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I have two teenagers both of whom are (in my opinion!) quite capable of safely handling something like an e-rickshaw around UK streets … as long as the rest of

I have two teenagers both of whom are (in my opinion!) quite capable of safely handling something like an e-rickshaw around UK streets … as long as the rest of the traffic is also similarly light weight. In my “fantasy political manifesto”, I think roads should be (re)arranged so that every child can walk or cycle to school. My new amendment is to add local light electric traffic (those god-awful scooters) and something like these rickshaws, on physically seperate but parallel routes. Yes a 15 minute walkable city is nice, but a 15 minute drive opens up almost everything Pay for it by taxing the wealthy btw. Delenda est carthago

brnt 3y ago
> as long as the rest of the traffic is also similarly light weight. This. I'd love to use an electric bakfiets to move my kids and myself around, but I'd be doing it on roads where people are moving around 1-2 tonne pieces of steel inches from the bike... The safety engineering of these bikes (and rickshaws) are just nowhere near a car, and unfortunately in my environment I cannot ensure sufficient distance.
- icoder 3y ago
  Is bakfiets an international word or are you Dutch, but if so aren't most Dutch roads/routes pretty safe for (electric) (bak)fietsen?
  - pastage 3y ago
    Bakfiets is used here and there internationaly, bakfiets.nl is a brand that was pretty dominant ten years ago.
  - brnt 3y ago
    I'm Dutch. Many Dutch roads are, but also here there's a difference between urban and more rural environments. My particular environment has fietsstroken on an N-weg (which is signed at 50 km/h, but people often drive faster) as only option. These stroken were painted before 2006, when their advised minimum width was set at 1.5 m (they're still 1 m). I don't even cycle comfortable there myself, and I've lived in France for years which also didn't have great infra or friendly motorists. I've tried to argue (and will continue to do so) with my municipality for a separate bike road (or trail even), but since we're in a valley and between private land owners and legally untouchable nature areas, that bike road would need to come out of a car road. Since everybody drives here, that's not going to happen unless fuel prices triple or something.
- pastage 3y ago
  I know it is important that bicycle infrastructure feels safe otherwise people will not start biking. From my own experience safety is usually not a problem, bakfiets are visible in traffic and the kids are obvious in most cargobikes. My point is that the safety engineering is pretty good because the threats are so much smaller. Cars need protection because they move in very dangerous ways. Infrastructure is important because there is no way to be safe from a car crashing into you at 50mph.
  - brnt 3y ago
    Safety engineering takes a parameter: the environment you want to be safe in. For bakfietsen, the parameter chosen clearly wasn't on kilometers of fietsstroken on through-fares where to most likely collision isn't with another bakfiets or cyclist, but with a car. And it would be very difficult to do so, without turning it into a mini-car I suppose.
foobarian 3y ago
Could we take matters into own hands and incorporate a new city somewhere from scratch? Or coordinate moving into an existing almost-willing city and take over the government?
- CalRobert 3y ago
  I am curious if this could be done with something like California Forever. There are some examples, like Houten in the Netherlands, where the city was planned almost from the ground up with active transport in mind. You also have https://www.bloommerwede.nl/ https://www.bloommerwede.nl/, which is being built completely car-free near the middle of Utrecht.
  - krageon 3y ago
    Calling what is essentially Kanaleneiland "near the middle of Utrecht" is pretty disingenuous. There's not a whole lot of room to go further south without ending up in Nieuwegein. That aside, the costs of initiatives like these will be enormous. They need to be financed with (or so projectmanagers tell me) those "XL penthouse" apartments and other larger offerings. There are basically no takers for that, not in the least because they'll be significantly north of 1 million euros. Even the affordable housing is generally pricy (think 350000+) and anything in those price ranges will be in the absolute minority. If there is anything at all around 300000, it will be specifically for a so-called "middle income bracket". This is a very hard to attain bracket unless you are a two-person family with a relatively high but not very high income. For average incomes this bar is very hard to clear. All that to say, it is clearly not made for most people in the country. Aspirational neighbourhoods meant only for rich people are available in many countries (as a specific enclave). It's part of what you pay for in such a location.
    - CalRobert 3y ago
      Ten minute bike ride from Utrecht central seems pretty good to me. And yes, nice things cost money when there's a shortage. The trick is to keep building until there isn't a shortage. If bloom merwede had been available when we moved we might not have overbid on a rental and paid a year of rent up front to get a place in Hilversum (which is much less nice and more car focused) instead, thereby freeing up our home for someone else.
graemep 3y ago
Where would you put physically separate routes? With kids attitudes are more of a problem.When I a kid a lot of kid used to come to school by public transport, but parents are a lot more protective these days. My teenager does quite a lot by public transport and walking. The main problem is services are not frequent enough between towns (in Warwickshire). IMO we should tax cars by weight and size, and restrict parking spaces for larger cars.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  > Where would you put physically separate routes? Reduce two-lane roads into single lane roads and make better use of the "removed" lane to transport people via bikes, scooters and even rickshaws (I don't see the advantage of having a three-wheeler when a decent cargo bike would work better).
ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
I agree, but investing in separated infrastructure will soon pay for itself - it's easily the best value for money for improving traffic flow whilst also improving people's health (if they choose active travel) and reducing NHS costs. However, I don't think e-rickshaws will take off in the UK as our roads are already too crammed. Two wheelers (e-scooters and e-bikes) make more sense as they can avoid getting caught up in the four-wheeler congestion. Also, there's some kind of fake culture war in the UK against any non-car-shaped transport option.
- iainmerrick 3y ago
  Two-wheeled cargo bikes are already starting to get popular in my area (although I imagine plenty of people see them as an annoying hipster affectation). People ride them pretty carefully -- taking the entire lane, etc -- as they're often carrying children. So, I'm not so sure electric rickshaws couldn't take off.
  - ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
    Yeah, I see a few cargo bikes round my area (Bristol) too. I'm not sure what the licensing requirements would be for e-rickshaws in the UK, though. I imagine you'd need registration, MOT and insurance for a non-pedal vehicle and that would make cargo bikes far more economical. If we had pedal e-rickshaws, they'd likely be limited to the same power as e-bikes and only for assist which would make them less popular and I can't see manufacturers being interested in making them.
CalRobert 3y ago
The imprisonment of children might be the worst thing about auto dependence. We have British friends who moved to the Netherlands for this very reason, actually, though Brexit makes it tougher.
ryukafalz 3y ago
So basically Peachtree City, Georgia: https://youtu.be/pcVGqtmd2wM?si=dLa_-qk7A8JtiPyI https://youtu.be/pcVGqtmd2wM?si=dLa_-qk7A8JtiPyI
MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
> Pay for it by taxing the wealthy btw. What a fresh and novel idea. Top 1% of earners in UK account for more than a third of income tax btw.
- triceratops 3y ago
  Wealthy = net worth Top 1% of earners = income Additionally, what proportion of total income does the top 1% account for? For instance, if they make 1/3rd of all income then paying 1/3rd of all tax is an amazing deal for them. if they only make 1/20th of all income, maybe less so.
  - mywittyname 3y ago
    This is correlated though. If someone has $100MM in investments, then it's probably producing eight figures a year in interest and dividends, which are "income". Nevermind, a person at this wealth level likely has a high-income job. I personally treat all capital appreciation as income for the purposes of net worth tracking.
    - triceratops 3y ago
      So what's the problem with taxing a deci-millionaire?
      - lazide 3y ago
        Why do you think they aren’t currently taxed?
        triceratops 3y ago
        Why do you think they're taxed enough?
        lotsofpulp 3y ago
        Passive income (rent from assets) is taxed less than active income. That makes no sense. Society benefits by rewarding people who work. And society benefits by dissuading people from not working and collecting rent.
toast0 3y ago
> physically seperate but parallel routes. That's the challenge. Seperate, but equal is hard. Routing separarated multiple everything to everything paths for at least three classes (walkers and slow? cyclists, light vehicles and fast? cyclists, cars) gets really difficult where there are intersections, because either the separate paths cross at most intersections, or you're building an awful lot of tunnels and bridges. As a cyclist, there's also a major conflict within cylists with regard to speed. When you're cycling only a little faster than walkers, it's fine to be on a pedestrian trail, but somewhere around 15 mph, it's not really good for either cyclists or pedestrians to be combined; at that point, IMHO, it's better to be with faster traffic.
- ThemalSpan 3y ago
  Amsterdam manages to have intersections with cars, trams, bicycles, and pedestrians signaled separately and it’s working out pretty well!
  - krageon 3y ago
    Amsterdam is an absolute nightmare to be anything that participates in street traffic in. I've genuinely never met anyone that didn't think this was the case outside of some fringe elements that live inside of Amsterdam (and if I'd have to guess are just used to it).
    - Arnt 3y ago
      I don't live there, have been there, had no problems and don't understand why you had any.
  - addicted 3y ago
    In other words a completely unique traffic management solution is hard for people who have never encountered it before. Sounds like the real problem is a lack of familiarity than anything inherent to the design.
    - 3y ago
foxyv 3y ago
You could literally pay for it using the money you save on car infrastructure.
manquer 3y ago
> quite capable of safely handling Tuk tuk are three wheelers and handle like a reliant robin and can tip over quite easily . E-scooters does the same thing better as you hint and they can be rented too . It doesn’t help all that much today .

brnt 3y ago

> as long as the rest of the traffic is also similarly light weight. This. I'd love to use an electric bakfiets to move my kids and myself around, but I'd be doing it on roads where people are moving around 1-2 tonne pieces of steel inches from the bike... The safety engineering of these bikes (and rickshaws) are just nowhere near a car, and unfortunately in my environment I cannot ensure sufficient distance.

icoder 3y ago
Is bakfiets an international word or are you Dutch, but if so aren't most Dutch roads/routes pretty safe for (electric) (bak)fietsen?
- pastage 3y ago
  Bakfiets is used here and there internationaly, bakfiets.nl is a brand that was pretty dominant ten years ago.
- brnt 3y ago
  I'm Dutch. Many Dutch roads are, but also here there's a difference between urban and more rural environments. My particular environment has fietsstroken on an N-weg (which is signed at 50 km/h, but people often drive faster) as only option. These stroken were painted before 2006, when their advised minimum width was set at 1.5 m (they're still 1 m). I don't even cycle comfortable there myself, and I've lived in France for years which also didn't have great infra or friendly motorists. I've tried to argue (and will continue to do so) with my municipality for a separate bike road (or trail even), but since we're in a valley and between private land owners and legally untouchable nature areas, that bike road would need to come out of a car road. Since everybody drives here, that's not going to happen unless fuel prices triple or something.
pastage 3y ago
I know it is important that bicycle infrastructure feels safe otherwise people will not start biking. From my own experience safety is usually not a problem, bakfiets are visible in traffic and the kids are obvious in most cargobikes. My point is that the safety engineering is pretty good because the threats are so much smaller. Cars need protection because they move in very dangerous ways. Infrastructure is important because there is no way to be safe from a car crashing into you at 50mph.
- brnt 3y ago
  Safety engineering takes a parameter: the environment you want to be safe in. For bakfietsen, the parameter chosen clearly wasn't on kilometers of fietsstroken on through-fares where to most likely collision isn't with another bakfiets or cyclist, but with a car. And it would be very difficult to do so, without turning it into a mini-car I suppose.

foobarian 3y ago

Could we take matters into own hands and incorporate a new city somewhere from scratch? Or coordinate moving into an existing almost-willing city and take over the government?

CalRobert 3y ago
I am curious if this could be done with something like California Forever. There are some examples, like Houten in the Netherlands, where the city was planned almost from the ground up with active transport in mind. You also have https://www.bloommerwede.nl/ https://www.bloommerwede.nl/, which is being built completely car-free near the middle of Utrecht.
- krageon 3y ago
  Calling what is essentially Kanaleneiland "near the middle of Utrecht" is pretty disingenuous. There's not a whole lot of room to go further south without ending up in Nieuwegein. That aside, the costs of initiatives like these will be enormous. They need to be financed with (or so projectmanagers tell me) those "XL penthouse" apartments and other larger offerings. There are basically no takers for that, not in the least because they'll be significantly north of 1 million euros. Even the affordable housing is generally pricy (think 350000+) and anything in those price ranges will be in the absolute minority. If there is anything at all around 300000, it will be specifically for a so-called "middle income bracket". This is a very hard to attain bracket unless you are a two-person family with a relatively high but not very high income. For average incomes this bar is very hard to clear. All that to say, it is clearly not made for most people in the country. Aspirational neighbourhoods meant only for rich people are available in many countries (as a specific enclave). It's part of what you pay for in such a location.
  - CalRobert 3y ago
    Ten minute bike ride from Utrecht central seems pretty good to me. And yes, nice things cost money when there's a shortage. The trick is to keep building until there isn't a shortage. If bloom merwede had been available when we moved we might not have overbid on a rental and paid a year of rent up front to get a place in Hilversum (which is much less nice and more car focused) instead, thereby freeing up our home for someone else.

graemep 3y ago

Where would you put physically separate routes? With kids attitudes are more of a problem.When I a kid a lot of kid used to come to school by public transport, but parents are a lot more protective these days. My teenager does quite a lot by public transport and walking. The main problem is services are not frequent enough between towns (in Warwickshire). IMO we should tax cars by weight and size, and restrict parking spaces for larger cars.

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
> Where would you put physically separate routes? Reduce two-lane roads into single lane roads and make better use of the "removed" lane to transport people via bikes, scooters and even rickshaws (I don't see the advantage of having a three-wheeler when a decent cargo bike would work better).

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago

I agree, but investing in separated infrastructure will soon pay for itself - it's easily the best value for money for improving traffic flow whilst also improving people's health (if they choose active travel) and reducing NHS costs. However, I don't think e-rickshaws will take off in the UK as our roads are already too crammed. Two wheelers (e-scooters and e-bikes) make more sense as they can avoid getting caught up in the four-wheeler congestion. Also, there's some kind of fake culture war in the UK against any non-car-shaped transport option.

iainmerrick 3y ago
Two-wheeled cargo bikes are already starting to get popular in my area (although I imagine plenty of people see them as an annoying hipster affectation). People ride them pretty carefully -- taking the entire lane, etc -- as they're often carrying children. So, I'm not so sure electric rickshaws couldn't take off.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  Yeah, I see a few cargo bikes round my area (Bristol) too. I'm not sure what the licensing requirements would be for e-rickshaws in the UK, though. I imagine you'd need registration, MOT and insurance for a non-pedal vehicle and that would make cargo bikes far more economical. If we had pedal e-rickshaws, they'd likely be limited to the same power as e-bikes and only for assist which would make them less popular and I can't see manufacturers being interested in making them.

CalRobert 3y ago

The imprisonment of children might be the worst thing about auto dependence. We have British friends who moved to the Netherlands for this very reason, actually, though Brexit makes it tougher.

ryukafalz 3y ago

So basically Peachtree City, Georgia: https://youtu.be/pcVGqtmd2wM?si=dLa_-qk7A8JtiPyI https://youtu.be/pcVGqtmd2wM?si=dLa_-qk7A8JtiPyI

MrBuddyCasino 3y ago

> Pay for it by taxing the wealthy btw. What a fresh and novel idea. Top 1% of earners in UK account for more than a third of income tax btw.

triceratops 3y ago
Wealthy = net worth Top 1% of earners = income Additionally, what proportion of total income does the top 1% account for? For instance, if they make 1/3rd of all income then paying 1/3rd of all tax is an amazing deal for them. if they only make 1/20th of all income, maybe less so.
- mywittyname 3y ago
  This is correlated though. If someone has $100MM in investments, then it's probably producing eight figures a year in interest and dividends, which are "income". Nevermind, a person at this wealth level likely has a high-income job. I personally treat all capital appreciation as income for the purposes of net worth tracking.
  - triceratops 3y ago
    So what's the problem with taxing a deci-millionaire?
    - lazide 3y ago
      Why do you think they aren’t currently taxed?
      - triceratops 3y ago
        Why do you think they're taxed enough?
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago
        Passive income (rent from assets) is taxed less than active income. That makes no sense. Society benefits by rewarding people who work. And society benefits by dissuading people from not working and collecting rent.

toast0 3y ago

> physically seperate but parallel routes. That's the challenge. Seperate, but equal is hard. Routing separarated multiple everything to everything paths for at least three classes (walkers and slow? cyclists, light vehicles and fast? cyclists, cars) gets really difficult where there are intersections, because either the separate paths cross at most intersections, or you're building an awful lot of tunnels and bridges. As a cyclist, there's also a major conflict within cylists with regard to speed. When you're cycling only a little faster than walkers, it's fine to be on a pedestrian trail, but somewhere around 15 mph, it's not really good for either cyclists or pedestrians to be combined; at that point, IMHO, it's better to be with faster traffic.

ThemalSpan 3y ago
Amsterdam manages to have intersections with cars, trams, bicycles, and pedestrians signaled separately and it’s working out pretty well!
- krageon 3y ago
  Amsterdam is an absolute nightmare to be anything that participates in street traffic in. I've genuinely never met anyone that didn't think this was the case outside of some fringe elements that live inside of Amsterdam (and if I'd have to guess are just used to it).
  - Arnt 3y ago
    I don't live there, have been there, had no problems and don't understand why you had any.
- addicted 3y ago
  In other words a completely unique traffic management solution is hard for people who have never encountered it before. Sounds like the real problem is a lack of familiarity than anything inherent to the design.
  - 3y ago

foxyv 3y ago

You could literally pay for it using the money you save on car infrastructure.

manquer 3y ago

> quite capable of safely handling Tuk tuk are three wheelers and handle like a reliant robin and can tip over quite easily . E-scooters does the same thing better as you hint and they can be rented too . It doesn’t help all that much today .