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Not disagreeing, really, but - habit, culture, perception, and infrastructure. Minimum parking requirements, and more generally streets designed around cars, ar

by geofft 5y ago

Not disagreeing, really, but - habit, culture, perception, and infrastructure. Minimum parking requirements, and more generally streets designed around cars, are a form of infrastructure. I'm not saying it's a good form of infrastructure, but it is one. Local government needs to invest in alternatives: pervasive sidewalks, well-designed protected bike lanes so that people who are interested in biking but worried about being hit - which is over 50% of adults in US metro regions, see https://jenniferdill.net/types-of-cyclists/ https://jenniferdill.net/types-of-cyclists/ - actually decide to bike, legal use of e-bikes, intersection designs that don't prioritize high-speed cars, reliable and frequent and ideally 24-hour public transit with dense stops (so probably buses and bus lanes), and so forth. And yes, to be fair, habit and culture and perception play into this too. Cities build this infrastructure when people demand it and can convincingly argue that it will get used. Potential bus stops are more useful when there isn't a parking lot separating the bus route and the store people want to get to. Useful sidewalks are a natural consequence of commercial districts designed to be accessed by foot/bike/transit instead of by car, and so forth. But it does take both of these.

kelnos 5y ago
Also consider that many places in the US aren't conducive to pervasive, year-round cycling. I know there are some places in the world where people cycle in 85F and 30F weather alike, but I don't think most Americans (especially if they are visiting a city with a different climate than they're used to) would be interested in a freezing cold trip, or one where they have to take a shower when they arrive.
- geofft 5y ago
  That part is getting a lot better with e-bikes, which is part of why I mentioned them. :) I'm in NYC, where the temperature does vary at least that much between summer and winter, and I recently got an e-bike in preparation for our office reopening, because I wanted to be able to avoid the subway in more weather than I'd be happy using an ordinary bike for (especially while the office's showers are closed!). On warm days, I can easily get up the bridge without sweating if I let the pedal assist do its thing and don't try to go super fast. And on cold days, if I do the same thing, I don't have the problem where I start to sweat under warm clothes - I can wear exactly what I'd wear without a bike (a warm jacket, decent inner layers, and gloves, nothing more complicated than that) and it works fine, too. It's a lot harder if it's more than a few degrees below freezing, extremely hot, or heavily raining/snowing, but I think it's pretty manageable most days. But also, that's one of many reasons that bike infrastructure isn't enough to displace car infrastructure on its own. Good public transit helps, apart from being a viable year-round transit option in its own right, helps here because it allows people to decide that they can bike on days with good weather, knowing they have fallback options the rest of the time, whatever their own comfort level with with weather may be. And frankly taxis/ride-hailing services can also solve the problem of getting people from place to place without requiring a huge amount of parking spaces.

by geofft 5y ago

kelnos 5y ago

Also consider that many places in the US aren't conducive to pervasive, year-round cycling. I know there are some places in the world where people cycle in 85F and 30F weather alike, but I don't think most Americans (especially if they are visiting a city with a different climate than they're used to) would be interested in a freezing cold trip, or one where they have to take a shower when they arrive.

geofft 5y ago
That part is getting a lot better with e-bikes, which is part of why I mentioned them. :) I'm in NYC, where the temperature does vary at least that much between summer and winter, and I recently got an e-bike in preparation for our office reopening, because I wanted to be able to avoid the subway in more weather than I'd be happy using an ordinary bike for (especially while the office's showers are closed!). On warm days, I can easily get up the bridge without sweating if I let the pedal assist do its thing and don't try to go super fast. And on cold days, if I do the same thing, I don't have the problem where I start to sweat under warm clothes - I can wear exactly what I'd wear without a bike (a warm jacket, decent inner layers, and gloves, nothing more complicated than that) and it works fine, too. It's a lot harder if it's more than a few degrees below freezing, extremely hot, or heavily raining/snowing, but I think it's pretty manageable most days. But also, that's one of many reasons that bike infrastructure isn't enough to displace car infrastructure on its own. Good public transit helps, apart from being a viable year-round transit option in its own right, helps here because it allows people to decide that they can bike on days with good weather, knowing they have fallback options the rest of the time, whatever their own comfort level with with weather may be. And frankly taxis/ride-hailing services can also solve the problem of getting people from place to place without requiring a huge amount of parking spaces.