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>> If only we were hellbent on building communities where you don't need to get in a car every time you leave your house. > Not everyone lives in dense cities,
by stephencanon 4y ago
>> If only we were hellbent on building communities where you don't need to get in a car every time you leave your house.
> Not everyone lives in dense cities, nor does everyone want to.
Fortunately, you don't need to in order to not be car-bound. I live in a small college town (10k people), and ride a bike for almost all trips April-November. It's easy, because there's no suburban mess of six+-lane roads or 40+mph traffic to cross. We went to a party at a friend's house on Sunday on the other side of town; my five-year-old daughter road her bike, and I carried our two-year-old on mine. We are hours away from the closest "dense city", and biking is easy and safe.
My parents live in another ~10k person New England town. My 82-year-old mom drives her car once a week to get groceries, and walks for the rest of her trips. This myth that you can only be car-free (or mostly car-free) in big cities has got to die.
- aeternum 4y agoThe stats are telling though, you put your family at 250% risk of death by choosing the bike over the car. That is a major problem that needs to be addressed with infrastructure. Unless your city has separated bike lanes, it's hard to say that this is a safe choice compared to a car. In the UK the stats are even worse, with something like 16x risk of death and 78x risk of injury. https://kennettpeterson.com/2016/08/26/riding-your-bike-is-78-times-more-dangerous-than-driving-your-car/ https://kennettpeterson.com/2016/08/26/riding-your-bike-is-7...
- stephencanon 4y agoI feel pretty comfortable that riding a bike here is safer than driving a car in the suburbs. Drivers generally pay attention, and speeds are much lower. More infrastructure would make it better, but we have a real protected lane for the part of our commute that actually has significant traffic.