3 ms·

Besides, on a bicycle it's easier to stop and park your bike if you see an interesting shop. When driving there is much more friction as you need to find a park

Besides, on a bicycle it's easier to stop and park your bike if you see an interesting shop. When driving there is much more friction as you need to find a parking spot and park there first.

Mirioron 7y ago
Is it though? Bikes are stolen far more often than cars and you can't carry as much on a bicycle either. Furthermore, you can't really go shopping with the family as a group unless you have specific gear to allow you to do that, because kids aren't going to travel these distances. I like bicycles, but actually going to a store with a bike is an annoying experience. One that I wish could be improved.
- abdullahkhalids 7y ago
  I don't know where you live, but a lot of time this argument is given by people who live in car-centric cities or neighbourhoods. If you live in a walking/biking friendly neighbourhood (like I did for a few years), then the grocery store/community center/other family centric shops are within a 15 minute walk for everyone living in the neighbourhood, a distance pretty much any healthy person age 6-60 can cover via walking/biking. Whether you are walking or biking you can take a rolling cart with you, which is easy to push (walking or in front/behind your bike) and which will hold as much grocery as you need for a family. Like you have to understand that a city designed from scratch for cars and one designed for walking/biking look very very different. Biking in one is hard and driving in the other is just as hard.
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    But sometimes you want to go shopping with the family to shops that you normally don't/can't visit. Everything that's within 15 minutes walking distance isn't going to be those shops. Regardless how you design a city, most shops even in a small city are going to be outside of that 15 minute walking distance too. The main problem I think is that there isn't always somewhere to put your bike safely when you go into the shops.
    - emj 7y ago
      That kind of thinking stems from having the car as a first choice, it's easy to go 50km with a car instead of 7km. If bicycle and walking become the first choice for short travels under 7 km then you will see that you can reach most things by bike, and are still able to take the car to do those far away shopping sprees. Yes bicycle parking is important, but it's relatively cheap, mostly because it does not need that much infrastructure.
- jpcooper 7y ago
  You can carry a lot on a bicycle. https://www.urbanarrow.com/en https://www.urbanarrow.com/en
abdullahkhalids 7y ago
The difference between bikes and cars is in the mean/variance of time to park. For a bike it takes about 1 minute or more to stop, detach/unlock your lock from the frame and lock your bike to a bike stand, then take off your helmet. You reverse this when you get back on the bike. The variance is also not that high on this number. For a car, the mean time varies greatly from location to location and the variance is much higher. You might get stuck several minutes searching or waiting for a parking spot or you might get a spot immediately and be walking to the shop in under 15 seconds. These differences have some effect on how much people want to bike/drive. I think one way of encouraging biking more would be to work on lock designs and bike stand design so it takes less time to park your bike.
- tda 7y ago
  I have both a fast electric bike and a normal bike. For the electric bike it indeed takes a minute or three to unlock, enter pin code on bike, put on helmet etc. That's why I prefer my normal bike for short distances, takes me 10 seconds to lock, and I can usually park it within 10m of where I want to be. There is really no faster way to get around in any Dutch city for say <2km, than a plain old bike. If I would go to the local supermarket it would take me longer to find a parking spot that the entire bike ride there.
- wh0knows 7y ago
  It sounds like you're describing a much different biking culture than is the one in the Netherlands. For a minor stop here it will take less than 10 seconds to park a bike. Usually there's bike parking or a stand on the street right in front of the shop, no need to look for anything, nobody wears helmets when biking in the Netherlands, and if you're not parking for a long time you just lock the back wheel by pulling out the key- no chain involved at all. So what this looks like in practice is hopping off your bike right in front of the shop/cafe/bar/restaurant and pulling out the key- that's it.

Besides, on a bicycle it's easier to stop and park your bike if you see an interesting shop. When driving there is much more friction as you need to find a parking spot and park there first.

Mirioron 7y ago

Is it though? Bikes are stolen far more often than cars and you can't carry as much on a bicycle either. Furthermore, you can't really go shopping with the family as a group unless you have specific gear to allow you to do that, because kids aren't going to travel these distances. I like bicycles, but actually going to a store with a bike is an annoying experience. One that I wish could be improved.

abdullahkhalids 7y ago
I don't know where you live, but a lot of time this argument is given by people who live in car-centric cities or neighbourhoods. If you live in a walking/biking friendly neighbourhood (like I did for a few years), then the grocery store/community center/other family centric shops are within a 15 minute walk for everyone living in the neighbourhood, a distance pretty much any healthy person age 6-60 can cover via walking/biking. Whether you are walking or biking you can take a rolling cart with you, which is easy to push (walking or in front/behind your bike) and which will hold as much grocery as you need for a family. Like you have to understand that a city designed from scratch for cars and one designed for walking/biking look very very different. Biking in one is hard and driving in the other is just as hard.
- Mirioron 7y ago
  But sometimes you want to go shopping with the family to shops that you normally don't/can't visit. Everything that's within 15 minutes walking distance isn't going to be those shops. Regardless how you design a city, most shops even in a small city are going to be outside of that 15 minute walking distance too. The main problem I think is that there isn't always somewhere to put your bike safely when you go into the shops.
  - emj 7y ago
    That kind of thinking stems from having the car as a first choice, it's easy to go 50km with a car instead of 7km. If bicycle and walking become the first choice for short travels under 7 km then you will see that you can reach most things by bike, and are still able to take the car to do those far away shopping sprees. Yes bicycle parking is important, but it's relatively cheap, mostly because it does not need that much infrastructure.
jpcooper 7y ago
You can carry a lot on a bicycle. https://www.urbanarrow.com/en https://www.urbanarrow.com/en

abdullahkhalids 7y ago

The difference between bikes and cars is in the mean/variance of time to park. For a bike it takes about 1 minute or more to stop, detach/unlock your lock from the frame and lock your bike to a bike stand, then take off your helmet. You reverse this when you get back on the bike. The variance is also not that high on this number. For a car, the mean time varies greatly from location to location and the variance is much higher. You might get stuck several minutes searching or waiting for a parking spot or you might get a spot immediately and be walking to the shop in under 15 seconds. These differences have some effect on how much people want to bike/drive. I think one way of encouraging biking more would be to work on lock designs and bike stand design so it takes less time to park your bike.

tda 7y ago
I have both a fast electric bike and a normal bike. For the electric bike it indeed takes a minute or three to unlock, enter pin code on bike, put on helmet etc. That's why I prefer my normal bike for short distances, takes me 10 seconds to lock, and I can usually park it within 10m of where I want to be. There is really no faster way to get around in any Dutch city for say <2km, than a plain old bike. If I would go to the local supermarket it would take me longer to find a parking spot that the entire bike ride there.
wh0knows 7y ago
It sounds like you're describing a much different biking culture than is the one in the Netherlands. For a minor stop here it will take less than 10 seconds to park a bike. Usually there's bike parking or a stand on the street right in front of the shop, no need to look for anything, nobody wears helmets when biking in the Netherlands, and if you're not parking for a long time you just lock the back wheel by pulling out the key- no chain involved at all. So what this looks like in practice is hopping off your bike right in front of the shop/cafe/bar/restaurant and pulling out the key- that's it.