15 ms·

They work for the majority of people of all ages who live in cities where the infrastructure has been properly built to accommodate bikes. Most people rarely n

They work for the majority of people of all ages who live in cities where the infrastructure has been properly built to accommodate bikes. Most people rarely need to haul anything and can use carshare when they do. I've demoed a multistory house down to the bricks and re-built it from the outside in without a car. Hired someone to haul off a dumpster several times. For major materials deliveries, like beams or windows, usually it was the better part of a flatbed truck anyway, so I wasn't going to be doing that in a car. Most of the rest I did with a cargo bike. I only two or three times even bothered to use carshare (e.g. for a load of tiles) even though it's cheap. I'm not at all proposing that professional builders work this way, but also a relatively small proportion of the population are professional builders. And doing it this way wasn't any kind of a drag for me.

birken 3y ago
Self driving electric cars are much better than car shares as they'll have significantly higher usage rates and eliminate much of the need for parking spots in dense downtown areas. If you believe car shares are part of an efficient transportation future then self-driving cars are part of it!
- jackvalentine 3y ago
  Didn’t uber promise the same thing and end up just adding to traffic with all the dead head trips?
cmdli 3y ago
Considering that the vast majority of US cities were built with cars in mind, we probably aren’t in a position to use bikes anytime soon. And this isn’t just about the availability of bike lanes, but also things like the density of housing, the location of shopping, the infrastructure for big box stores, etc. These things will take decades to change, at best, so improving cars in the meantime is worthwhile.
- InSteady 3y ago
  This is true, but ROI on improving infrastructure and city-planning to revolve more around bikes and other alternative forms of transportation is going to be way higher in the long run if done thoughtfully. Especially as e-bikes continue to get better and more affordable. It's definitely a "porque no los dos" situation. And while I'll grant you I'm no expert, some things I've read strongly suggest that improvements to city planning that making it more friendly for bikes, pedestrians, and transit commuters also tend to benefit the vast majority of drivers in various ways.
14u2c 3y ago
I'm guessing you live somewhere that does not get very cold. I love my ebike but sometimes it's just not feasible.
- tapland 3y ago
  I bike year round, from -25 to 25c. Schwalbe marathons tyres and their studded version in winter. I slip on light windbreaker pants on top of the regular, regular winter jacket and gloves, a thin hat and a scarf. What issues did you run into while trying?
  - epivosism 3y ago
    A large fraction of humanity is young or old. Like, >50% of people are not really safe to ride a bike on their own, let alone at -25C. There are people who can do it, but as a solution it lacks generality.
    - cycomanic 3y ago
      Are you serious? My mother is 72 and pretty much bikes everywhere. If you walk or bike around in many European cities you'll see people from 2-90 on bikes. Have a look a Videos from Finland where you see people of all ages biking around in sub - 10 C. It's also hilarious how - 25 C is being brought up as not suitable for people to bike around. Like how many people in Europe/Northern America actually encounter these temperature even once (let alone regularly that it should determine our traffic policies). These are the same arguments that ICE car proponents make against electric cars, "I might want to make a cross country road trip once every 5 years and so every car with a range of less than 800km on a single charge is not suitable".
      - ineedasername 3y ago
        The level of risk your mother is willing to take with a body that can’t bounce back from injuries very easily does not generalize to an obligation for others to accept the same level of personal risk.
xyzzyz 3y ago
I have been driving my children to daycare for past 3 years. I will be driving my children to daycare for at least 3 more years. Bicycle is not a viable replacement for this use case, sorry. My situation is far from unique, raising children is quite universal human experience.
- stephencanon 3y ago
  Many of us drive our kids to daycare on an e-bike. It works great. On days when I have to use our car instead for some reason, the kids complain that they want the bike.
- adave 3y ago
  It is and a lot of people do it, just more convenient and the norm in many cities to use a big van for small humans.
- jdkuepper 3y ago
  Counterpoint- I have three children (one still not biking in his own) and have exclusively used a cargo bike to cart them to school since Kinder unless it was exceptionally icy roads. That said, I live in a very bike friendly city now, close to their school, can afford a cargo bike, etc.
  - dhdaadhd 3y ago
    What city? That sounds great.
    - sokoloff 3y ago
      I might go more specific and wager "what Dutch or Scandinavian city?"
- dgacmu 3y ago
  I mean, maybe? I bike my two children to preschool + elementary on a cargo e-bike, weather permitting, and it's fantastic. Sometimes I take both at the same time, sometimes my wife and I split them up. Works great. When the weather sucks we drive or bus but it handles more than 50% of our trips. The cargo + electric combo is really amazing. The bike, a Tern GSD with a big two passenger seat for the kids, wasn't cheap ($6k) but it lets us get away with owning only one car using far less uber'ing, and is way less expensive and hassle than a second car. (This is in Pittsburgh - it's hilly and we have weather, but we don't have too many bike-hostile drivers in the city)
michaelmrose 3y ago
Demonstrably a large segment can't and most who could don't want to thus busses and trains should be our primary focus.
dcow 3y ago
> Most people rarely need to haul anything and can use carshare when they do. Heavy citation needed. I've been remodeling my home for the last 2 years and I'd say on regular (every other week or so) basis I've needed to pick up something from the hardware store that can't be biked home. When I buy groceries for the family for the week, I cannot bike those home. When I need to take a large package to the UPS store a bike doesn't work. When I buy a new lawn mower, that box can't be biked. When I need to go more than 3 miles quickly, a bike doesn't work. Baby (in the winter nonetheless), bike's a no-go. Etc. It's awesome that you live somewhere where you can make due with a bike and hired labor. But you are frankly out of touch if you think that most people rarely need to transport things that are too big for a bike. And you're conveniently ignoring the fact that plenty of people have trucks, SUVs, hatchbacks, etc. for the cargo space so saying "you can't do that in a car" is neither here nor there.
- davely 3y ago
  It’s awesome you’re remodeling your house, but I would equally want a citation that says this is a “most people” problem. There will be exceptions, to be sure! Remodeling your house (at least to western standards) is surely one. But then most people could potentially rent a truck from Home Depot for this sort of thing.
  - dcow 3y ago
    That’s why I added a bunch of other examples, not just remodeling. I think I painted a pretty standard picture of what a 30s some adult family routine looks like.
  - earksiinni 3y ago
    Have you tried renting a truck from Home Depot before? There's no way to reserve one in advance. Most Home Depots have one or maybe two trucks, you just have to show up and hope that it's available. Uhaul is much more reliable, but in my experience renting from them is expensive and very time consuming. Each checkout usually takes me 20-30 minutes, even when I use the app ahead of time (their app is horrible). Where I live, I'd say trucks make up 30% of the vehicles on the road. It's a big part of the culture here and extremely practical. There are no practical rental options. Lots of places in the US are like that. That's what led me to eventually buy a pickup for myself. Someone needs to create Zipcar for trucks for those of us not living in dense urban cores.
forgetfreeman 3y ago
Rideshare a car line twice a day and get back to us about how viable that strategy is.
dumpsterdiver 3y ago
> Most people rarely need to haul anything Clearly, you have never been a performing musician. I'm not either anymore, btw. I gave up that dream long ago. It wasn't because I was broke (I was broke, but that wasn't the reason), it was because I found out that I'm not a good musician compared to the folks who pass through Austin, TX. I wasn't even close.
- nerdbert 3y ago
  Most people aren't performing musicians, regardless of whether or not I have been one. I don't follow your logic. However, in any case, I do have a good friend who is a performing musician (classical). I often go to gigs where he and his collaborators are performing. None of them has a car. They bring their tubas, oboes, bass cellos and the like on bikes. Then they bring them to a bar or someone's house on a bike to have a drink after, and then they bring them back home on bikes.
  - dumpsterdiver 3y ago
    Okay, how about this one then. Humans do not always live in the same home forever. They move to different homes. Can you relate now?
ekianjo 3y ago
> Most people rarely need to haul anything and can use carshare when they do. Let me guess. You are single or in couple without kids ?
- nerdbert 3y ago
  I used to cart three kids around in a cargo bike, now they are old enough to cart themselves in their own bikes.
ekianjo 3y ago
> They work for the majority of people of all ages who live in cities where the infrastructure has been properly built to accommodate bikes. great definition. this means nowhere then.
LeFantome 3y ago
You are not responsible for transporting children and / or their gear I see. At least one leg of every trip I make requires a larger vehicle. Oh, and I commute about 50 km each way ( 100 km total ) on a road heavily used by large trucks. I am not sure how small a vehicle I want to be in for that trip, especially after dark.
- nerdbert 3y ago
  I have two children of my own and am responsible for another. They all fit in a cargo bike when they were younger and now ride their own.
- radu_floricica 3y ago
  OP is suggesting that it's more efficient to change our whole road infrastructure in order to accommodate a partial solution he likes, instead of having an incremental upgrade that's so compatible with the existing infrastructure that you literally can't tell without looking up the model. I use electric scooters extensively. I love them. I own an electric MTB. I really really wish all city centers would be for pedestrians and bikes only. But for the love of god, I cannot understand people who pretend that ebikes are a full solution to any transportation issues.
  - oblio 3y ago
    Ebikes are a solution for probably at least 60-80% of trips in places designed to for humans. But many places have been designed explicitly against humans (frequently against the "wrong kind" of humans).
    - sokoloff 3y ago
      Cars are a solution for somewhere north of 90% of trips in places designed for Americans. I'm not saying that I love it; as a family of four, we average about 6K miles on one of our cars and 3K on the other per year. I'd be hard pressed to cut that usage in half without significant sacrifice and it would be practically impossible to cut it to 25% or less. Winter skiing alone is probably 2.5K of those miles (10 trips @ 250 miles R/T) and there's not a practical substitute to get from here to there for a weekend of the kids' skiing.
faangsticle 3y ago
[dead]
phpisthebest 3y ago
I have always, and will always own a Pickup truck. do i need that truck function every day no, not at all but as an example recently my Air Conditioning went out, the part to replace it was on back order so I was going to be with out AC in VERY hot weather for about a week.. Well I got in my truck, drove down to the local hardware store, bought a couple of portable AC Units and huled them back. I did this on a weekend where no truck rentals were an option, and I did not have to wait for deliver etc. Over the years there have been TONS to situations where having a truck at my ready disposal to use has really saved me lots of anguish, and inconvenience. So in short, could I survive with just an ebike, or something sure. However I have no desire to live that style of life, and would find that to be MUCH MUCH less enjoyable, and to be of lower quality of life then if I just continue to drive my Truck instead.

birken 3y ago

Self driving electric cars are much better than car shares as they'll have significantly higher usage rates and eliminate much of the need for parking spots in dense downtown areas. If you believe car shares are part of an efficient transportation future then self-driving cars are part of it!

jackvalentine 3y ago
Didn’t uber promise the same thing and end up just adding to traffic with all the dead head trips?

cmdli 3y ago

Considering that the vast majority of US cities were built with cars in mind, we probably aren’t in a position to use bikes anytime soon. And this isn’t just about the availability of bike lanes, but also things like the density of housing, the location of shopping, the infrastructure for big box stores, etc. These things will take decades to change, at best, so improving cars in the meantime is worthwhile.

InSteady 3y ago
This is true, but ROI on improving infrastructure and city-planning to revolve more around bikes and other alternative forms of transportation is going to be way higher in the long run if done thoughtfully. Especially as e-bikes continue to get better and more affordable. It's definitely a "porque no los dos" situation. And while I'll grant you I'm no expert, some things I've read strongly suggest that improvements to city planning that making it more friendly for bikes, pedestrians, and transit commuters also tend to benefit the vast majority of drivers in various ways.

14u2c 3y ago

I'm guessing you live somewhere that does not get very cold. I love my ebike but sometimes it's just not feasible.

tapland 3y ago
I bike year round, from -25 to 25c. Schwalbe marathons tyres and their studded version in winter. I slip on light windbreaker pants on top of the regular, regular winter jacket and gloves, a thin hat and a scarf. What issues did you run into while trying?
- epivosism 3y ago
  A large fraction of humanity is young or old. Like, >50% of people are not really safe to ride a bike on their own, let alone at -25C. There are people who can do it, but as a solution it lacks generality.
  - cycomanic 3y ago
    Are you serious? My mother is 72 and pretty much bikes everywhere. If you walk or bike around in many European cities you'll see people from 2-90 on bikes. Have a look a Videos from Finland where you see people of all ages biking around in sub - 10 C. It's also hilarious how - 25 C is being brought up as not suitable for people to bike around. Like how many people in Europe/Northern America actually encounter these temperature even once (let alone regularly that it should determine our traffic policies). These are the same arguments that ICE car proponents make against electric cars, "I might want to make a cross country road trip once every 5 years and so every car with a range of less than 800km on a single charge is not suitable".
    - ineedasername 3y ago
      The level of risk your mother is willing to take with a body that can’t bounce back from injuries very easily does not generalize to an obligation for others to accept the same level of personal risk.

xyzzyz 3y ago

I have been driving my children to daycare for past 3 years. I will be driving my children to daycare for at least 3 more years. Bicycle is not a viable replacement for this use case, sorry. My situation is far from unique, raising children is quite universal human experience.

stephencanon 3y ago
Many of us drive our kids to daycare on an e-bike. It works great. On days when I have to use our car instead for some reason, the kids complain that they want the bike.
adave 3y ago
It is and a lot of people do it, just more convenient and the norm in many cities to use a big van for small humans.
jdkuepper 3y ago
Counterpoint- I have three children (one still not biking in his own) and have exclusively used a cargo bike to cart them to school since Kinder unless it was exceptionally icy roads. That said, I live in a very bike friendly city now, close to their school, can afford a cargo bike, etc.
- dhdaadhd 3y ago
  What city? That sounds great.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    I might go more specific and wager "what Dutch or Scandinavian city?"
dgacmu 3y ago
I mean, maybe? I bike my two children to preschool + elementary on a cargo e-bike, weather permitting, and it's fantastic. Sometimes I take both at the same time, sometimes my wife and I split them up. Works great. When the weather sucks we drive or bus but it handles more than 50% of our trips. The cargo + electric combo is really amazing. The bike, a Tern GSD with a big two passenger seat for the kids, wasn't cheap ($6k) but it lets us get away with owning only one car using far less uber'ing, and is way less expensive and hassle than a second car. (This is in Pittsburgh - it's hilly and we have weather, but we don't have too many bike-hostile drivers in the city)

michaelmrose 3y ago

Demonstrably a large segment can't and most who could don't want to thus busses and trains should be our primary focus.

dcow 3y ago

> Most people rarely need to haul anything and can use carshare when they do. Heavy citation needed. I've been remodeling my home for the last 2 years and I'd say on regular (every other week or so) basis I've needed to pick up something from the hardware store that can't be biked home. When I buy groceries for the family for the week, I cannot bike those home. When I need to take a large package to the UPS store a bike doesn't work. When I buy a new lawn mower, that box can't be biked. When I need to go more than 3 miles quickly, a bike doesn't work. Baby (in the winter nonetheless), bike's a no-go. Etc. It's awesome that you live somewhere where you can make due with a bike and hired labor. But you are frankly out of touch if you think that most people rarely need to transport things that are too big for a bike. And you're conveniently ignoring the fact that plenty of people have trucks, SUVs, hatchbacks, etc. for the cargo space so saying "you can't do that in a car" is neither here nor there.

davely 3y ago
It’s awesome you’re remodeling your house, but I would equally want a citation that says this is a “most people” problem. There will be exceptions, to be sure! Remodeling your house (at least to western standards) is surely one. But then most people could potentially rent a truck from Home Depot for this sort of thing.
- dcow 3y ago
  That’s why I added a bunch of other examples, not just remodeling. I think I painted a pretty standard picture of what a 30s some adult family routine looks like.
- earksiinni 3y ago
  Have you tried renting a truck from Home Depot before? There's no way to reserve one in advance. Most Home Depots have one or maybe two trucks, you just have to show up and hope that it's available. Uhaul is much more reliable, but in my experience renting from them is expensive and very time consuming. Each checkout usually takes me 20-30 minutes, even when I use the app ahead of time (their app is horrible). Where I live, I'd say trucks make up 30% of the vehicles on the road. It's a big part of the culture here and extremely practical. There are no practical rental options. Lots of places in the US are like that. That's what led me to eventually buy a pickup for myself. Someone needs to create Zipcar for trucks for those of us not living in dense urban cores.

forgetfreeman 3y ago

Rideshare a car line twice a day and get back to us about how viable that strategy is.

dumpsterdiver 3y ago

> Most people rarely need to haul anything Clearly, you have never been a performing musician. I'm not either anymore, btw. I gave up that dream long ago. It wasn't because I was broke (I was broke, but that wasn't the reason), it was because I found out that I'm not a good musician compared to the folks who pass through Austin, TX. I wasn't even close.

nerdbert 3y ago
Most people aren't performing musicians, regardless of whether or not I have been one. I don't follow your logic. However, in any case, I do have a good friend who is a performing musician (classical). I often go to gigs where he and his collaborators are performing. None of them has a car. They bring their tubas, oboes, bass cellos and the like on bikes. Then they bring them to a bar or someone's house on a bike to have a drink after, and then they bring them back home on bikes.
- dumpsterdiver 3y ago
  Okay, how about this one then. Humans do not always live in the same home forever. They move to different homes. Can you relate now?

ekianjo 3y ago

> Most people rarely need to haul anything and can use carshare when they do. Let me guess. You are single or in couple without kids ?

nerdbert 3y ago
I used to cart three kids around in a cargo bike, now they are old enough to cart themselves in their own bikes.

ekianjo 3y ago

> They work for the majority of people of all ages who live in cities where the infrastructure has been properly built to accommodate bikes. great definition. this means nowhere then.

LeFantome 3y ago

You are not responsible for transporting children and / or their gear I see. At least one leg of every trip I make requires a larger vehicle. Oh, and I commute about 50 km each way ( 100 km total ) on a road heavily used by large trucks. I am not sure how small a vehicle I want to be in for that trip, especially after dark.

nerdbert 3y ago
I have two children of my own and am responsible for another. They all fit in a cargo bike when they were younger and now ride their own.
radu_floricica 3y ago
OP is suggesting that it's more efficient to change our whole road infrastructure in order to accommodate a partial solution he likes, instead of having an incremental upgrade that's so compatible with the existing infrastructure that you literally can't tell without looking up the model. I use electric scooters extensively. I love them. I own an electric MTB. I really really wish all city centers would be for pedestrians and bikes only. But for the love of god, I cannot understand people who pretend that ebikes are a full solution to any transportation issues.
- oblio 3y ago
  Ebikes are a solution for probably at least 60-80% of trips in places designed to for humans. But many places have been designed explicitly against humans (frequently against the "wrong kind" of humans).
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    Cars are a solution for somewhere north of 90% of trips in places designed for Americans. I'm not saying that I love it; as a family of four, we average about 6K miles on one of our cars and 3K on the other per year. I'd be hard pressed to cut that usage in half without significant sacrifice and it would be practically impossible to cut it to 25% or less. Winter skiing alone is probably 2.5K of those miles (10 trips @ 250 miles R/T) and there's not a practical substitute to get from here to there for a weekend of the kids' skiing.

faangsticle 3y ago

[dead]

phpisthebest 3y ago

I have always, and will always own a Pickup truck. do i need that truck function every day no, not at all but as an example recently my Air Conditioning went out, the part to replace it was on back order so I was going to be with out AC in VERY hot weather for about a week.. Well I got in my truck, drove down to the local hardware store, bought a couple of portable AC Units and huled them back. I did this on a weekend where no truck rentals were an option, and I did not have to wait for deliver etc. Over the years there have been TONS to situations where having a truck at my ready disposal to use has really saved me lots of anguish, and inconvenience. So in short, could I survive with just an ebike, or something sure. However I have no desire to live that style of life, and would find that to be MUCH MUCH less enjoyable, and to be of lower quality of life then if I just continue to drive my Truck instead.