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In German Suburb, Life Goes On Without Cars (2009)
- organicgrant 16y agoIn Vauban, near the French and Swiss borders, streets are completely “car-free” — except the main thoroughfare headed to Freiburg
- bitboxer 16y agoI lived in Münster, Germany for a few years. Münster is THE bike town in germany. Statistically every citizen has 1.8 bikes. And i begann to love biking there. A lot is done in that city to make biking the #1 way of transportation. Now I am living in Cologne, Germany and see the difference. I miss the good bike lanes but I kept biking in cologne. Nothing is better for your head than biking a few miles home after a hard day of work.
- train_robber 16y agoYes absolutely. I used to live in a suburb of Stuttgart, and that was around the first time I really tried biking. It was definitely worth it, the well maintained bike lanes, the free burning of the fat, lovely relaxing scenery and off course a few extra bucks saved per day. Biking lanes, is in my book a top investment a city can make, wonder why not many keep it high on their priorities.
- organicgrant 16y agoBoulder, CO in USA has done a LOT for putting in bike lanes. Very bike-friendly city. Up there with Portland, OR and Austin, TX
- toumhi 16y agoI've lived for two years in Austin, now in Amsterdam (the one in Europe). Amsterdam (and actually, most of Europe) is infinitely better for biking than Austin. Actually I almost never rode my bike in Austin. Always cars passing at high speed right next to you. I think USA cities have still a lot more to do to be real bike-friendly.
- organicgrant 16y agoHipsters in Austin ride their fixies off car bumpers. Having a death wish is trendy these days. Greenbelt is also BA. (badass) I admire them for staying fit on their bikes. Helps to counteract their main foods of Lone Star beer and clove cigs
- jacquesm 16y agoFixies (fixed gear bicycles) are illegal in traffic in almost all places and are intended for track use only.
- tiki12revolt 16y agoI'm not exactly sure that is true. If they have a brake mount and at least one brake, they are street legal. Do you have a source for your assertion?
- jacquesm 16y agohttp://www.thelocal.de/society/20090630-20291.html http://www.thelocal.de/society/20090630-20291.html http://bikeportland.org/2006/07/28/judge-finds-fault-with-fixies/ http://bikeportland.org/2006/07/28/judge-finds-fault-with-fi... Indeed, mounting at least one brake seems to satisfy that particular judge. http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/10251/Riding_Cool_fixedgear_bikes_without_brakes http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/10251/Riding_Cool_fi... So, yes, again, you can mount 'a brake' and be legal in some places but not everywhere, the whole thrill here seems to come from not having all that 'stuff' on the bike. If you've ever done any serious bicycling then you realise that the fixed wheel bike has no other place than the track. In traffic you'd have to be an artist to safely ride one and the problem with them being in traffic is not just that you'd have to be an artist but also that circumstances can determine what is safe and what is not. Brakes are used for normal reduction in speed, in such cases a fixed gear will do, after all, all you're doing is removing energy from the 'system' (bike + rider) in the same way you put it in, through your leg muscles. But brakes have a second function as well, which is to react to traffic conditions, things outside of your control. And you may find that you need to remove energy from the 'system' a lot quicker than you originally put it in. For a bike with a fixed gear (one without a freewheel) this will mandate you to continue to make pedalling motions while you are using that other brake. If the reason why you need to brake stops you from doing that you are now in deep trouble because you will find two nice sized hammers roughly where your pedals used to be that are pounding the crap out of your legs, which can easily cause you to completely lose control of your bike. If you happen to be unbalanced a pedal can strike the road with incredible force and if your foot happens to be between the pedal and the road that's really bad. So, where-ever the legislation hasn't caught up yet with fixed gear bikes being outlawed because of the 'trend' will sooner or later do so because they're simply not as safe as bikes that have freewheels. It's a pity for the few people that started this trend and that know their stuff and are only endangering themselves, but now that the masses are flooding in and are copying the couriers legislation seems to be the answer taken by the authorities. In the Netherlands, bicycle country #2 after China I believe they've been illegal since 1950 or so.
- rb2k_ 16y agoWhich Suburb?
- train_robber 16y agoPlochingen, last stop on S1.
- rb2k_ 16y agoThanks, was just wondering (Stgt-Vaihingen here)
- zwieback 16y agoI grew up in a suburb of Stuttgart and rode my bike everywhere - the hills are execellent to speed down and burn fat on the way up. Now I live in Corvallis and it's a great bike town as well.
- noonespecial 16y agoI lived in Frankfurt for many years when I was young and just took for granted the fact that I could bike just about anywhere without tangling with cars. Paths through the forest, farm roads, bike paths through towns, one could just ride forever. When I returned to the USA where I was born, I noticed that every American had a gaggle of dusty, low quality bikes in their garages that never got used. There were no bike paths anywhere and riding on the roads looked like suicide. I once asked someone why they even had the bikes; where do you ride them? He answered without hesitation that you could load the bikes in the car and drive across town to where there was a park with a bike trail. I though it was a quick witted joke (load the bikes in the car and drive to ride them). It was not.
- fatguy 16y agoI shifted to Atlanta for college, and even the campus is not that bike friendly. I am terrified of cars, and for some reason most people in cars in atlanta are mean.
- Kliment 16y agoNice to see another Köln-resident here. Meet up at some point?
- stevoski 16y agoDitto...
- bitboxer 16y agoYeah...a HN Cologne Meetup would be great!
- paines 16y agowäre dabei
- bitboxer 16y agoEveryone: write me at bodo (a) bitboxer . de . I will setup a google group and stuff for a cologne hn meetup.
- bitboxer 16y agoGroup opened: http://groups.google.com/group/hackernews-cologne http://groups.google.com/group/hackernews-cologne
- coffeejunk 16y agoI now live in Munich, which also calls itself a bike town. Although there are a lot of people riding their bikes, the streets are not at all as bike friendly as the ones in Münster. Each trip is somewhere between a suicide mission and a pleasant journey depending on where you want to go.
- moconnor 16y agoI'm in Munich too; compared to the UK it feels like a cyclist's paradise, especially with the ubahn as a backup in case the heavens really open.
- limmeau 16y agoWhat's the U-Bahn's policy on taking along bikes?
- ugh 16y agoNot during rush hour (6-9am, 4-6pm), and your bike needs a ticket (€2.50/day). http://www.muenchen.de/verticals/Mobilitaet/Fahrrad/Rad_U_S_Bahn/266167/432fahrradmitnahme.html http://www.muenchen.de/verticals/Mobilitaet/Fahrrad/Rad_U_S_... That’s not very friendly, I wouldn’t use that except in emergencies. That’s probably why you don’t see bikes on the U-Bahn.
- lispm 16y agoHere in Hamburg you don't need a ticket for the bicycle. Busses also may transport them. Ferries are free, too.
- limmeau 16y agoIn Freiburg, you can only take them along in trains, not buses or tramways, and it costs an unreduced adult ticket most of the time on most of the lines. You can't even buy your bike its own monthly pass. So while the city itself is bike-friendly, its public transportation is at most bike-tolerant.
- 16y ago
- organicgrant 16y agoEver notice that in much of Europe bikes get used for work as well as general transportation/play? In EU: postman, grocery getting/delivery, common commute vehicle, etc etc In USA: NYC bike couriers.
- ugh 16y agoI have met quite a few Americans who think of biking as a sport first and as a means of transport second which is exactly opposite to how I perceive biking (I’m from Germany). That might have something to do with city planning (many places where you would want to go are actually realistically reachable by bike), it might (and I’m quite fond of that hypothesis) also have something to do with driving age. 16 in the USA, 18 in Germany.
- coffeejunk 16y agoDriving age is definitely a big factor, but also public transportation. The village I lived during my childhood had literally no public transportation. Therefore the only option to get anywhere was the bike.
- roc 16y agoIt's considered sport first, because transportation by bike is usually impractical in the US. (Outside of maybe a half-dozen cities and some one-off "I work a mile from home" anecdotes, it's almost entirely impractical) The average commute (one-way) is about 25km. There will be no bike lanes. The drivers on the road will generally have no clue how they should deal with you, if they even notice you. The sidewalks (where US bikers sometimes find refuge, as no-one walks in America either) are sporadic, at best. Your destination probably won't have so much as a simple bike rack, let alone a shower. Because of this, when adults in America think of biking, they (generally) think of putting their bikes on the car and driving to a place that was designed to have decent/sane space for biking. (usually parks) Children can effectively bike around subdivisions, mostly because they have nowhere to go aside from their friends houses and the corner store. So biking is seen by adults as either being sport, or --frankly-- a whimsical sort of transport. Because to bike in most the US you have to be, in some sense, not serious about trying to get anywhere.
- bobbyflanders 16y agoIn other words, I should come into work completely drenched in sweat? In many parts of the USA, it is very humid and temperatures can easily reach 90 and above. How do you expect people to bike in such conditions? In addition, many people commute long distances to work, which may take up to an hour just by car. Bikes are great, but not very practical.
- bitboxer 16y agoI knew a guy who biked 50 Miles to work and showered at work. Everything is doable :) . A few friends of me bike in spain during the summer. You see, it can be done. All that's needed is a small shower at work and you are even fresher than by driving with your car. And sweating in the rush hour. If you drive more than 20 Miles you can't go by bike, yes, but you can drive shopping or to your friend by bike. Try to use it to go to the nearest pub on weekends. Just try it :) .
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- davidu 16y agoIt gets humid in Europe, too. They survive.
- masklinn 16y agoMost of Europe is far drier than the US. I don't know of any place in Europe which would be similar to Japan or Florida (consistent high heat and very high humidity during months on end in Summer), though they might very well exist.
- delackner 16y agoWhat's your point exactly? I bicycle to work in the heat and humidity you are describing, every day. As someone else said, if you just cruise at a conservative pace, you don't even sweat very much.
- harscoat 16y ago21st Century, that anybody can argue against (in this thread or elsewhere) that going by bike to work is way better, healthier, more humanly fulfilling, than by car leaves me speechless. Vote for mayors pro bike roads or ask for showers at work, there is always a solution.
- whatusername 16y agoSome of us live in cities where it rains pretty frequently. Today would be lovely on a bike. Yesterday in the rain - not so much.
- bitboxer 16y agoMuenster is one of the cities with the most raining days in germany. Still nearly everyone drives by bike. There is no such thing as bad weather. Only bad choice in clothing :).
- harscoat 16y agoI understand, I just said "argue against", not "evbdy has to".
- whatusername 16y agoI was arguing against the "better". For the record - I catch the train. But even when I lived close enough to ride - I caught the tram or train -- more protection from weather and much less sweat.
- gritzko 16y agoNetherlands is a really rainy country. Still, bikes are extremely popular, like the average is 2 bikes per person. The typical commute scheme is (1) bike to the station, then (2) train (trains are good, really good), then (3) another bike to work.
- harscoat 16y agoTo illustrate the "humanely fulfilling": while students in Rotterdam, we had to ride our bikes back 5km from a pub... it just started raining, but while biking the sky literaly fell on us. We arrived soaking wet, drenched. Among us, this remains one of our best memories.
- SpacemanSpiff 16y agoReminds me of this lovely movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDqUKj1GwJY&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDqUKj1GwJY&feature=relat... Makes me miss living in Berlin!
- Luc 16y agoI think having the right legal framework helps a lot to get a good bicycle culture. Here in Belgium, when a car hits a bicyclist, the car driver's insurance will always pay for bodily damage of the bicyclist, even if the bicyclist is at fault. Most streets where I live (in the center of Antwerp) are one-way for cars, but two-way for bicycles. And cars are limited to 30 km/h. My wife goes to work on her bicycle and gets paid for it (per km) by her employer, enough to buy a new bike every year. At busy crossings with stop lights, bicycles get a designated space in front of the cars. That way when the light turns green the bicyclists can get going first, safely turn etc. I just saw 2 policemen on bicycles pass in front of my window... Measures like these help make bicycling something accepted by society, not something only crazy lycra-clad hipsters do.
- jacquesm 16y agoContrast that with cycling in the states where you're derided and people throw stuff at you from passing cars (beer cans seem to be a favourite projectile). In the cities it's still somewhat doable but outside it's simply impossible. No separate lanes, cars passing you within inches, risking you being clipped by a mirror.
- sliverstorm 16y agoThat happens most often when you are on a road you really don't belong on. Are you familiar with Highway 9? (for those who don't know, twisty steep 2-lane mountain road, very popular with bicyclists who ride in the middle of the lane and later complain about all the cars) Though they love it to death, that road was not built for cyclists, and it's far too expensive to expand it to give the cyclists their own lane.
- akgerber 16y agoExcept those bicyclists pay taxes too, and have the exact same legal right to use the road. Riding in the "middle" of the road is a necessary technique to prevent being passed danngerously closely. Neither of those things justifies being assaulted. As a side note, it appears that SR-9 near Silicon Valley existed long before automobiles, and thus was not built for automobiles either. It was probably "built for" horse wagons and pedestrians, and used by bicyclists years before any motorist.
- brc 16y agoI get the point - and I support the development of car-free suburbs for people who want them. Streets safe for children, people saying hello instead of staring from behind closed windows, etc. Less local pollution, more friendly streets, less accidents : all pluses. I just don't want to see some zealot telling me I can't have a car, and that I am some sort of evil person for having one. Further, not everywhere is suitable. Someone riding around cities near me have got high humidity and steep hills to deal with : you don't ride a bike without some serious fitness. Those cruisy bikes you see in Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Cambridge are of no use. What I'm saying : there should be no laws against this type of thing, and no laws saying you should do it. Entirely personal choice all round. For my part I have a large car but work from home, so it gets driven maybe once per fortnight. There's no way I would part with it : it's my ticket to freedom when I do choose to get out and about. And I enjoy it thoroughly when I do.
- eru 16y agoI find lots of strange laws (or just rules / contracts) much more acceptable locally, where you can choose to live in this community or not --- than would be acceptable on a larger scale like a nation.
- whatajoke 16y ago> I just don't want to see some zealot telling me I can't have a car, and that I am some sort of evil person for having one. Not everybody thinks about you when choosing the people they want to live with. You argue like a conservative asshole berating a bunch of hippies for choosing their own way of life. > What I'm saying : there should be no laws against this type of thing, and no laws saying you should do it. Entirely personal choice all round. That is entirely upto the people living in those subuebs. If they decide that you should drive your car around rather than through their suburb, then I don't see how it violates your personal freedom. Next you will be bitching about congestion charges.
- brc 16y agoYou missed my point. If you read my comment, I think it's a good idea. I just don't want legislation either for or against the idea. If people want to live in car-less suburbs, I support that. I don't support being forced to live in a car-less suburb, that's all.
- forinti 16y agoI guess you have to have lived through a car phase to discover that you can do without and be better off. Here in Brazil people are currently enamoured by their new wealth and I see cars getting bigger and bigger.
- khandelwal 16y agoOne of the great things about riding your bike into downtown (or into town) is that parking for bikes is easier to find and closer to your destination than that for cars. For years, the only way I'd go to the Alamo Drafthouse in downtown Austin was by bike.
- ritarius 16y agocheck out my tangentially related project: http://abogo.cnt.org/ http://abogo.cnt.org/ tells you how much the average household in your neighborhood spends on transportation. Let me know what you think!
- Marticus 16y agoBut being the NY Times, are we sure they didn't just jump the gun again and it's all misrepresented? MAYBE THEY RIDE MOPEDS.
- organicgrant 16y agoMopeds aren't cars
- pragmatic 16y agoIsn't this a simple function of population density? Can we just say that and be done with this stupid argument? If the US had the population density of Japan or parts of Europe, yes we could all bike and have super fast broadband. That's not the case.
- roc 16y agoThe US doesn't have the population density of Japan or Europe because of our zoning laws. The barriers to even try these kinds of developments in the US are massive. The barriers to build yet-another cul-de-sac subdivision of mcmansions that are proven to increase congestion, travel-time, stress, infrastructure cost, individual waste and municipal waste are non-existent. Zoning laws dictate density. We have sprawl because our laws engineered it and we were lucky enough to have the wealth and space to allow such frivolous waste to continue for so long.
- MichaelSalib 16y agoI don't think this argument works. For starters, parts of the US are very high density: density in NYC or Boston or SFO exceeds that of many European cities. And yet we don't have super fast broadband for super low prices in those places in general, even though though the density is high enough to support it. It seems a little ridiculous that people in extremely high density environments in the US have much worse broadband options that people living in rural Sweden.
- akgerber 16y agoMost American cities and streetcar suburbs are built at a density where it is very practical to bike. Even many new suburbs are built at a bikable density, though the non-grid/non-connecting infrastructure is often such that trips are twice as long as they should be, and in high-speed traffic.
- organicgrant 16y agoI like this article, because it's really about noncomformity. Hackers aren't afraid of social and cultural norms. To be truly excellent, you can't follow the crowd. 98% of zoning laws in the US are about maintaining the status quo. The status quo is sort of meh. Hackers, bikers, entrepreneurs, and other daring souls mix it up. And the world is a better place for it. Mix it up.
- nradov 16y agoMy office building is finally going to install showers. :-) But someone stole my bike. :-(