3 ms·

Hard to mince words regarding the statistics on cars. You read and responded to the comment, so they clearly drive engagement. Walking, biking, taking the bus,

Hard to mince words regarding the statistics on cars. You read and responded to the comment, so they clearly drive engagement. Walking, biking, taking the bus, carpooling are incredibly convenient for anyone willing to try, and I certainly support efforts to improve the facilities for these at all opportunities. There are uncomfortable truths that need to be addressed about cars, however, and you don't get anywhere by avoiding it. Imagine if there were an easily preventable disease causing ~40000 deaths every year that would actually save us money to solve and help the climate situation as well. Would you ask to temper the rhetoric?

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
Yes, because your rhetoric is counterproductive. People don't like being yelled at, and people don't like feeling forced. To get change, you need to persuade them to pull in your direction, not to give you the finger. Look, you need to say that we can prevent these deaths. You really do. But don't say it the way you did. You don't get buy-in that way.
noirbot 7y ago
I'm not sure if "convenient" is really the right word for it. I recently moved to a new job, and my commute is now 20-30 minutes by car. My new office has bike facilities and showers, and isn't too far from public transit, and is generally about as optimal as you can get for non-driving commuting in this city. I still drive because biking is A. pretty physically grueling in a number of common weather conditions ( greater than 100 degree or less than 32 degree temps for much of the year, carrying my bike up 2-3 flights of stairs... ) B. Going to take 2-3x the time per day, before time spent showering on each end of an hour-long ride in brutal heat... Public transit is a 1+ mile walk/ride on either end of it (same problems as above), means I can only get in/out of work at specific times, and still takes 2-3x longer than driving. That's before we get into the 2000 serious injury-causing accidents that people get in on bikes per year in my state, many of which are in my county. I really hate cars, but I'm mostly driving slow and on low-speed roads. I'm very unlikely to die or be seriously injured. That's not something I can rely on on a bike commute. I'm looking to move closer to the office so I can mitigate some of these because I earnestly hate driving this much, but I wouldn't claim that that's going to make biking/walking "incredibly convenient", just acceptably less inconvenient.
- telchar 7y ago
  An e-bike would go a long way to materialize the convenience promised by biking. Prices are coming down quite a bit as well. Maybe look into that, they're fun too.
  - noirbot 7y ago
    I'm not totally sure it would. Going 20+ MPH on a bike only makes the safety issues worse, without making the commute all that much faster in a way that would reduce how long I'm in the hot/cold/rain.
monkeywork 7y ago
Except this isnt an easily preventable disease, nor is it an easily curable one. Tempering the rhetoric in place of actually presenting facts and ideas in a non combative way that offers something of actual tangible value to people will vastly do more to accomplish the goals then trying to shame or beat down ppl.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago

Yes, because your rhetoric is counterproductive. People don't like being yelled at, and people don't like feeling forced. To get change, you need to persuade them to pull in your direction, not to give you the finger. Look, you need to say that we can prevent these deaths. You really do. But don't say it the way you did. You don't get buy-in that way.

noirbot 7y ago

I'm not sure if "convenient" is really the right word for it. I recently moved to a new job, and my commute is now 20-30 minutes by car. My new office has bike facilities and showers, and isn't too far from public transit, and is generally about as optimal as you can get for non-driving commuting in this city. I still drive because biking is A. pretty physically grueling in a number of common weather conditions ( greater than 100 degree or less than 32 degree temps for much of the year, carrying my bike up 2-3 flights of stairs... ) B. Going to take 2-3x the time per day, before time spent showering on each end of an hour-long ride in brutal heat... Public transit is a 1+ mile walk/ride on either end of it (same problems as above), means I can only get in/out of work at specific times, and still takes 2-3x longer than driving. That's before we get into the 2000 serious injury-causing accidents that people get in on bikes per year in my state, many of which are in my county. I really hate cars, but I'm mostly driving slow and on low-speed roads. I'm very unlikely to die or be seriously injured. That's not something I can rely on on a bike commute. I'm looking to move closer to the office so I can mitigate some of these because I earnestly hate driving this much, but I wouldn't claim that that's going to make biking/walking "incredibly convenient", just acceptably less inconvenient.

telchar 7y ago
An e-bike would go a long way to materialize the convenience promised by biking. Prices are coming down quite a bit as well. Maybe look into that, they're fun too.
- noirbot 7y ago
  I'm not totally sure it would. Going 20+ MPH on a bike only makes the safety issues worse, without making the commute all that much faster in a way that would reduce how long I'm in the hot/cold/rain.

monkeywork 7y ago

Except this isnt an easily preventable disease, nor is it an easily curable one. Tempering the rhetoric in place of actually presenting facts and ideas in a non combative way that offers something of actual tangible value to people will vastly do more to accomplish the goals then trying to shame or beat down ppl.