5 ms·

Same way you carry your car up the stairs park it in the bike garage or your car parking spot.

by jerven 7y ago

inertiatic 7y ago
My car gets parked across the street from my apartment building. Doesn't get stolen and doesn't care about rain. My bike spent a single winter out on my balcony after we needed the space inside the apartment for baby stuff. It's now rusty in multiple spots. My previous bike, I left on the small back yard of my last apartment, locked up. It got stolen a few months after I started doing that. So again, this is not feasible for a lot of people, myself included, and it's very privileged to think that everyone has access to a garage next to their home.
- enriquto 7y ago
  > My car gets parked across the street from my apartment building. Offtopic, but this has to end. I do not understand how it is socially acceptable to put huge pieces of your private property on the public streets. You cannot just put your washing machine on the street because you have nowhere else to put it! Why can you do that with a car?
  - inertiatic 7y ago
    Are you complaining about the public using public space intended for that usage?
    - enriquto 7y ago
      I am complaining about the assignment for that intended usage. Why do we allow this usage? It takes most of the usable surface of the city for the storage of ugly, static objects. I would rather assign those spaces for other uses, like wider walkways, kids playgrounds, flowers, whatever.
      - code_code 7y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking
        enriquto 7y ago
        I like this argument. The government is effectively subsidizing a huge amount of real estate (to a huge cost, with the taxes collected from everyone), for the usage of free parking. I would prefer if all that money went instead to free housing, or free healthcare.
    - NickNameNick 7y ago
      This whole discussion is about changing planning for the allocation of public space...
  - briandear 7y ago
    Because I pay taxes for those spaces — often I even pay for the parking space itself. I pay gasoline taxes to pay for those roads. What gasoline taxes are bikes paying to use the roads? Are bikes paying registration fees? Tolls? Are they getting mandatory inspections each year?
    - tjr225 7y ago
      This is such a goofy argument. > What gasoline taxes are bikes paying to use the roads? Bikes can't pay taxes, neither can cars. People that own them can, and most cyclists I know also own a car. So if you're attempting to stipulate that people that ride bikes don't pay taxes on the infrastructure that they use, you're wrong- at least in my experience. In any case, bicycles cause far, far less damage - maybe even 0 damage - to the roads used by motorists. So, if a side effect of motorists paying taxes to build and maintain roads is that cyclists also get to use them for free, a sensible person would be okay with that. > Tolls? I can't think of a single toll road that I have ever been on in the US that was not a highway. Cyclists don't ride on highways unless absolutely necessary. In most cases this probably isn't even legal for the cyclist to ride on the toll road. > Are they getting mandatory inspections each year? Can you find even one example of a poorly maintained bicycle causing someone other than the rider's death/injury? Anyway, I don't even suspect that you read the article. Instead you just came in here to rant about how anti-cycling you are, which is not a great look, but suit yourself.
      - big_chungus 7y ago
        This is a goofy response. > bicycles cause far less damage... to the roads used by motorists This only holds true as long as bicycles are a small amount of traffic added on. It's like the SMS bands with telcos: a small bit of auxiliary slack being used for something else. If bicycles become a large part of the traffic, there will still be an impact. Even if the bikes don't tear the roads up much, elements and natural wear make up a fair part of that. If bikes take half the road rather than the break-down lane, they will need to start paying for it (even if not necessarily the same amount, dollar-for-dollar.) This argument is also relevant to electric cars. They tear up the roads, but are not taxed like normal cars are. Registration fees are also still relevant; at least some of that goes to administering a road network, which has to be done for cars or bikes. > Can you find even one example of a poorly-maintained bicycle causing someone other than the rider's death/injury? This is a silly standard to set, given present conditions. The people who use bicycles today are enthusiasts, fairly well-trained, and very likely to take care of equipment. If, however, it becomes commoditized, this will doubtless change. Cars didn't need much regulation at first, either; that changed at scale. > Anyway, I don't even suspect that you read the article. Instead you just came in here to rant about how anti-cycling you are, which is not a great look, but suit yourself. This is a poor attempt to dismiss someone's arguments out-of-hand. The point that he pays for certain amenities (even if they are subsidized more than they ought to be) is still valid. I did read the article, and it still leaves the biggest issue un-answered. Namely, _"micro-mobility", as it is therein-termed, only works on a micro scale_. Many cities aren't built this way, and it is only practical if you live in a tiny urban bubble. I've lived places where I drove forty-five miles each way for a commute. Why did I put up with this? Because I didn't want to live in the expensive, yuppie parts of town. For all that money, I'd have gotten a small apartment, built no land equity, and had very little space. I don't like it much in cities for this reason: everything is small, little green space, trash, crime, etc. The other option is the hippie neighborhood with seven-dollar-a-cup coffee shops on every corner; when those pop up, people instead complain gentrification is pricing out the poor. The reason I don't like the whole bike thing is because it's emblematic of a culture and a vision I don't like: everyone living densely-packed into the stereotypical SF or Seattle city. This isn't often argued, but it's part of the larger "culture war." I know on which side most people on HN fall, but most people on the other side like their culture the way it is. Telling them to just import the dutch bike culture isn't a good solution, and will work just about as well as any other time people have told another group to just import their culture.
  - maxsilver 7y ago
    > You cannot just put your washing machine on the street because you have nowhere else to put it! You actually can in the US, that's legal in many places as long as it isn't kept there permanently. (I.e, you leave it on a trailer). We even put our trash bins onto the street almost every week. But that's beside the point. > how it is socially acceptable to put huge pieces of your private property on the public streets. Because that's what public transporation is, and the value it imparts. We dedicated public streets to the public, because the value of public transportation is much higher than the small temporary cost of having any one person occupy it. Cars and roads are the most efficient form of public transportation ever invented so far (in terms of travel time, distance traveled, safety, and equability). That's not to imply they are perfect on any/all of these things, just better than the alternatives available today. Yes, in a perfect world, everyone would have a beautiful light rail train at their front door, that takes them everywhere and anywhere they ever need to go. But that level of infrastructure is insanely expensive, and the cost of that expense is pushed into the housing nearby that infrastructure. Paradoxically, the act of building alternative public transportation like this prices out most of the public you tried to transport, because the value of that infrastructure gets captured in rent, which gets passed onto residents. If you look at light rail, and say, "how can we get most of the benefits of light rail, but in a package cheap enough that most people could afford" or "what would a light rail train look like, if it could arrive at everyone's door, take them directly where they need to go, have the lowest construction cost to every possible location so as to have the lowest impact on land value and have the lowest possible detriment to housing prices" -- if you follow that line of thinking, you reinvent zero-emission EV cars and public freeways, which is why they are everywhere in the first place.
  - magduf 7y ago
    It's a good point. Parking should be allowed only on privately-owned land. Look at how it's done in Japan: you're actually not allowed to buy a car if you can't prove you have a place to park it.
- theaeolist 7y ago
  I don't know... by a cover to put on it? https://www.bakfiets.com/accessoires/cargobike-long/all-over-cover-long https://www.bakfiets.com/accessoires/cargobike-long/all-over...

Same way you carry your car up the stairs park it in the bike garage or your car parking spot.

by jerven 7y ago

Same way you carry your car up the stairs park it in the bike garage or your car parking spot.

My car gets parked across the street from my apartment building. Doesn't get stolen and doesn't care about rain. My bike spent a single winter out on my balcony after we needed the space inside the apartment for baby stuff. It's now rusty in multiple spots. My previous bike, I left on the small back yard of my last apartment, locked up. It got stolen a few months after I started doing that. So again, this is not feasible for a lot of people, myself included, and it's very privileged to think that everyone has access to a garage next to their home.

enriquto 7y ago
> My car gets parked across the street from my apartment building. Offtopic, but this has to end. I do not understand how it is socially acceptable to put huge pieces of your private property on the public streets. You cannot just put your washing machine on the street because you have nowhere else to put it! Why can you do that with a car?
- inertiatic 7y ago
  Are you complaining about the public using public space intended for that usage?
  - enriquto 7y ago
    I am complaining about the assignment for that intended usage. Why do we allow this usage? It takes most of the usable surface of the city for the storage of ugly, static objects. I would rather assign those spaces for other uses, like wider walkways, kids playgrounds, flowers, whatever.
    - code_code 7y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking
      - enriquto 7y ago
        I like this argument. The government is effectively subsidizing a huge amount of real estate (to a huge cost, with the taxes collected from everyone), for the usage of free parking. I would prefer if all that money went instead to free housing, or free healthcare.
  - NickNameNick 7y ago
    This whole discussion is about changing planning for the allocation of public space...
- briandear 7y ago
  Because I pay taxes for those spaces — often I even pay for the parking space itself. I pay gasoline taxes to pay for those roads. What gasoline taxes are bikes paying to use the roads? Are bikes paying registration fees? Tolls? Are they getting mandatory inspections each year?
  - tjr225 7y ago
    This is such a goofy argument. > What gasoline taxes are bikes paying to use the roads? Bikes can't pay taxes, neither can cars. People that own them can, and most cyclists I know also own a car. So if you're attempting to stipulate that people that ride bikes don't pay taxes on the infrastructure that they use, you're wrong- at least in my experience. In any case, bicycles cause far, far less damage - maybe even 0 damage - to the roads used by motorists. So, if a side effect of motorists paying taxes to build and maintain roads is that cyclists also get to use them for free, a sensible person would be okay with that. > Tolls? I can't think of a single toll road that I have ever been on in the US that was not a highway. Cyclists don't ride on highways unless absolutely necessary. In most cases this probably isn't even legal for the cyclist to ride on the toll road. > Are they getting mandatory inspections each year? Can you find even one example of a poorly maintained bicycle causing someone other than the rider's death/injury? Anyway, I don't even suspect that you read the article. Instead you just came in here to rant about how anti-cycling you are, which is not a great look, but suit yourself.
    - big_chungus 7y ago
      This is a goofy response. > bicycles cause far less damage... to the roads used by motorists This only holds true as long as bicycles are a small amount of traffic added on. It's like the SMS bands with telcos: a small bit of auxiliary slack being used for something else. If bicycles become a large part of the traffic, there will still be an impact. Even if the bikes don't tear the roads up much, elements and natural wear make up a fair part of that. If bikes take half the road rather than the break-down lane, they will need to start paying for it (even if not necessarily the same amount, dollar-for-dollar.) This argument is also relevant to electric cars. They tear up the roads, but are not taxed like normal cars are. Registration fees are also still relevant; at least some of that goes to administering a road network, which has to be done for cars or bikes. > Can you find even one example of a poorly-maintained bicycle causing someone other than the rider's death/injury? This is a silly standard to set, given present conditions. The people who use bicycles today are enthusiasts, fairly well-trained, and very likely to take care of equipment. If, however, it becomes commoditized, this will doubtless change. Cars didn't need much regulation at first, either; that changed at scale. > Anyway, I don't even suspect that you read the article. Instead you just came in here to rant about how anti-cycling you are, which is not a great look, but suit yourself. This is a poor attempt to dismiss someone's arguments out-of-hand. The point that he pays for certain amenities (even if they are subsidized more than they ought to be) is still valid. I did read the article, and it still leaves the biggest issue un-answered. Namely, _"micro-mobility", as it is therein-termed, only works on a micro scale_. Many cities aren't built this way, and it is only practical if you live in a tiny urban bubble. I've lived places where I drove forty-five miles each way for a commute. Why did I put up with this? Because I didn't want to live in the expensive, yuppie parts of town. For all that money, I'd have gotten a small apartment, built no land equity, and had very little space. I don't like it much in cities for this reason: everything is small, little green space, trash, crime, etc. The other option is the hippie neighborhood with seven-dollar-a-cup coffee shops on every corner; when those pop up, people instead complain gentrification is pricing out the poor. The reason I don't like the whole bike thing is because it's emblematic of a culture and a vision I don't like: everyone living densely-packed into the stereotypical SF or Seattle city. This isn't often argued, but it's part of the larger "culture war." I know on which side most people on HN fall, but most people on the other side like their culture the way it is. Telling them to just import the dutch bike culture isn't a good solution, and will work just about as well as any other time people have told another group to just import their culture.
- maxsilver 7y ago
  > You cannot just put your washing machine on the street because you have nowhere else to put it! You actually can in the US, that's legal in many places as long as it isn't kept there permanently. (I.e, you leave it on a trailer). We even put our trash bins onto the street almost every week. But that's beside the point. > how it is socially acceptable to put huge pieces of your private property on the public streets. Because that's what public transporation is, and the value it imparts. We dedicated public streets to the public, because the value of public transportation is much higher than the small temporary cost of having any one person occupy it. Cars and roads are the most efficient form of public transportation ever invented so far (in terms of travel time, distance traveled, safety, and equability). That's not to imply they are perfect on any/all of these things, just better than the alternatives available today. Yes, in a perfect world, everyone would have a beautiful light rail train at their front door, that takes them everywhere and anywhere they ever need to go. But that level of infrastructure is insanely expensive, and the cost of that expense is pushed into the housing nearby that infrastructure. Paradoxically, the act of building alternative public transportation like this prices out most of the public you tried to transport, because the value of that infrastructure gets captured in rent, which gets passed onto residents. If you look at light rail, and say, "how can we get most of the benefits of light rail, but in a package cheap enough that most people could afford" or "what would a light rail train look like, if it could arrive at everyone's door, take them directly where they need to go, have the lowest construction cost to every possible location so as to have the lowest impact on land value and have the lowest possible detriment to housing prices" -- if you follow that line of thinking, you reinvent zero-emission EV cars and public freeways, which is why they are everywhere in the first place.
- magduf 7y ago
  It's a good point. Parking should be allowed only on privately-owned land. Look at how it's done in Japan: you're actually not allowed to buy a car if you can't prove you have a place to park it.
theaeolist 7y ago
I don't know... by a cover to put on it? https://www.bakfiets.com/accessoires/cargobike-long/all-over-cover-long https://www.bakfiets.com/accessoires/cargobike-long/all-over...