5 ms·

Bicycle use now exceeds car use in Paris

136 points by geox 3y ago

riffic 3y ago
yes the Field of Dreams approach to safe street infrastructure does work (if you build it they will come).
kristopolous 3y ago
From the article, it looks like bikes outsize cars so much that this claim is robust to different ways of tabulating comparisons: number of trips, time using vehicle, maybe even distance traveled.
User23 3y ago
Bike use used to exceed car use in China too. Maybe it still does?
- Dudhbbh3343 3y ago
  I highly doubt it's even close. I haven't been to mainland China, but everywhere else in Asia that I have been has had a strong trend over the last decades of bicycles -> motorbikes -> cars.
AnotherGoodName 3y ago
It becomes such a no brainier if you have a safe option for bicycle commuting. It's a 2 for 1 of needed exercise and commuting so it's actually a time saver in net compared to driving. If you have a dedicated bicycle path that minimises interactions with cars it's also a zero stress option too. I've never experienced any serious bicycle rage. I hate days where I have to drive for some reason.
- fdr 3y ago
  I recently (last quarter) started cycling to work in San Francisco, netting 80-100 miles a week, and your statements ring true. Looking at my Strava relative effort and resting heart rate, the amount of aggregate exercise I get is far superior to my previous exercise habits. While it may take me a net +30 minutes when using non-ebikes to get around in a day, I get something like 90 minutes of total exercise, something I could never justify if I separated my commute from exercise. E-bikes are extremely quick, depending on the task, they are often less in trip time vs. cars, public transit, or a taxi. But for exercise reasons I tend to ride classic. I use a cargo ebike for getting my kid to school, but days when I do not need to do that, I use the city shared bikes, often the unpowered ones. I like them both. The latter I use even the same day when I have my cargo bike: it's wonderful to cycle to lunch on a less unwieldy cycle, walk to a coffee shop, and then pick up a bicycle from a different dock to return to the office. All that I choose to carry is a helmet to do that. It's also a lot more fun than the train/bus (which I also kind of enjoy, my route is somewhat scenic), or driving [and parking].
- Gigachad 3y ago
  Pretty much all of my complaints with cycling come from having to share the roads with cars. I don’t want my commute to work to be a white knuckle adrenaline pumping experience. If there was a safe and quiet way to ride to work, I’d take that every time.
- Vinnl 3y ago
  And if you have proper infrastructure (like in the Netherlands), it's even a time saver just by itself if your trip is within the same city.
- k99x55 3y ago
  Bicycle is the least discriminatory private mode of transport: it caters to all ages, almost-all abilities. It give you free exercise, its good for the environment, for the community, for the local economy: small commercial shops benefit from cycle infra. Private car is space and energy inefficient, and car infra is hostile to cycling and walking. Build for what you want (walking,cycling,public transport), not for what you have (private car). Yes its a massive no-brainer. Amazing how we as a society fail to see this.
Lance_ET_Compte 3y ago
Great news! :-)
rwbt 3y ago
How can we do the same in the US? I would love to take bicycle trips but that means having to share the lane with monster pickups and distracted SUV drivers.
- thejohnconway 3y ago
  As unhelpful as this answer might seem, I think the answer is damn the SUVs, full bike ahead. Nothing will change until there are cyclists on the roads, then it starts to snowball. I’ve seen it happening here in London (UK).
- Tiktaalik 3y ago
  Same way as they did it in Paris: Take roads that are currently exclusively set aside for car use, and reserve a portion for exclusive cyclist use. This means building separated bike lanes (ie. not just some painted pavement). "Build it and they will come" The reason that cycling isn't that popular is because being chaotically mixed in with vehicle traffic makes it a dangerous activity, and people unsurprisingly avoid dangerous activities. Creating separated AAA "All Ages and Abilities" bicycle lanes makes cycling safe and so then people feel encouraged to bicycle for whatever daily chores it makes sense to cycle for.
  - hot_gril 3y ago
    This has been done in some cities, but those bike lanes are sitting empty, so there's more to it than that.
    - chrisco255 3y ago
      The bike paths have to be useful of course. You can make a nice bike path to nowhere and no one will use it because there's nowhere to go there. Even if it's Lime scooters or whatever using the bike paths, still an improvement. Driving a car in Paris is also a nightmare so there's that additional motivator there.
    - Tiktaalik 3y ago
      Well the problem is that you need a cycling network and even the most cycling friendly of North American cities often don't have that. So the common problem that holds back many cities is that you might have one or two AAA bike lanes, but then after that you're thrown back into the dangerous mix of traffic again. Accordingly cycling growth will be limited outside of the narrow corridors where the best AAA bike lanes exist.
faeriechangling 3y ago
Bikes are ridiculously cost efficient especially if you can use them to enable you to own even 1 less car. 2 grand is more than enough to cover commuting for a DECADE. You could get away with 1 grand if you wanted to. Cars aren't getting any cheaper so I only expect the bike to become more and more dominant.
- Tiktaalik 3y ago
  Oh yea and less than a grand is easy if you're happy enough to troll around craigslist and buy used stuff. Every bicycle I've ever owned has been bought from craigslist and some steel thing built in japan in the 1980s. Most bought between $400-$700. Many of them were quite nice too as Japan was the top builder of this technology at the time. They'll last practically forever. The great thing about old bikes too is that if they're not too old (ie. 1980s and newer) they all use ISO standardized parts and are remarkably easy to repair and update. Cycling is absolutely the most cost effective way to transport yourself around a city and incredible how the media so often frames the bicycle as some plaything for rich yuppies instead of the reality of being a critical tool of affordable transportation for regular low income workers.
  - loeg 3y ago
    Doesn't require Craigslist or buying used. You can get a boring but totally functional commuter bike with disk brakes and 1x9 speeds from Specialized for $1k or less (Sirrus or Sirrus X). Similar models from other big bike brands. Then you have $1k for maintenance over a decade to fit within $2k, which is probably plenty.
    - getwiththeprog 3y ago
      And the cheaper the bike, the more excercise it will give you - so win-win whatever the price!
- shric 3y ago
  I bought my current bike in 2014 for $200, still my daily commuter.
zik 3y ago
And all it took was to make it viable. I wonder how quickly other cities would change to preferring bike use if only the infrastructure to use bikes safely existed?
- jareklupinski 3y ago
  I'm hoping one of the knock-on effects of NYC's congestion tax will be more desireable biking on city streets, especially on those currently without bike lanes which may snowball into those bikers demanding more bike lanes, and so on. the current bike lanes are alright, but somehow i always find myself needing to cut across two lanes of traffic to make a left or something at some point
  - machiaweliczny 3y ago
    In NYC you should also have some law that prohibit's going more than 20mph on bike, as some e-bikers are a bit crazy.
    - jareklupinski 3y ago
      it's the pedestrians hanging out in the bike lanes that are crazy :P that's not an NYC problem though, in Paris i couldn't walk for more than 15 min without seeing someone on a bike slam into a pedestrian from the ensuing dialogue though, i was starting to get the feeling they were doing it on purpose (both bikers and walkers)...
bfrog 3y ago
Amazing, and I wish more cities would follow.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
alg0s 3y ago
Unpopular idea but cycling as the main vehicle to commute is backwards. Interesting how everyone here seems to think the same thing. Not everyone wants to or can bike. Making cars and bicycles rivalries can be an anti-progress idea actually.
- lmm 3y ago
  > Not everyone wants to or can bike. Not everyone wants to or can use a car either. > Making cars and bicycles rivalries can be an anti-progress idea actually. More people using bicycles is better for everyone, even car users, since congestion is the biggest problem for car users and bicycles make much more efficient use of road space.
- jochem9 3y ago
  We're getting way too fat and put a lot of stress on our environment. Cycling helps with both, through exercise and by lowering overall impact (way less impact making the vehicle, no emissions using it, very little parking space needed, pretty much noise free, way safer in collisions when no cars are involved, etc). Seems to me it's actually a very forwards thinking idea. Oh and I live in Amsterdam and still own a car. It's even more common for Dutch families outside cities to own a car or two (74% of Dutch households owns at least one). The two are not mutually exclusive, but both serve their purpose. I take my bike for any trips of max ~30 minutes, anything over and I'll usually opt for public transport or car, as that's faster and more convenient.
- mariusor 3y ago
  I think that pushing for as many people to switch to cycling for their daily under 10 miles commute, would benefit everyone, including those who aren't able to cycle because they would have a less congested traffic and a faster trip in a car. If you believe that people who advocate for cycling infrastructure want to remove car infrastructure completely I think you're a little deluded, or they are.
- MarcusE1W 3y ago
  I think it’s not the point that everybody cycles. It would be a great improvement if a lot of people would cycle. There probably will always be valid reasons that someone wants or has to use a car, but these few valid reasons shoukd not distract from the large number of people who can and in fact want to cycle in many circumstances. For that though the infrastructure needs to e aimed at the large number of cyclists and not at the small number of valid motor vehicle drivers. I feel in the moment the priorities are upside down and somehow in a convoluted city where everything has to fight for priority in available space it is somehow acceptable that everyone can use the limited road space for every car travel they want however they want and on the back of that that it is the city planners obligation to provide infrastructure so that car driver can drive in big cities however they want. I feel that’s not the best use of the available space and not in the best interest of people living in a city centre.
zephrx1111 3y ago
Not me. I was fed up of riding bike half of my life. Just 5 year ago I bought my own car.
- Vinnl 3y ago
  Luckily for you that's a whole lot fewer cars you'll need to share the road with :)
em1sar 3y ago
[dead]

136 points by geox 3y ago

yes the Field of Dreams approach to safe street infrastructure does work (if you build it they will come).

From the article, it looks like bikes outsize cars so much that this claim is robust to different ways of tabulating comparisons: number of trips, time using vehicle, maybe even distance traveled.

User23 3y ago

Bike use used to exceed car use in China too. Maybe it still does?

Dudhbbh3343 3y ago
I highly doubt it's even close. I haven't been to mainland China, but everywhere else in Asia that I have been has had a strong trend over the last decades of bicycles -> motorbikes -> cars.

AnotherGoodName 3y ago

It becomes such a no brainier if you have a safe option for bicycle commuting. It's a 2 for 1 of needed exercise and commuting so it's actually a time saver in net compared to driving. If you have a dedicated bicycle path that minimises interactions with cars it's also a zero stress option too. I've never experienced any serious bicycle rage. I hate days where I have to drive for some reason.

fdr 3y ago
I recently (last quarter) started cycling to work in San Francisco, netting 80-100 miles a week, and your statements ring true. Looking at my Strava relative effort and resting heart rate, the amount of aggregate exercise I get is far superior to my previous exercise habits. While it may take me a net +30 minutes when using non-ebikes to get around in a day, I get something like 90 minutes of total exercise, something I could never justify if I separated my commute from exercise. E-bikes are extremely quick, depending on the task, they are often less in trip time vs. cars, public transit, or a taxi. But for exercise reasons I tend to ride classic. I use a cargo ebike for getting my kid to school, but days when I do not need to do that, I use the city shared bikes, often the unpowered ones. I like them both. The latter I use even the same day when I have my cargo bike: it's wonderful to cycle to lunch on a less unwieldy cycle, walk to a coffee shop, and then pick up a bicycle from a different dock to return to the office. All that I choose to carry is a helmet to do that. It's also a lot more fun than the train/bus (which I also kind of enjoy, my route is somewhat scenic), or driving [and parking].
Gigachad 3y ago
Pretty much all of my complaints with cycling come from having to share the roads with cars. I don’t want my commute to work to be a white knuckle adrenaline pumping experience. If there was a safe and quiet way to ride to work, I’d take that every time.
Vinnl 3y ago
And if you have proper infrastructure (like in the Netherlands), it's even a time saver just by itself if your trip is within the same city.
k99x55 3y ago
Bicycle is the least discriminatory private mode of transport: it caters to all ages, almost-all abilities. It give you free exercise, its good for the environment, for the community, for the local economy: small commercial shops benefit from cycle infra. Private car is space and energy inefficient, and car infra is hostile to cycling and walking. Build for what you want (walking,cycling,public transport), not for what you have (private car). Yes its a massive no-brainer. Amazing how we as a society fail to see this.

Lance_ET_Compte 3y ago

Great news! :-)

rwbt 3y ago

How can we do the same in the US? I would love to take bicycle trips but that means having to share the lane with monster pickups and distracted SUV drivers.

thejohnconway 3y ago
As unhelpful as this answer might seem, I think the answer is damn the SUVs, full bike ahead. Nothing will change until there are cyclists on the roads, then it starts to snowball. I’ve seen it happening here in London (UK).
Tiktaalik 3y ago
Same way as they did it in Paris: Take roads that are currently exclusively set aside for car use, and reserve a portion for exclusive cyclist use. This means building separated bike lanes (ie. not just some painted pavement). "Build it and they will come" The reason that cycling isn't that popular is because being chaotically mixed in with vehicle traffic makes it a dangerous activity, and people unsurprisingly avoid dangerous activities. Creating separated AAA "All Ages and Abilities" bicycle lanes makes cycling safe and so then people feel encouraged to bicycle for whatever daily chores it makes sense to cycle for.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  This has been done in some cities, but those bike lanes are sitting empty, so there's more to it than that.
  - chrisco255 3y ago
    The bike paths have to be useful of course. You can make a nice bike path to nowhere and no one will use it because there's nowhere to go there. Even if it's Lime scooters or whatever using the bike paths, still an improvement. Driving a car in Paris is also a nightmare so there's that additional motivator there.
  - Tiktaalik 3y ago
    Well the problem is that you need a cycling network and even the most cycling friendly of North American cities often don't have that. So the common problem that holds back many cities is that you might have one or two AAA bike lanes, but then after that you're thrown back into the dangerous mix of traffic again. Accordingly cycling growth will be limited outside of the narrow corridors where the best AAA bike lanes exist.

faeriechangling 3y ago

Bikes are ridiculously cost efficient especially if you can use them to enable you to own even 1 less car. 2 grand is more than enough to cover commuting for a DECADE. You could get away with 1 grand if you wanted to. Cars aren't getting any cheaper so I only expect the bike to become more and more dominant.

Tiktaalik 3y ago
Oh yea and less than a grand is easy if you're happy enough to troll around craigslist and buy used stuff. Every bicycle I've ever owned has been bought from craigslist and some steel thing built in japan in the 1980s. Most bought between $400-$700. Many of them were quite nice too as Japan was the top builder of this technology at the time. They'll last practically forever. The great thing about old bikes too is that if they're not too old (ie. 1980s and newer) they all use ISO standardized parts and are remarkably easy to repair and update. Cycling is absolutely the most cost effective way to transport yourself around a city and incredible how the media so often frames the bicycle as some plaything for rich yuppies instead of the reality of being a critical tool of affordable transportation for regular low income workers.
- loeg 3y ago
  Doesn't require Craigslist or buying used. You can get a boring but totally functional commuter bike with disk brakes and 1x9 speeds from Specialized for $1k or less (Sirrus or Sirrus X). Similar models from other big bike brands. Then you have $1k for maintenance over a decade to fit within $2k, which is probably plenty.
  - getwiththeprog 3y ago
    And the cheaper the bike, the more excercise it will give you - so win-win whatever the price!
shric 3y ago
I bought my current bike in 2014 for $200, still my daily commuter.

zik 3y ago

And all it took was to make it viable. I wonder how quickly other cities would change to preferring bike use if only the infrastructure to use bikes safely existed?

jareklupinski 3y ago
I'm hoping one of the knock-on effects of NYC's congestion tax will be more desireable biking on city streets, especially on those currently without bike lanes which may snowball into those bikers demanding more bike lanes, and so on. the current bike lanes are alright, but somehow i always find myself needing to cut across two lanes of traffic to make a left or something at some point
- machiaweliczny 3y ago
  In NYC you should also have some law that prohibit's going more than 20mph on bike, as some e-bikers are a bit crazy.
  - jareklupinski 3y ago
    it's the pedestrians hanging out in the bike lanes that are crazy :P that's not an NYC problem though, in Paris i couldn't walk for more than 15 min without seeing someone on a bike slam into a pedestrian from the ensuing dialogue though, i was starting to get the feeling they were doing it on purpose (both bikers and walkers)...

bfrog 3y ago

Amazing, and I wish more cities would follow.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

alg0s 3y ago

Unpopular idea but cycling as the main vehicle to commute is backwards. Interesting how everyone here seems to think the same thing. Not everyone wants to or can bike. Making cars and bicycles rivalries can be an anti-progress idea actually.

lmm 3y ago
> Not everyone wants to or can bike. Not everyone wants to or can use a car either. > Making cars and bicycles rivalries can be an anti-progress idea actually. More people using bicycles is better for everyone, even car users, since congestion is the biggest problem for car users and bicycles make much more efficient use of road space.
jochem9 3y ago
We're getting way too fat and put a lot of stress on our environment. Cycling helps with both, through exercise and by lowering overall impact (way less impact making the vehicle, no emissions using it, very little parking space needed, pretty much noise free, way safer in collisions when no cars are involved, etc). Seems to me it's actually a very forwards thinking idea. Oh and I live in Amsterdam and still own a car. It's even more common for Dutch families outside cities to own a car or two (74% of Dutch households owns at least one). The two are not mutually exclusive, but both serve their purpose. I take my bike for any trips of max ~30 minutes, anything over and I'll usually opt for public transport or car, as that's faster and more convenient.
mariusor 3y ago
I think that pushing for as many people to switch to cycling for their daily under 10 miles commute, would benefit everyone, including those who aren't able to cycle because they would have a less congested traffic and a faster trip in a car. If you believe that people who advocate for cycling infrastructure want to remove car infrastructure completely I think you're a little deluded, or they are.
MarcusE1W 3y ago
I think it’s not the point that everybody cycles. It would be a great improvement if a lot of people would cycle. There probably will always be valid reasons that someone wants or has to use a car, but these few valid reasons shoukd not distract from the large number of people who can and in fact want to cycle in many circumstances. For that though the infrastructure needs to e aimed at the large number of cyclists and not at the small number of valid motor vehicle drivers. I feel in the moment the priorities are upside down and somehow in a convoluted city where everything has to fight for priority in available space it is somehow acceptable that everyone can use the limited road space for every car travel they want however they want and on the back of that that it is the city planners obligation to provide infrastructure so that car driver can drive in big cities however they want. I feel that’s not the best use of the available space and not in the best interest of people living in a city centre.

zephrx1111 3y ago

Not me. I was fed up of riding bike half of my life. Just 5 year ago I bought my own car.

Vinnl 3y ago
Luckily for you that's a whole lot fewer cars you'll need to share the road with :)

em1sar 3y ago

[dead]