5 ms·

Cycling also can go directly to specific locations, yet cycling is rare. For the particular case you described, the extra time (in most cases), the lack of carg

Cycling also can go directly to specific locations, yet cycling is rare. For the particular case you described, the extra time (in most cases), the lack of cargo capacity, and the inability to take more than one person might explain this. And I don't underestimate the stigma against cyclists or how much work people believe cycling is.

bobthepanda 7y ago
In recent years electric bikes have become cheaper and more common and are definitely a way to solve this problem. The only reason I don‘t own one is because outside of house and work there are few good secure locations to park a bike, and the area has a high rate of property crime.
- ben7799 7y ago
  Bikes generally fail pretty miserably at trucking children around. You're pretty much stuck going right to one of the giant dutch cargo bikes to carry kids and all their paraphernalia, and once you drop off your kid now you're riding a very slow very heavy bike that will take much longer to ride to your office and leave you much sweatier, especially since there's no flat easy bike infrastructure like the Netherlands. I'm a long time cyclist and I've done stuff like take my kid to daycare in a Burley trailer and lock the trailer at the day care and then ride the bike to my office, then go and bike to the daycare and hook the Burley back up but this stuff takes a tremendous amount of time. It's a LOT harder than bike commuting as a single person with a more flexible schedule. Day cares/schools put a lot of requirements on when you drop off and when you pick up which make it much harder to shift your schedule around to make bike commuting work as well.
  - bobthepanda 7y ago
    Electric bikes these days have ranges of 40+ miles, and provide assistance to maintain 20-25 mph, which would solve the "slow, very heavy bike" issue.
- sojournerc 7y ago
  I wonder about electric bikes sharing infrastructure with "manual" bikes. At what point is it just an electric motorcycle and should move to the road. There's a wide range of electric bikes from just pedal assist, to some you can just cruise, no pedaling. Speed difference between the normal bike rider and the electric bike rider introduces risks to using that bike infrastructure. I've personally had electric bikes fly past me on mixed use trails, and I'm not a slow cyclist. I think it may be too easy to reach unsafe speeds. It's odd to me that on trails where motorized vehicles aren't permitted, somehow electric bikes get a pass.
monksy 7y ago
Let's not forget infrastructure for it. Often times airports are off of major highways.
Finnucane 7y ago
I live in New England and ride to work pretty much every day. I've had to make some adjustments--for instance, it factors into shopping for clothes, having all-weather gear, and so on. Fortunately my ride is only about 3 miles each way, so it's not a hard ride. In fact, traffic around here is bad enough that driving takes the same amount of time. And being on the bike so much less stressful than being in the car.
- btrettel 7y ago
  Yes, I've pointed out to people that cycling doesn't necessarily take longer. At my previous apartment cycling and driving were comparable mainly because cyclists can park closer than drivers. Many drivers seem to think that counting the time spent parking is cheating, but as far as I'm concerned door-to-door time is what matters.
  - Noos 7y ago
    One of my old jobs was the next town over, fifteen minutes by highway. It was impossible to bicycle. If I were to work in the industrial park in my city it would take an hour or so. We have a lot of distribution centers and factories on the outskirts of town because no one wants to live next to a mushroom farm or distribution center, yet they provide a lot of jobs. A lot of you guys don't understand that not everyone is a wealthy 24 year old knowledge worker and can just live in the downtown and bicycle everywhere. People have cars because they enable you to even find work.
    - btrettel 7y ago
      I'd recommend reading this post I made elsewhere here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21872976 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21872976 The easiest way to make cycling work is to pick where you live based on where you work. The default is to pick jobs or where you live that are convenient for driving. That won't lead to a good bike commute, as you've found. > A lot of you guys don't understand that not everyone is a wealthy 24 year old knowledge worker and can just live in the downtown and bicycle everywhere. People have cars because they enable you to even find work. I think most cyclists get that. For me specifically: I'm in my 30s and currently a PhD student. While I am rich from a global perspective, few people in the US would consider me wealthy. I usually live a few miles from where I work in a relatively cheap neighborhood. And, as I pointed out elsewhere here, in my case cycling definitely saves me money. In fact, that's a major reason why I'm a cyclist. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21874175 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21874175
captainbland 7y ago
There's also a big problem of having to share the road with fast moving steel boxes, or perhaps having your own unprotected section of painted gutter littered with stationary steel boxes.
rayiner 7y ago
Cycling is rare because Americans live too far away from things to cycle anywhere. I’m about to do some last minute Christmas shopping. It’ll take me 1:10 minutes to get to Target by bus. It’ll take me 8 minutes driving. Cycling would be 18 minutes, but that’s just the first stop. (Also, I’d have to carry a bunch of stuff back on a bike, and it’s very cold and icy outside.) Biking to work or even the closest train station would be a multi-hour trip. Biking is for childless yuppies and people in third world countries. It’s inconvenient, inflexible, and uncomfortable. We have cars in the first world and they make life immeasurably better. To the extent pollution is a problem, we can and already are addressing those problems with electric vehicles.
- pswenson 7y ago
  Now do Amsterdam
- ido 7y ago
  Cylcling is very popular in many Western European cities.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Even in Western Europe it’s uncommon. The average German commute is 10 miles: https://www.dw.com/en/record-number-of-germans-commute-to-work-every-day/a-39902304 https://www.dw.com/en/record-number-of-germans-commute-to-wo.... 80% of Germans don’t even bike weekly, much less daily.
    - analog31 7y ago
      Indeed, this article suggests that distance is a key factor: https://peopleforbikes.org/blog/best-kept-secret-dutch-biking-dutch-hardly-bike/ https://peopleforbikes.org/blog/best-kept-secret-dutch-bikin...
- safepants 7y ago
  You have the option not to do all your errands on 1 day. You choose to live in communities where car travel seems necessary. Your city has failed you by not providing alternatives to driving such as properly maintained bike infrastructure year round.
WalterBright 7y ago
Cycling's biggest problem is what to do with the bike at your destination.
- kqr 7y ago
  I don't know about you, but reserving space for a car is way more expensive than reserving space for a bicycle where I live, simply because one is so much bigger than the other.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    It's not about space for the bike, it's bicycle theft. I'd ride my bike to work sometimes because I could park the bike next to my desk. I never rode it elsewhere because of the theft problem.
    - kqr 7y ago
      Taking three consecutive car parking spaces and building a roofed cage for secure bicycle parking on them would allow like 15 people to park their bike. That would cost 3 - 15 = -12 parking spaces. Yes, negative cost. Once you start seeing the solutions rather than focus on how bad things are, you'll see that bicycling is ridiculously efficient in almost any metric.
      - bobthepanda 7y ago
        You can hem and haw about how efficient it is, but for most commuters the theory of efficiency doesn't matter; the actual implementation does. When my local supermarket, the retail stores, restaurants, etc. have bike parking that is secure enough that I don't have to worry about a $1500 e-bike getting stolen, I'll get one. But they don't offer it, so I don't.
        burfog 7y ago
        The option to treat it like a motorcycle would help. You'd get a VIN, title, registration, and a plate.

bobthepanda 7y ago

In recent years electric bikes have become cheaper and more common and are definitely a way to solve this problem. The only reason I don‘t own one is because outside of house and work there are few good secure locations to park a bike, and the area has a high rate of property crime.

ben7799 7y ago
Bikes generally fail pretty miserably at trucking children around. You're pretty much stuck going right to one of the giant dutch cargo bikes to carry kids and all their paraphernalia, and once you drop off your kid now you're riding a very slow very heavy bike that will take much longer to ride to your office and leave you much sweatier, especially since there's no flat easy bike infrastructure like the Netherlands. I'm a long time cyclist and I've done stuff like take my kid to daycare in a Burley trailer and lock the trailer at the day care and then ride the bike to my office, then go and bike to the daycare and hook the Burley back up but this stuff takes a tremendous amount of time. It's a LOT harder than bike commuting as a single person with a more flexible schedule. Day cares/schools put a lot of requirements on when you drop off and when you pick up which make it much harder to shift your schedule around to make bike commuting work as well.
- bobthepanda 7y ago
  Electric bikes these days have ranges of 40+ miles, and provide assistance to maintain 20-25 mph, which would solve the "slow, very heavy bike" issue.
sojournerc 7y ago
I wonder about electric bikes sharing infrastructure with "manual" bikes. At what point is it just an electric motorcycle and should move to the road. There's a wide range of electric bikes from just pedal assist, to some you can just cruise, no pedaling. Speed difference between the normal bike rider and the electric bike rider introduces risks to using that bike infrastructure. I've personally had electric bikes fly past me on mixed use trails, and I'm not a slow cyclist. I think it may be too easy to reach unsafe speeds. It's odd to me that on trails where motorized vehicles aren't permitted, somehow electric bikes get a pass.

monksy 7y ago

Let's not forget infrastructure for it. Often times airports are off of major highways.

Finnucane 7y ago

I live in New England and ride to work pretty much every day. I've had to make some adjustments--for instance, it factors into shopping for clothes, having all-weather gear, and so on. Fortunately my ride is only about 3 miles each way, so it's not a hard ride. In fact, traffic around here is bad enough that driving takes the same amount of time. And being on the bike so much less stressful than being in the car.

btrettel 7y ago
Yes, I've pointed out to people that cycling doesn't necessarily take longer. At my previous apartment cycling and driving were comparable mainly because cyclists can park closer than drivers. Many drivers seem to think that counting the time spent parking is cheating, but as far as I'm concerned door-to-door time is what matters.
- Noos 7y ago
  One of my old jobs was the next town over, fifteen minutes by highway. It was impossible to bicycle. If I were to work in the industrial park in my city it would take an hour or so. We have a lot of distribution centers and factories on the outskirts of town because no one wants to live next to a mushroom farm or distribution center, yet they provide a lot of jobs. A lot of you guys don't understand that not everyone is a wealthy 24 year old knowledge worker and can just live in the downtown and bicycle everywhere. People have cars because they enable you to even find work.
  - btrettel 7y ago
    I'd recommend reading this post I made elsewhere here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21872976 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21872976 The easiest way to make cycling work is to pick where you live based on where you work. The default is to pick jobs or where you live that are convenient for driving. That won't lead to a good bike commute, as you've found. > A lot of you guys don't understand that not everyone is a wealthy 24 year old knowledge worker and can just live in the downtown and bicycle everywhere. People have cars because they enable you to even find work. I think most cyclists get that. For me specifically: I'm in my 30s and currently a PhD student. While I am rich from a global perspective, few people in the US would consider me wealthy. I usually live a few miles from where I work in a relatively cheap neighborhood. And, as I pointed out elsewhere here, in my case cycling definitely saves me money. In fact, that's a major reason why I'm a cyclist. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21874175 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21874175

captainbland 7y ago

There's also a big problem of having to share the road with fast moving steel boxes, or perhaps having your own unprotected section of painted gutter littered with stationary steel boxes.

rayiner 7y ago

Cycling is rare because Americans live too far away from things to cycle anywhere. I’m about to do some last minute Christmas shopping. It’ll take me 1:10 minutes to get to Target by bus. It’ll take me 8 minutes driving. Cycling would be 18 minutes, but that’s just the first stop. (Also, I’d have to carry a bunch of stuff back on a bike, and it’s very cold and icy outside.) Biking to work or even the closest train station would be a multi-hour trip. Biking is for childless yuppies and people in third world countries. It’s inconvenient, inflexible, and uncomfortable. We have cars in the first world and they make life immeasurably better. To the extent pollution is a problem, we can and already are addressing those problems with electric vehicles.

pswenson 7y ago
Now do Amsterdam
ido 7y ago
Cylcling is very popular in many Western European cities.
- rayiner 7y ago
  Even in Western Europe it’s uncommon. The average German commute is 10 miles: https://www.dw.com/en/record-number-of-germans-commute-to-work-every-day/a-39902304 https://www.dw.com/en/record-number-of-germans-commute-to-wo.... 80% of Germans don’t even bike weekly, much less daily.
  - analog31 7y ago
    Indeed, this article suggests that distance is a key factor: https://peopleforbikes.org/blog/best-kept-secret-dutch-biking-dutch-hardly-bike/ https://peopleforbikes.org/blog/best-kept-secret-dutch-bikin...
safepants 7y ago
You have the option not to do all your errands on 1 day. You choose to live in communities where car travel seems necessary. Your city has failed you by not providing alternatives to driving such as properly maintained bike infrastructure year round.

WalterBright 7y ago

Cycling's biggest problem is what to do with the bike at your destination.

kqr 7y ago
I don't know about you, but reserving space for a car is way more expensive than reserving space for a bicycle where I live, simply because one is so much bigger than the other.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  It's not about space for the bike, it's bicycle theft. I'd ride my bike to work sometimes because I could park the bike next to my desk. I never rode it elsewhere because of the theft problem.
  - kqr 7y ago
    Taking three consecutive car parking spaces and building a roofed cage for secure bicycle parking on them would allow like 15 people to park their bike. That would cost 3 - 15 = -12 parking spaces. Yes, negative cost. Once you start seeing the solutions rather than focus on how bad things are, you'll see that bicycling is ridiculously efficient in almost any metric.
    - bobthepanda 7y ago
      You can hem and haw about how efficient it is, but for most commuters the theory of efficiency doesn't matter; the actual implementation does. When my local supermarket, the retail stores, restaurants, etc. have bike parking that is secure enough that I don't have to worry about a $1500 e-bike getting stolen, I'll get one. But they don't offer it, so I don't.
      - burfog 7y ago
        The option to treat it like a motorcycle would help. You'd get a VIN, title, registration, and a plate.