9 ms·

I'm curious as to what planet you'd have to be living on to think that if we have billions of dollars to spare on huge transport infrastructure projects that ar

• donjoe 7y ago
  Yah... Bad weather isn't an argument though. I'm faster with my bike no matter the weather. Especially when it's snowing outside. Gosh, snow slows cars down massively. I love this time of the year: no one tends to speed any more since drivers are afraid of crashing their cars.
  • missosoup 7y ago
    Try riding to work on a 45 degree australian summer day when the UV index is so high that 5 mins is enough to get serious sunburn.
    • urban_winter 7y ago
      The UV issue is a red herring. There are many reasons why people need to be outside and cycling is only one of them. UV is a manageable problem for walkers and outdoor workers, cyclists are not a special case. I guess that you've never been on a bike on a very hot day. It's much, much more pleasant to be ventilated by your self-created airflow on a bike than it is to to have sweat pouring down your back as you walk around.
      • missosoup 7y ago
        I guess you've never experienced a 40-45c day. You sound like one of the regular tourist types we get who dismiss how seriously we take summer conditions and then end up with heatstroke and skin peeling off from sunburn. The 'self-created airflow' INCREASES the rate at which you gain temperature. Windchill is only 'chill' when the ambient air temperature is lower than your core temp. To cycle on a summer day, you need to slather yourself in SPF-40 sunscreen including underneath clothing, wear SPF clothing, and make sure to be constantly drinking water. And when you get to your destination you're definitely going to need a shower. I'll take public transport over that, thanks. So does the majority of people.
        • Fricken 7y ago
          Evaporation can cool things to below ambient air temperature. It's why we sweat.
          • missosoup 7y ago
            The point is at air temps >39c, increasing airflow around you increases apparent temperature. The more wind you experience (or the faster you ride your bike) in those conditions, the more work your body needs to do for maintaining homeostasis via sweating. You will certainly not perceive a >39c wind as a 'cooling' wind in any conditions, and the faster that wind is the hotter it will feel.
            • adrianN 7y ago
              This depends strongly on humidity.
              • missosoup 7y ago
                No it doesn't. The efficiency of sweating depends on rel. humidity. Not what's being discussed here. The fact that increasing airflow will increase the rate at which you heat up (and how much heat your body must shed) if that airflow is hotter than your core body temperature is just physics 101. Why do you think fan-forced ovens have lower cooking times or temperatures in recipes?
                • phonypc 7y ago
                  The minimum temperature to which you can evaporatively cool something also depends on humidity. If evaporation is still doing anything (i.e. wet-bulb temperature does not exceed body temperature, in this context), increased airflow will absolutely still have a cooling effect.
        • dvdkhlng 7y ago
          To counter that: windchill also works at air temperature above body temperature due to evaporative cooling [0], as long as relative humidity does not reach extreme levels. Proper sports clothing (allowing good moisture transport) and sufficient drinking help with that. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler#Physical_principles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler#Physical_pr...
      • fiblye 7y ago
        Look up skin cancer rate maps. It’s no joke in Australia. People die and often. And then you have most populated regions in Asia with 40 degree summers with air so humid that taking a deep breath makes you cough. People still ride bikes, but there are days where it’s deadly to do so for long distance commuting. That’s not including typhoon periods where you’re liable to be whacked with debris and die (because work isn’t canceled for any reason).
        • jakecopp 7y ago
          Cars kill 65% as many people as skin cancer in Australia. Skin cancer is estimated to kill 1,725 in Australia in 2019 [1]. During 2018 there were 1,135 road deaths [2]. I think we could reduce the number of road deaths far faster than the number of skin cancer deaths would increase. [1]: https://melanoma.canceraustralia.gov.au/statistics https://melanoma.canceraustralia.gov.au/statistics [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_Australia_by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...
          • fiblye 7y ago
            Honestly, that's impressively high. Imagine how much worse it'd be if everyone spent their days walking around in the sun. There'd be more than enough skin cancer to offset the lost road deaths.
            • kaybe 7y ago
              Would shading all (/the majority) of the bike lanes be prohibitively expensive or doable? Encountering a problem should not make us come to a full stop and give up. edit: Or bicycles with roofs, similar to the car solution?
          • missosoup 7y ago
            > Cars kill 65% as many people as skin cancer in Australia. Which would become closer to 18% if the number of individuals exposed to prolonged sun time doubled (e.g. by promoting Cycling). We literally run public awareness TV campaigns telling people to stay out of direct sunlight as much as possible regardless of what protection they're wearing. I don't think you realise it but you're proving the point. Bikes are fine when the weather is favourable, but a lot of the people commenting here just don't grasp the fact that in some parts of the world, unfavourable weather doesn't mean you might sweat a bit, it means that the weather will make you sick and kill you in short order. The same people that dismiss warnings when visiting countries like AU and then leave with their skin peeling off.
    • donjoe 7y ago
      Been in these temps. Not in Australia though so can't talk about UV protection. Sunscreen helped me in other environments though. Doesn't 'Tour down under' happen during Australian summer months? Somehow they manage, too.
      • missosoup 7y ago
        I am sure that highly fit 20-30 year olds who train for marathons can manage. I am not sure how that translates to everyday commute for tens of millions of people of all fitness levels and ages. This 'if I can do it then surely everyone can do it' attitude is incredibly myopic given the scale of the issue. You represent less than 1% of the population (A total of 1% of Aussies report cycling to work once a month or more). Your views don't matter or don't apply for the other 99%.
        • donjoe 7y ago
          I hope you see your point of argument regarding weather conditions: just because you aren't able to deal with the circumstances doesn't mean that everyone else needs to be forced into car/climatized shadowy areas. The article is about giving space to -all- participants. Currently we highly prioritize cars due to arguments like the weather. As pointed out, weather is not an issue for many folks out there.
        • Karrot_Kream 7y ago
          Unfortunately, trying to make a solution bend to 100% of the population is equally myopic. Right now, car-based transportation networks have one set of tradeoffs that disadvantages one group of people. As silly as it would be, switching to a bicycle-only network would disadvantage another group of people. Rethinking of transportation mode-share is an exercise in decreasing and shifting the disadvantages and allocating different advantages, climate change being one concern.
    • flukus 7y ago
      Done in plenty of times, Queensland and Victoria, unless you're pasty white and have never stepped outside you aren't going to get burnt in 5 minutes, let alone seriously. I've done it with my normal cycling attire of a wife beater and shorts, still no burning. That's without any protection, but some sun screen, a hat and some long sleeves will prevent burning and save you from the long term skin cancer risks.
    • mytailorisrich 7y ago
      That's because Australia is populated by Northern Europeans who follow a Northern European lifestyle. This is completely as odds with the climate in most of the country. In turn this partly explains Australia's high emissions.
    • koyote 7y ago
      You ride to work in the middle of the day? As someone with very fair skin I check the UV index meticulously: there is no day in the year that I would be riding to or back from work with a UV index higher than 3 in Sydney. Now if I was cycling at 2pm on a summer's day I would use SPF50 sun cream or wear a UV shirt, just like I do when I walk outside at 2pm.
• abyssin 7y ago
  You could visit Amsterdam or Copenhagen, they aren't exactly tropical cities. And the situation isn't binary. Because switching to something else than individual cars as the default mode of transportation doesn't mean there's no way for disabled people to get around.
• enriquto 7y ago
  OK that public transportation is essential. But your climate argument is a bit shaky. Denmark and the Netherlands have comically bad weather all year round, yet bike transportation thrives on their cities. I'd say that an important factor of the viability of bikes is whether the city is flat. For example, biking in sunny and hilly Lisbon can be very tiring.
  • goto11 7y ago
    Denmark and Netherlands does not have "comically bad weather" for cycling. Rather they have temperate coastal climates without extreme heat or extreme cold or heavy snowfall - ideal for cycling year round. Yeah they have rain, but you can easily protect against that. Wind is not a big deal inside cities. It also helps that Copenhagen and Amsterdam are really flat cities.
• flexie 7y ago
  I don't mind the weather in Copenhagen where the amount of people who bikes every day exceeds the amount of people who take public transportation every day by around 50% (1). Weather in Copenhagen is rarely very cold or very warm. But Copenhagen weather is not "startlingly good all year-round". It rains quite often and temperatures are often close to zero or sub zero. And it's windy all the time. It even snows a few days a year. I don't think it's a question of either or. It's a question of prioritizing both bikes, and public transportation, and electric cars and scooters. Sadly, even in Copenhagen, where there are dedicated bike highways, elevated bike bridges, and generally very good biking conditions (mostly flat city), the amount of people who use cars every day far exceeds the amount of people who bike. 1: Page 11: https://www.regionh.dk/til-fagfolk/trafik/Analyser-og-rapporter-om-trafik/transport-for-greater-copenhagen/Documents/Analyse_af_offemtilig_transport_regionH_aug17.pdf https://www.regionh.dk/til-fagfolk/trafik/Analyser-og-rappor...
  • paganel 7y ago
    Copenhagen doesn’t have 40 degrees Celsius heatwaves in the summer nor winter blizzards that make you feel like you’re in Siberia, while places like the US East Coast (and I guess even the Chicago area in the Midwest) have them both.
    • vincnetas 7y ago
      But that does not mean that parts os US that have favorable conditions should not improve bike infrastructure. You are comparing one city (88.25 km²) to a country (9.834 million km²)
    • fergie 7y ago
      Copenhagen might not quite have 40C heatwaves, but it certainly has winter blizzards that make you feel like you’re in Siberia.
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• Kiro 7y ago
  > startlingly good weather year-round In Sweden people take the bike even when it's minus 20 degrees and snow everywhere.
  • Yetanfou 7y ago
    In some parts of Sweden they do. I live there and tend to cycle through wind and weather. Come springtime I'm joined by a host of cyclists but when autumn calls they quickly disappear into their cars, not to be seen until next spring. Sweden is big, Stockholm and Uppsala are not representative for the rest of the country.
• hannob 7y ago
  This "good weather" argument against biking is so bizarre and disconnected from reality... Have you ever noticed that the most biking friendly places in the world are in middle-to-northern europe? Copenhagen isn't a particularly sunny place. Many people don't care, if you give them good infrastructure they'll cycle with every weather.
  • glangdale 7y ago
    Copenhagen has much milder summers than both of the cities I've lived long-term (Sydney and Pittsburgh, PA) and considerably milder winters than Pittsburgh (and is far flatter). The thought of hopping on a bike in the Pittsburgh winter, with hilly, iced-over roads sounds at best something for the young and extremely able, or possibly the suicidal.
  • fit2rule 7y ago
    Indeed, there is much evidence that even when the weather is shit, getting some exercise is really much better for you than sitting in a static seat, parked in traffic.
    • bkor 7y ago
      In Netherlands a bike is a means of getting somewhere. If the argument is "getting exercise", the usage would be pretty much nothing.
  • fourneau 7y ago
    It’s a regional statement, not disconnected. The reality is that many people in North American live far from their workplaces and some of us live in areas of extreme cold. This is where 15m of exposed skin can result in frostbite. We bundle up, but by cycling we’ve turned the commute into an unnecessarily dangerous adventure. The same applies to cities further south: a non trivial amount of days are extremely hot and you’re risking heat strokes. Edit: don’t get me wrong. Bike infrastructure is awesome and I wish there were less cars on the roads, etc. We just have very different variables to play with so we need to come up with different distributions of mass transit vs personal transportation. Comfort is important!
• atoav 7y ago
  Wether is mostly a clothes and a comfort problem. I grew up on the countryside in the Alps and used the bicycle the majority of my life to commute, and that includes rain and snow. The days where cycling are impossible or dangerous depend on where you are living, but in my case it was around 4 days a year. However I think when citylab is writing about the balance between cars and bicycles, they are refering to cities, where you (A) wouldn’t ban cars completely because of delivery and people with mobility problems and (B) the usage of cars by everybody has very tangible problems attached to it (space, noise, pollution, air quality). And when we are talking about balance we are usually talking about one that is extremely on the side of the car anyways. Even in european cities there is are often two 1 meter bicycle lanes for six 3 meter car lanes and as a cyclist who often rides on crowded bicycle lanes while the streets next to me are empty, I can just dream of the things that could be done with the space of one car lane. I have also lived for some time in Denmark and the Netherlands, where cycling is extremely widespread and I know what difference the infrastructure makes. When you cycle in a big german city you have to be constantly on the watch to not get overlooked by motorists, in the Netherlands nearly everbody cycles and the infrastructure is so much better, that cycling feels (and probably is) much less dangerous. This is also why it is more popular there. That beeing said, I don’t believe that cycling alone will be the solution of the cities of the future. Cheap and good public transport systems and a clever network of delivery routes will also be needed. And those who really need a car will certainly be granted permissions to use them (as they are now when it comes to all european historical city centers/pedestrian areas). The spry Euro-oldsters you mentioned seem to swear on E-bikes, because they can use electricity when they have to go up steep hills or just feel like it. Gives them the security they will make it even if their powers are running out. They would probably say sth. like: “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes”
  • code_code 7y ago
    An illustration: How I Learned to Cycle Like a Dutchman https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/how-i-learned-to-cycle-like-a-dutchman https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/how-i-lea...
• Alex3917 7y ago
  If people biked more then there would be less disabled people. No one who spends a couple hours a day on a bike is losing a leg to diabetes. Or getting hurt in a car accident, if they aren’t near cars.
  • asjw 7y ago
    Diabetes is a genetic condition No one is not having diabetes because is biking...
    • adrianN 7y ago
      T2 diabetes is mostly a lifestyle disease.
• glangdale 7y ago
  I appear to have kicked off a frenzy of folks eurosplaining to me that they personally ride in deep snow, howling gales, and see no reason that people in hot climates (including hot humid climates with near 100% humidity, or extreme heat events) can't cycle everywhere at all times. Also they will all be happily cycling when they are 80 just like Grandpa Josef and Great-grandma Helga, etc. Congrats, but the statistics are not going to be with you world-wide. As I said, I'm pro-cycling. Good for you, all you hardy souls. But it is a seriously boneheaded point of view to imagine that cycling is going to be more important as a mode of transport than public transport in most of the world under the conditions that exist now. There's a large plurality - even in the totally cycle-happy countries - of people that don't ride, and that's a majority past a certain age. These people will get a small benefit (aside from cleaner air and fewer cars on the road, which is nice) from cycling infrastructure. Conversely, a drastic improvement in public transit infrastructure benefits almost everyone - cyclists are pedestrians and transit users some of the time, and they will also benefit from getting cars off the road. Frankly a lot of folks are confusing their hobby with good public policy.
  • odiroot 7y ago
    > eurosplaining As a European myself this made me laugh hard. Yes, people here have a tendency to see everything in black and white and be really religious about their way of life.
    • fit2rule 7y ago
      .. and thus, Americans still spend hours of their day parked in traffic.
    • Yetanfou 7y ago
      While I also grinned at this inventive term my gut reaction is one of please not another one of those discussion-stopper epithets, free discussion is threatened enough as it is.
  • tralarpa 7y ago
    > I appear to have kicked off a frenzy of folks eurosplaining Ah, come on. You asked for it, didn't you? You wrote "I'm guessing it's a special magic planet with startlingly good weather year-round, without disabled people, where everyone gets to age into spry Euro-oldsters". Of course, such an extreme statement will trigger a reaction from people who actually experience every day what you claim to be impossible. It's not possible in every city and it's not possible for everybody, but it's possible in more places than we think once we accept the idea. One quarter of the Dutch population cycles every day and the number of cycling people (obviously lower than the average) over 65 is actually increasing thanks to better a infrastructure and, of course, e-bikes. And talking about hot climates: You remember the pictures from South China in the 1970s or 1980s where everybody was cycling because cars were too expensive and public transport was bad? Now everybody has a car and nobody with a sane mind would cycle in China.
• vhold 7y ago
  It's not a zero sum game. Improving bicycling also improves public transit and walkability usually because bicycles take up so much less room than cars so buses have more space, and it's extremely rare for a bicycle to injure a pedestrian, but it happens hundreds of times a day just in the US alone with cars. Also bicycle infrastructure is way cheaper to build and maintain than car infrastructure. And even when bicycle infrastructure is totally busted for awhile, people find a way around, where as with cars if there is any blockage it becomes an incredibly high priority emergency.
  • briandear 7y ago
    https://www.mountainview.gov/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?BlobID=26394 https://www.mountainview.gov/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx... Most bike-car accidents are the fault of the cyclist, at least in Mountain View.
    • bkor 7y ago
      I once made a mistake on my bike, I didn't watch properly and overlooked a car. Fortunately the car watched out and stopped. What's entirely strange is to blame one person and blame all the fault on the other. Accidents happen. What's great is to find ways to minimize them. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model
  • asjw 7y ago
    In my 44 years on this planet, having traveled a lot in many biking friendly cities and living in one, the opposite is true. Cars respect pedestrian much more than bikers do As a walker I hate walking in Belgium or Berlin, where you have to share the sidewalks with bikes that usually go high speed, faster than the average car, don't look too much around them and treat pedestrian as obstacles (try to walk on a bike lane in Bruxelles or Berlin and wait for the biker to start a fight with you, it's not gonna take long) If you optimize you infrastructures for basically unregulated means of transport, you're just moving assholes from cars to bikes. At least when they are on a car they can be policed and fined. Bikes should share roads with cars, they have wheels, they are not pedestrian friends.
• everyone 7y ago
  Earth, a few decades ago, before the dominion of cars? Earth, today, in Denmark / Netherlands. Kneejerk reactions like yours, without looking into the issue at all, are the main hurdle.
• Karrot_Kream 7y ago
  > that it should go to bikes and not public transport + walkability. The article specifically talks about switching our mindset away from a strictly bike lane oriented world view to one that emphasizes diversity in micromobility solutions. That's why it wants the reader to "Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes". Public transport and especially walkability do not contrast with this viewpoint.
• eloisant 7y ago
  The point is not to ban cars completely, but to also accomodate other means of transportation as well. Also in city centers only limit cars to a strict minimum (delivery, disabled people, etc). Honestly, I feel like a broken record bringing again countries and cities where it's working, they're not magical countries but real countries where different choices have been made.
• woile 7y ago
  I've been living in Amsterdam for a few years now, and with the bike lanes it feels like disabled people are SUPER included. You can see a lot of people in the bike lanes with mobility problems, in their electric wheelchairs, scooters, etc. Completely impossible in my car oriented city, specially because these people often cannot afford a car in their situation. It's so nice to see an old lady going in her electric vehicle in the bike line.
• rossng 7y ago
  > billions of dollars to spare on huge transport infrastructure projects that aren't cars Cycling infrastructure is almost ludicrously cheap. You can build pretty good bike infrastructure for a decent-sized city with O(€100m). A single metro line normally costs O(€1bn). The reason that bike infrastructure doesn't get built isn't cost - it's political. Car users don't like having lanes and parking spaces taken away from them. > startlingly good weather year-round Not _everywhere_ has weather suitable for cycling. However, a lot of places do have suitable weather and yet no infrastructure. That leaves plenty of room for improvement. Many cities could be suitable for cycling with some effort - e.g. clearing snow from bike lanes (see Copenhagen) or adding shade. > disabled people Cycling infrastructure is actually great for many disabled people. It makes safe space available for specially-adapted bicycles and mobility scooters.[1] > spry Euro-oldsters As far as I know, there's not much of an inherent genetic difference between the Dutch and the rest of the world. Perhaps having an active lifestyle is what _causes_ you to age into a 'spry Euro-oldster' - and is something everyone should aspire to. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/jan/02/cambridge-disabled-people-cycling-rolling-walking-stick https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/jan/02/cambridge-dis...
• L_Rahman 7y ago
  German interest rates are below zero right now. There actually are hundreds of billions of dollars flying around the world chasing the slightest hint of return. So yes, we do have the money. Also MMT.
• Dumblydorr 7y ago
  Public transport and bikes can both be important, the key is cars have been first everywhere for 100 years and both public transport and bikes are massively harmed by the huge incentives given to cars.