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As someone who deeply agrees with this, and yet just spent most of the day in A&E thanks to a car driver who was not looking, we as a society need to rethink ou

As someone who deeply agrees with this, and yet just spent most of the day in A&E thanks to a car driver who was not looking, we as a society need to rethink our built infrastructure. Over the next few decades we have to change so much infrastructure to solar / electrification that we have an enormous opportunity to make it not just a question of survival but a better civilisation - more human. Cities where every child can cycle to school on car free paths, every worker can get to work on car free paths. Hell it even makes carbon sense to get rid of petrol cars in favour of diesel buses. The design of our lives environments is a force multiplier for our quality of life

bojangleslover 4y ago
I get what you're saying but you ever tried biking in Amsterdam at rush hour? There's just as much congestion. Nobody's going to die in a crash though, I'll give you that. But the experience itself is more crowded. I think what you're looking for is a more rural existence.
- Tade0 4y ago
  > I think what you're looking for is a more rural existence. People tend to forget that while there are benefits in increasing density, they don't continue ad infinitum.
- cesnja 4y ago
  Imagine how that would look if everybody was driving their own car.
  - prawn 4y ago
    Standstill?
- lifeisstillgood 4y ago
  I do / have done the London cycle superhighway at rush hour - it's pretty much the same deal (although i would call any electric bikes "powered" and question if they should be on the same path / as powerful). The point is if there was a dedicated (about a metre wide, cut off from road traffic by a raised kerb) cycle lane not just through Londons busiest roads but ... well everywhere there is a car road. Just say if you want a car there you should also have a bicycle. We seem to think that the industrial revolution chnaged something - like globally there should be some kind of "profit". I think it's just we as a species get to still be at a subsistence level, just a higher subsistence level. NB- re london cycleways - yeah people do die. The cannon street path was opposite the LFB station and they did not have far to go to wash the blood away sadly.
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    > although i would call any electric bikes "powered" and question if they should be on the same path / as powerful Sort of agree, although an electric assist (for people who aren't in great shape, to get over hills) might be an exception. Limit it to 15mph or whatever.
  - monetus 4y ago
    Like the sibling mentioned, a pedal assist makes intersections safer - at least, it seems that way here in the southeast of the US. Barreling through a walkway and endangering the people around them is the problem, but it is kind of difficult to sell a bike with the potential for the former that doesn't have the latter as well. It would be so nice to share most roads - but like op mentioned traveling through the historical European sites, the greenways being built here are approximating that. It is changing our city government significantly. Hope it is yours as well.
- bluejekyll 4y ago
  > I think what you're looking for is a more rural existence. Speaking for myself, absolutely not. The amount of things available in cities compared to rural areas is immense. I’ve lived in both. Theater, music venues, libraries, restaurants, beer gardens, good food markets, schools. I have all of this writhing walking and biking distance. You don’t get that in rural areas without needing a car.
  - AtlasBarfed 4y ago
    Rural areas are actually bike-averse. No shoulders, high speed limits, drunk drivers, asshole angry white guy pickup truck drivers, conservative contempt for "liberal" bicyclists. They SHOULD be better but... no. Then again my urban experience is Minneapolis St Paul, possibly the most bike-able city outside of winter I've seen.
    - em-bee 4y ago
      i just saw the same in a documentary about biking in germany. major roads in rural areas have absolutely no space for bikes. cars go at the speed limit, and riding a bike from one village to the next is more dangerous than any city.
      - thirdsun 4y ago
        It depends. Many major roads have separate bike paths and if they don't there's always the option to use smaller, less travelled side roads but you have to plan your route in that case. It's certainly not as bleak as you describe.
        em-bee 4y ago
        well that situation was what was shown in the documentary. i can't say how common that is, but given the cost and notorious lack of funds i think it is more common than we like. i could be wrong though. we could use google streetview to check. as for alternative roads, that really depends. generally from my experience between two neighboring villages there tends to be only one road, unless you want to make a big detour. sometimes alternate roads exist when and old main road is replaced with a new one on a different route.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  It's still easily twice as fast as trying to do the same route by car.
- dmarinus 4y ago
  I'm daily cycling through Amsterdam (City center) at rush hours (8 am, 5 pm), it's busy but no congestion (longer than 10 seconds). But you definitely need some cycling skills and know your way around.
bergenty 4y ago
That’s not categorically good for everyone. This means we will need to have dense living conditions. A lot of people would much rather live in semi rural areas and have a lot of land and a lower density of people. That’s pretty incompatible with not having good car infrastructure.
- bretthoerner 4y ago
  The problem is that rural and suburban living is heavily subsidized in relation to urban living, which has economies of scale. This doesn't even factor in things like per-capita pollution. If people who would "rather" live a certain way actually paid their fair share (i.e. for negative externalities) it'd be a different story.
  - bergenty 4y ago
    Infrastructure is used for a lot of things including transportation of goods and produce. It makes no sense to further incentivize moving to cities/urban areas as they already have plenty on incentives already.
    - bretthoerner 4y ago
      > including transportation of goods and produce Forgive me, if your rural land is on a major interstate then I definitely agree! For every branch off that major arterial the road becomes more and more specific to a few number of people, who rarely pay the full cost of the road/utilities that service them. > It makes no sense to further incentivize moving to cities I'm not asking for any incentives. I'm asking to stop sending my money to highway expansion, road repair and other services to people who live very sparsely. Let them pay for the extension (and maintenance) of service themselves, and then they can decide whether they would "rather" live there.
      - bergenty 4y ago
        You’re inadvertently arguing against having a nation wide road system. In your ideal would cities be isolated? Have most of the country inaccessible to people? Have no small towns or villages? Have nothing quaint, no national parks, beach towns or farming communities? I don’t think you’ve thought this through.

bojangleslover 4y ago

I get what you're saying but you ever tried biking in Amsterdam at rush hour? There's just as much congestion. Nobody's going to die in a crash though, I'll give you that. But the experience itself is more crowded. I think what you're looking for is a more rural existence.

Tade0 4y ago
> I think what you're looking for is a more rural existence. People tend to forget that while there are benefits in increasing density, they don't continue ad infinitum.
cesnja 4y ago
Imagine how that would look if everybody was driving their own car.
- prawn 4y ago
  Standstill?
lifeisstillgood 4y ago
I do / have done the London cycle superhighway at rush hour - it's pretty much the same deal (although i would call any electric bikes "powered" and question if they should be on the same path / as powerful). The point is if there was a dedicated (about a metre wide, cut off from road traffic by a raised kerb) cycle lane not just through Londons busiest roads but ... well everywhere there is a car road. Just say if you want a car there you should also have a bicycle. We seem to think that the industrial revolution chnaged something - like globally there should be some kind of "profit". I think it's just we as a species get to still be at a subsistence level, just a higher subsistence level. NB- re london cycleways - yeah people do die. The cannon street path was opposite the LFB station and they did not have far to go to wash the blood away sadly.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  > although i would call any electric bikes "powered" and question if they should be on the same path / as powerful Sort of agree, although an electric assist (for people who aren't in great shape, to get over hills) might be an exception. Limit it to 15mph or whatever.
- monetus 4y ago
  Like the sibling mentioned, a pedal assist makes intersections safer - at least, it seems that way here in the southeast of the US. Barreling through a walkway and endangering the people around them is the problem, but it is kind of difficult to sell a bike with the potential for the former that doesn't have the latter as well. It would be so nice to share most roads - but like op mentioned traveling through the historical European sites, the greenways being built here are approximating that. It is changing our city government significantly. Hope it is yours as well.
bluejekyll 4y ago
> I think what you're looking for is a more rural existence. Speaking for myself, absolutely not. The amount of things available in cities compared to rural areas is immense. I’ve lived in both. Theater, music venues, libraries, restaurants, beer gardens, good food markets, schools. I have all of this writhing walking and biking distance. You don’t get that in rural areas without needing a car.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  Rural areas are actually bike-averse. No shoulders, high speed limits, drunk drivers, asshole angry white guy pickup truck drivers, conservative contempt for "liberal" bicyclists. They SHOULD be better but... no. Then again my urban experience is Minneapolis St Paul, possibly the most bike-able city outside of winter I've seen.
  - em-bee 4y ago
    i just saw the same in a documentary about biking in germany. major roads in rural areas have absolutely no space for bikes. cars go at the speed limit, and riding a bike from one village to the next is more dangerous than any city.
    - thirdsun 4y ago
      It depends. Many major roads have separate bike paths and if they don't there's always the option to use smaller, less travelled side roads but you have to plan your route in that case. It's certainly not as bleak as you describe.
      - em-bee 4y ago
        well that situation was what was shown in the documentary. i can't say how common that is, but given the cost and notorious lack of funds i think it is more common than we like. i could be wrong though. we could use google streetview to check. as for alternative roads, that really depends. generally from my experience between two neighboring villages there tends to be only one road, unless you want to make a big detour. sometimes alternate roads exist when and old main road is replaced with a new one on a different route.
jacquesm 4y ago
It's still easily twice as fast as trying to do the same route by car.
dmarinus 4y ago
I'm daily cycling through Amsterdam (City center) at rush hours (8 am, 5 pm), it's busy but no congestion (longer than 10 seconds). But you definitely need some cycling skills and know your way around.

bergenty 4y ago

That’s not categorically good for everyone. This means we will need to have dense living conditions. A lot of people would much rather live in semi rural areas and have a lot of land and a lower density of people. That’s pretty incompatible with not having good car infrastructure.

bretthoerner 4y ago
The problem is that rural and suburban living is heavily subsidized in relation to urban living, which has economies of scale. This doesn't even factor in things like per-capita pollution. If people who would "rather" live a certain way actually paid their fair share (i.e. for negative externalities) it'd be a different story.
- bergenty 4y ago
  Infrastructure is used for a lot of things including transportation of goods and produce. It makes no sense to further incentivize moving to cities/urban areas as they already have plenty on incentives already.
  - bretthoerner 4y ago
    > including transportation of goods and produce Forgive me, if your rural land is on a major interstate then I definitely agree! For every branch off that major arterial the road becomes more and more specific to a few number of people, who rarely pay the full cost of the road/utilities that service them. > It makes no sense to further incentivize moving to cities I'm not asking for any incentives. I'm asking to stop sending my money to highway expansion, road repair and other services to people who live very sparsely. Let them pay for the extension (and maintenance) of service themselves, and then they can decide whether they would "rather" live there.
    - bergenty 4y ago
      You’re inadvertently arguing against having a nation wide road system. In your ideal would cities be isolated? Have most of the country inaccessible to people? Have no small towns or villages? Have nothing quaint, no national parks, beach towns or farming communities? I don’t think you’ve thought this through.