
    I firmly believe right turn lanes ought to be to on the right side of the bike path because cyclists are way faster than pedestrians crossing a crosswalk. That way the motorist has to cross the bike path as one step, then turn right as a second step. They only have to check one thing at a time. Bidirectional bike paths are even worse. In Montréal I've crashed into a couple cars which were turning left across a bike path--but the bike path was on the wrong side of the road!
nbanks 9y ago
Large and fast bikes are already a problem without electric assist. A typical triathlon bike can easily do 35km/h, and the wider Milan Velomobile can do over 50km/h. In the US and Canada, it's illegal to use electric assist to reach over 32km/h and most European countries have more stringent limits. But human powered bikes are faster anyway. If a group of cyclists use drafting, they can push the speed up that way. This also only includes mass produced bikes. The world record for human power is much much faster again--last year Aerovelo Eta broke the world record, reaching 144 km/h on the flat with no assist. Most bike lanes aren't designed for this.

by phicoh 9y ago

peatmoss 9y ago

The problem you describe sounds like a very nice utopia to have here in the United States :-) We have this issue today in Seattle with regular push bikes—no electricity needed. We have people who are more than capable of maintaining speeds in excess of 15mph on facilities like the Burke-Gilman Trail. And those people strike me as jerks when I watch them exasperatedly blow past slow-moving families. Most of the "Burke-Gilman Racing Team" eventually figures out that they'll have a better riding experience mixing with cars on the road. When you have a lot more people riding, you start to see those kinds of norms reinforced. Last, bike-on-bike serious injury / fatality collisions are rare. If, in the United States, we get to this dystopian bicycling hellscape of... Amsterdam... that you describe, I'll gladly throw my all into helping to mitigate the problem you describe.

phicoh 9y ago
Maybe norms work differently in the US. Bikes are the majority on cycle paths. But that doesn't stop 'mopeds' from passing left and right. Car drivers don't have much patience with bikes and mopeds that should be on the bike path but are blocking the main road instead. So the slow mopeds stay on the bike path (where they legally have to be as well). Bike paths are good for avoiding accidents where car and bike travel in the same direction. Certainly outside cities they are much better than having bikes on the road. Unfortunately, they don't help much on intersections. So that's where lots of accidents now happen. In fact they make the situation worse, because when a truck tries to take a right turn, bikes continue going straight on the bike path.
- nbanks 9y ago
  I firmly believe right turn lanes ought to be to on the right side of the bike path because cyclists are way faster than pedestrians crossing a crosswalk. That way the motorist has to cross the bike path as one step, then turn right as a second step. They only have to check one thing at a time. Bidirectional bike paths are even worse. In Montréal I've crashed into a couple cars which were turning left across a bike path--but the bike path was on the wrong side of the road!

nbanks 9y ago

Large and fast bikes are already a problem without electric assist. A typical triathlon bike can easily do 35km/h, and the wider Milan Velomobile can do over 50km/h. In the US and Canada, it's illegal to use electric assist to reach over 32km/h and most European countries have more stringent limits. But human powered bikes are faster anyway. If a group of cyclists use drafting, they can push the speed up that way. This also only includes mass produced bikes. The world record for human power is much much faster again--last year Aerovelo Eta broke the world record, reaching 144 km/h on the flat with no assist. Most bike lanes aren't designed for this.