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This is certainly a case where the small size and compact nature of European cities give them advantages over American ones. Forget four miles, I have drive fo

This is certainly a case where the small size and compact nature of European cities give them advantages over American ones. Forget four miles, I have drive forty each way for prior commutes. Biking is great if you're a yuppie making six figures a year at a cushy, white-collar tech job. Not so much if you have to go to a client, have to do something physical, or even work in an office in the rest of the world. Let alone if you are a blue-collar worker, and possibly have to bring tools, equipment, etc. Telecommuting may mitigate this problem, but only for a small sub-set of workers for now, and even long term the fact remains that people still need to go into an office at least occasionally, and a good number of people can't get to work feasibly by bike. Plus, most people want to go somewhere after work, to the store and to church once a week, etc. This is orders of magnitude larger than a mile and a half (apparently the dutch average). I don't see why electric cars can't accomplish sustainability goals without trying to force a demographic shift of that scale (which is very unlikely to happen).

matt4077 7y ago
I'm not sure if the average European city, or the city/town the average European lives in, is smaller or larger than in the US (in terms of population). I live in Berlin, with the population only slightly smaller than Los Angeles, and about 30% of the people regularly use bikes. Almost all trips I take somehow come out to about 4-6km, or 20 to 30min. L.A. isn't even that much larger (1300km^2 to 900km^2). But anecdotally it seems to me like long commutes across metro regions are far more common? As for blue-collar workers, I just recently saw a local plumber had switched to one of those cargo bikes. He said he had customers mostly within a 2x2km area, and was spending 20% of his days searching for parking spaces before.
kqr 7y ago
> I don't see why electric cars can't accomplish sustainability goals Because anything resembling a personal automobile is 1. Still enormously dangerous to everyone else on the same road; 2. Takes up a ridiculous chunk of space; 3. Doubly so when parked/not used; 4. Does not navigate nimbly in traffic; 5. Rips up tarmac and damages road surfaces; 6. Makes a fair amount of noise still; I could go on but I think you get the point. It's not only about CO2 emissions, it's also about its place among the humans it shares living spaces with.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  Not to mention that the environmental impact of manufacturing them is substantially higher than that of manufacturing a bike.

matt4077 7y ago

I'm not sure if the average European city, or the city/town the average European lives in, is smaller or larger than in the US (in terms of population). I live in Berlin, with the population only slightly smaller than Los Angeles, and about 30% of the people regularly use bikes. Almost all trips I take somehow come out to about 4-6km, or 20 to 30min. L.A. isn't even that much larger (1300km^2 to 900km^2). But anecdotally it seems to me like long commutes across metro regions are far more common? As for blue-collar workers, I just recently saw a local plumber had switched to one of those cargo bikes. He said he had customers mostly within a 2x2km area, and was spending 20% of his days searching for parking spaces before.

kqr 7y ago

> I don't see why electric cars can't accomplish sustainability goals Because anything resembling a personal automobile is 1. Still enormously dangerous to everyone else on the same road; 2. Takes up a ridiculous chunk of space; 3. Doubly so when parked/not used; 4. Does not navigate nimbly in traffic; 5. Rips up tarmac and damages road surfaces; 6. Makes a fair amount of noise still; I could go on but I think you get the point. It's not only about CO2 emissions, it's also about its place among the humans it shares living spaces with.

JohnFen 7y ago
Not to mention that the environmental impact of manufacturing them is substantially higher than that of manufacturing a bike.