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Interesting data but doesnt seem to have the significance I hoped. > And there’s a practical benefit here too. As the world faces a reckoning with climate chan

Interesting data but doesnt seem to have the significance I hoped. > And there’s a practical benefit here too. As the world faces a reckoning with climate change and sustainability, individuals and governments are looking at how they can do better. That’s brought cycling back into focus as a clean, accessible mode of transport – which can have far-reaching implications for the way that cities are built. People who use bikes/bikeshares rn are early adopters, they probably got an unusually high willingness to deal with bad weather, go longer distances etc. I'd be more interested in data that show how the "average person" responds to this. Also I'll remind ppl that when they talk about bikes for transport it just wont work for America. Our population is way unhealthy, it isnt a great option.

xnx 5y ago
Electric bikes are under-hyped. It can still be stressful mixing with traffic, but they can get you door-to-door very fast without breaking a sweat.
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  They are great for riders but starting to be plague pedestrians in Germany. It can be stressful to walk and constantly have to watch for high speed bikes.
  - aksss 5y ago
    I think bicyclists are nuts trying to mingle in with relatively high-speed heavy metal boxes (vehicles). I think pedestrians are nuts to try and mingle with high-speed heavy metal frames (electric personal transport).
II2II 5y ago
> Also I'll remind ppl that when they talk about bikes for transport it just wont work for America. Our population is way unhealthy, it isnt a great option. Wouldn't infrastructure be a greater issue in the US? While it is difficult to judge the overall health of people from appearances, I've observed people of most ages and most body types riding. Age and weight do have an impact on people's ability to ride and it is observable with how they ride. This is especially observable in the elderly where those who I know make an effort to remain fit are much more proficient riders.
kennywinker 5y ago
I’d actually say it’s the opposite. My impression is that people who use bikeshares are casual cyclists and tourists. Everyone I know that I would consider a “cyclist” owns their own bike and would only use a bikeshare as a fallback if something happened to their bike. It’s possible bikeshare users are early adopters - but in cities where bikeshares have been around for nearing a decade (nyc comes to mind) I think that framing doesn’t make a ton of sense.
- mjmahone17 5y ago
  In NY a good number of people use Citibike even when owning their own bike, because there are a lot of factors like not needing to carry a lock, being able to mix biking and transit, etc. that make it more attractive for some trips. It also makes some trips reasonable, like ending up a mile or so from the nearest subway in another borough, that aren’t reasonable with either just a personal bike or just relying on transit.
- Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
  I’m a “cyclist” (own way too many bikes, run a cycling website, volunteer for a cycling charity). Nonetheless bikeshares are hugely useful away from home. If I’m in London for the day, I can either go through the trauma of booking my own bike on the train, locking up wherever I go, and perpetually worrying that it might be nicked... or I can just hire a Santander bike when I get there.
  - mijamo 5y ago
    But then you fall in the tourist category as mentioned above.
    - Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
      Not really - I travel for work in London, not just for sightseeing. It’s an alternative to the Tube.
tgv 5y ago
Sharing is a specific audience, and one that probably has more transportation alternatives than the people that own bikes. So they'll switch faster. Also, rain in Sevilla and Valencia is not like rain in Dublin, in my experience. It's warmer there, and the rain is lighter; you can almost count on your clothes drying there. Cycling in cold rain with wind wearing wet clothes from the morning is about the worst condition I know. Then again, cyclists in Dublin probably have rain clothing. Another point: hot weather tends to occur in summer, when people are on holidays. So indeed, it's not conclusive.
- elahieh 5y ago
  Paper lead author here - yes, usage is multi-factorial and there are hidden factors we may not know about. You can see the Paris August holidays in our visualizations of the models, and I was recently told about Goteborg July holidays. So the model with four variables (UTCI, rain, hour of day, day of year) is best, but then that is hard to visualize.
spaetzleesser 5y ago
“Also I'll remind ppl that when they talk about bikes for transport it just wont work for America. Our population is way unhealthy, it isnt a great option.” Theee is a feedback loop. More biking produces healthier people. You have to start somewhere. I really don’t like when people categorically claim that things that work fine in other countries won’t work in the US. It makes no sense. I also hear people often talk about “human nature” when in reality it’s just US culture. The US really needs to accept that they are not the leaders in many things anymore and that they don’t have the world’s best of everything . There are things to learn from other countries.
- aksss 5y ago
  Well I don’t think he’s saying it would fail in America because the US is leading, but actually because it’s behind in health. Either way such generalized comments are always off target because the US is a hugely large and varied place (in climate, population, terrain, design, etc). It’s hard to say anything categorically will or will not work across the country. The key error here isn’t thinking too highly or badly about this country or another, it’s about making sweeping generalizations. When imagining bike policy, stop thinking nationally in context and start thinking hyper-locally. Maybe if your city matches key elements of one in another country that implemented a successful program to do X, your city could stand to learn a thing or two. To presume that a prescription from Copenhagen would be equally valuable across the the vast scope of conditions in the US as an entire country is a ludicrous assumption from the start. This isn’t a “pride” thing, or an issue of the US accepting something, it’s an issue of scale and comparing apples to oranges. Bike lane policies cannot be a national issue here, they are local issues. Each locality needs to learn how to enable different transport modalities from other cities, yes, but what works in NYC will not be the same solution for Tampa, for example, or Bozeman.
  - spaetzleesser 5y ago
    The statement was “ it just wont work for America. ”. It wasn’t “it may be dependent on the locality”. You have to start somewhere and not throw the towel before you got started. Especially with biking I constantly hear the argument “some people may get sweaty a few days of the year so we have to keep driving cars the rest of the year too”. I thought this country is dynamic and innovative but in many ways it’s very stuck in its way. Same with healthcare. When new ideas come up people say it won’t solve all (of the many) problems so let’s just stick to a terrible system.

xnx 5y ago

Electric bikes are under-hyped. It can still be stressful mixing with traffic, but they can get you door-to-door very fast without breaking a sweat.

spaetzleesser 5y ago
They are great for riders but starting to be plague pedestrians in Germany. It can be stressful to walk and constantly have to watch for high speed bikes.
- aksss 5y ago
  I think bicyclists are nuts trying to mingle in with relatively high-speed heavy metal boxes (vehicles). I think pedestrians are nuts to try and mingle with high-speed heavy metal frames (electric personal transport).

II2II 5y ago

> Also I'll remind ppl that when they talk about bikes for transport it just wont work for America. Our population is way unhealthy, it isnt a great option. Wouldn't infrastructure be a greater issue in the US? While it is difficult to judge the overall health of people from appearances, I've observed people of most ages and most body types riding. Age and weight do have an impact on people's ability to ride and it is observable with how they ride. This is especially observable in the elderly where those who I know make an effort to remain fit are much more proficient riders.

kennywinker 5y ago

I’d actually say it’s the opposite. My impression is that people who use bikeshares are casual cyclists and tourists. Everyone I know that I would consider a “cyclist” owns their own bike and would only use a bikeshare as a fallback if something happened to their bike. It’s possible bikeshare users are early adopters - but in cities where bikeshares have been around for nearing a decade (nyc comes to mind) I think that framing doesn’t make a ton of sense.

mjmahone17 5y ago
In NY a good number of people use Citibike even when owning their own bike, because there are a lot of factors like not needing to carry a lock, being able to mix biking and transit, etc. that make it more attractive for some trips. It also makes some trips reasonable, like ending up a mile or so from the nearest subway in another borough, that aren’t reasonable with either just a personal bike or just relying on transit.
Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
I’m a “cyclist” (own way too many bikes, run a cycling website, volunteer for a cycling charity). Nonetheless bikeshares are hugely useful away from home. If I’m in London for the day, I can either go through the trauma of booking my own bike on the train, locking up wherever I go, and perpetually worrying that it might be nicked... or I can just hire a Santander bike when I get there.
- mijamo 5y ago
  But then you fall in the tourist category as mentioned above.
  - Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
    Not really - I travel for work in London, not just for sightseeing. It’s an alternative to the Tube.

tgv 5y ago

Sharing is a specific audience, and one that probably has more transportation alternatives than the people that own bikes. So they'll switch faster. Also, rain in Sevilla and Valencia is not like rain in Dublin, in my experience. It's warmer there, and the rain is lighter; you can almost count on your clothes drying there. Cycling in cold rain with wind wearing wet clothes from the morning is about the worst condition I know. Then again, cyclists in Dublin probably have rain clothing. Another point: hot weather tends to occur in summer, when people are on holidays. So indeed, it's not conclusive.

elahieh 5y ago
Paper lead author here - yes, usage is multi-factorial and there are hidden factors we may not know about. You can see the Paris August holidays in our visualizations of the models, and I was recently told about Goteborg July holidays. So the model with four variables (UTCI, rain, hour of day, day of year) is best, but then that is hard to visualize.

spaetzleesser 5y ago

“Also I'll remind ppl that when they talk about bikes for transport it just wont work for America. Our population is way unhealthy, it isnt a great option.” Theee is a feedback loop. More biking produces healthier people. You have to start somewhere. I really don’t like when people categorically claim that things that work fine in other countries won’t work in the US. It makes no sense. I also hear people often talk about “human nature” when in reality it’s just US culture. The US really needs to accept that they are not the leaders in many things anymore and that they don’t have the world’s best of everything . There are things to learn from other countries.

aksss 5y ago
Well I don’t think he’s saying it would fail in America because the US is leading, but actually because it’s behind in health. Either way such generalized comments are always off target because the US is a hugely large and varied place (in climate, population, terrain, design, etc). It’s hard to say anything categorically will or will not work across the country. The key error here isn’t thinking too highly or badly about this country or another, it’s about making sweeping generalizations. When imagining bike policy, stop thinking nationally in context and start thinking hyper-locally. Maybe if your city matches key elements of one in another country that implemented a successful program to do X, your city could stand to learn a thing or two. To presume that a prescription from Copenhagen would be equally valuable across the the vast scope of conditions in the US as an entire country is a ludicrous assumption from the start. This isn’t a “pride” thing, or an issue of the US accepting something, it’s an issue of scale and comparing apples to oranges. Bike lane policies cannot be a national issue here, they are local issues. Each locality needs to learn how to enable different transport modalities from other cities, yes, but what works in NYC will not be the same solution for Tampa, for example, or Bozeman.
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  The statement was “ it just wont work for America. ”. It wasn’t “it may be dependent on the locality”. You have to start somewhere and not throw the towel before you got started. Especially with biking I constantly hear the argument “some people may get sweaty a few days of the year so we have to keep driving cars the rest of the year too”. I thought this country is dynamic and innovative but in many ways it’s very stuck in its way. Same with healthcare. When new ideas come up people say it won’t solve all (of the many) problems so let’s just stick to a terrible system.