4 ms·

Do they have to be a magic bullet? Switching from ICE to electric is a much smaller ask than switching from personal cars to... bicycles?

by bojan 7mo ago

bluGill 7mo ago
If there was some investment most of us could switch to public transit. The problems people have with transit are mostly around there isn't enough of it to be useful - when /where it is useful people use it.
- alberto467 7mo ago
  That's not the full story, you're right that they "could switch", but would they actually? Good, working and efficient public transit still means having significantly less comfort compared to having your private vehicle. Pretty much the only exception is using the metro in a congested downtown area at peak traffic (still, your metro experience will also be degraded by the peak traffic), or perhaps if parking your vehicle will be very difficult. And i say this as someone in a rather big city in Europe who is currently only using public transit. And there is a lot of stuff that i'd like to do but i can't do since i currently don't have access to a car or motorbike. People don't just want "useful", at least the majority of people in developed countries also want "comfortable", and "nice", and "easy", and "enjoyable". A peak-hour metro ride or missing your tram by one minute is none of that.
  - bluGill 7mo ago
    If the next bus/tram isn't almost there when you miss the previous then it isn't nearly as useful. there are things you can't do with transit. However nearly everyone is living in a family - so keep the truck to tow the boat, but get rid of the other cars that you won't need if transit is good. That is a much more reasonably goal that transit can aim for. A few like you won't own a car/truck at all, but most won't need to go that far
  - bigfishrunning 7mo ago
    I would settle for "available". Where I live, i have a 40 minute commute to work by car. I live in a suburb of a midsize american city. When i bought my house, i looked into public transportation options. Instead of a 40 minute car ride, i could drive for 5 minutes and then take 3 hours (and 2 bus transfers) to get to my office by bus. I would love to get some reading done on my commute, and would be willing to spend an hour on a bus or train instead of 40 minutes fighting traffic in my car, but it's just not really feasable. I think this situation is extremely common.
    - bluGill 7mo ago
      That is what I'm getting at. Most cities in the US don't have a useful transit system. though your 40 minute by car commute is something that is unlikely something any invsetment will ever make reasonable.
      - alberto467 7mo ago
        Having lived in multiple european cities with decent to good public transport, a 40 minute car commute almost always means you live outside the city. In that case, your public transport experience will just suffer a lot (public transport is more efficient with higher densities of living). Being outside the city you'll have fewer vectors with less frequency (more than 30mins in between), which will get you in the city somewhere, and from that you'll take city-local public transport to your final destination. I'd say in this case the 40 min car commute turns into 1h 20, with some luck too.
alberto467 7mo ago
True but also building a new electric car consumes many order of magnitudes more resources (and it will keep consuming them) compared to a bicycle. But hey, at least you get to keep 99% of your comfort while making 50% less emissions! (if it really is that much).
nDRDY 7mo ago
With a correspondingly smaller decrease in CO2 output. We're in a Climate Catastrophe on the edge of Global Tipping Points, remember! Sarcasm aside, I think this is why people have generally stopped caring as much. What we are being asked to do (buy new shiny things for some estimated small percentage decrease in lifecycle CO2 output) does not match the messaging. FWIW I cycle almost everywhere.
microtonal 7mo ago
Switching from ICE to electric is a much smaller ask than switching from personal cars to... bicycles? Bikes are awesome. I do 95% of my trips by bike. It's healthy, cheap, and has very low amortized emissions. Everybody can repair a bike with a small amount of training. More countries/cities have to do bike-centric road design.
NicuCalcea 7mo ago
Why not encourage people who can reasonably cycle to do so? It's not a magic bullet either, but it's no less magic than EVs.
- bojan 7mo ago
  Why not both? Encourage cycling when possible, and when not, an EV. Looking at American commute distances however, cycling, even with an e-bike, is likely not a reasonable option.
  - bdangubic 7mo ago
    The issue is not just commute distances, it is cultural. Just in my personal "click" there are 5 people of which: - 2 live less than 5 minutes from a metro that literally takes them to the office, they never take the metro - 2 live easily within a biking distance to work, 1 has a bike, another has e-bike, they never bike to work - 1 lives literally walking distance to work, she never walks to work Public transportation where I live is vast, you can easily commute with the public transportation to just about everywhere but only low(er) income people will take public transportation. Two most-frequently cited reasons I hear why not bike/walk/... 1. Dangerous - every female friend I have lists this as #1 reason they always drive. Regardless of the fact that I live in the area where I often forget to close my garage overnight and leave the front door open (very very low crime rates) the women feel unsafe. A lot of sensationalism in the news regarding every minor thing happening might be to blame but I have a wife and a daughter and am godfather to several girls so I understand 2. Inconvenient - what if after work I want to go to ____ and ____ and ____. Now I got to track back home and then perhaps change clothes, clean the house... and then get into the car to go to _____.
  - NicuCalcea 7mo ago
    Of course, both are better. A lot of Americans probably won't be able to commute on a bicycle, but could easily use one for shorter trips like visiting friends, doing groceries, getting a burger, etc. Even with commutes, there are lots that could be done on a bicycle. I briefly lived in the US and had a 6-mile (~10 km) commute. It was an unpleasant experience because there was exactly zero cycling infrastructure along the way, but otherwise it was a brief 25-minute trip, shorter than any of the commutes I've had in Europe. Not a single one of my American colleagues, all of whom lived locally, cycled or took a bus.
queenkjuul 7mo ago
Switched from driving to biking and my life is 10x better, js
_heimdall 7mo ago
Is it really? Electric vehicles require a lot of resources to produce, and those resources are produced globally and shipped overseas multiple times. The batteries are only expected to hold up for 7-10 years, ask my 2014 Volt how the hybrid battery pack is doing. I get that a change in lifestyle is more difficult for the individual than a change in what we are buying. My point, though, was that only the former is going to have a much greater impact.

Do they have to be a magic bullet? Switching from ICE to electric is a much smaller ask than switching from personal cars to... bicycles?

by bojan 7mo ago

Do they have to be a magic bullet? Switching from ICE to electric is a much smaller ask than switching from personal cars to... bicycles?

bluGill 7mo ago

If there was some investment most of us could switch to public transit. The problems people have with transit are mostly around there isn't enough of it to be useful - when /where it is useful people use it.

alberto467 7mo ago
That's not the full story, you're right that they "could switch", but would they actually? Good, working and efficient public transit still means having significantly less comfort compared to having your private vehicle. Pretty much the only exception is using the metro in a congested downtown area at peak traffic (still, your metro experience will also be degraded by the peak traffic), or perhaps if parking your vehicle will be very difficult. And i say this as someone in a rather big city in Europe who is currently only using public transit. And there is a lot of stuff that i'd like to do but i can't do since i currently don't have access to a car or motorbike. People don't just want "useful", at least the majority of people in developed countries also want "comfortable", and "nice", and "easy", and "enjoyable". A peak-hour metro ride or missing your tram by one minute is none of that.
- bluGill 7mo ago
  If the next bus/tram isn't almost there when you miss the previous then it isn't nearly as useful. there are things you can't do with transit. However nearly everyone is living in a family - so keep the truck to tow the boat, but get rid of the other cars that you won't need if transit is good. That is a much more reasonably goal that transit can aim for. A few like you won't own a car/truck at all, but most won't need to go that far
- bigfishrunning 7mo ago
  I would settle for "available". Where I live, i have a 40 minute commute to work by car. I live in a suburb of a midsize american city. When i bought my house, i looked into public transportation options. Instead of a 40 minute car ride, i could drive for 5 minutes and then take 3 hours (and 2 bus transfers) to get to my office by bus. I would love to get some reading done on my commute, and would be willing to spend an hour on a bus or train instead of 40 minutes fighting traffic in my car, but it's just not really feasable. I think this situation is extremely common.
  - bluGill 7mo ago
    That is what I'm getting at. Most cities in the US don't have a useful transit system. though your 40 minute by car commute is something that is unlikely something any invsetment will ever make reasonable.
    - alberto467 7mo ago
      Having lived in multiple european cities with decent to good public transport, a 40 minute car commute almost always means you live outside the city. In that case, your public transport experience will just suffer a lot (public transport is more efficient with higher densities of living). Being outside the city you'll have fewer vectors with less frequency (more than 30mins in between), which will get you in the city somewhere, and from that you'll take city-local public transport to your final destination. I'd say in this case the 40 min car commute turns into 1h 20, with some luck too.

alberto467 7mo ago

True but also building a new electric car consumes many order of magnitudes more resources (and it will keep consuming them) compared to a bicycle. But hey, at least you get to keep 99% of your comfort while making 50% less emissions! (if it really is that much).

nDRDY 7mo ago

With a correspondingly smaller decrease in CO2 output. We're in a Climate Catastrophe on the edge of Global Tipping Points, remember! Sarcasm aside, I think this is why people have generally stopped caring as much. What we are being asked to do (buy new shiny things for some estimated small percentage decrease in lifecycle CO2 output) does not match the messaging. FWIW I cycle almost everywhere.

microtonal 7mo ago

Switching from ICE to electric is a much smaller ask than switching from personal cars to... bicycles? Bikes are awesome. I do 95% of my trips by bike. It's healthy, cheap, and has very low amortized emissions. Everybody can repair a bike with a small amount of training. More countries/cities have to do bike-centric road design.

NicuCalcea 7mo ago

Why not encourage people who can reasonably cycle to do so? It's not a magic bullet either, but it's no less magic than EVs.

bojan 7mo ago
Why not both? Encourage cycling when possible, and when not, an EV. Looking at American commute distances however, cycling, even with an e-bike, is likely not a reasonable option.
- bdangubic 7mo ago
  The issue is not just commute distances, it is cultural. Just in my personal "click" there are 5 people of which: - 2 live less than 5 minutes from a metro that literally takes them to the office, they never take the metro - 2 live easily within a biking distance to work, 1 has a bike, another has e-bike, they never bike to work - 1 lives literally walking distance to work, she never walks to work Public transportation where I live is vast, you can easily commute with the public transportation to just about everywhere but only low(er) income people will take public transportation. Two most-frequently cited reasons I hear why not bike/walk/... 1. Dangerous - every female friend I have lists this as #1 reason they always drive. Regardless of the fact that I live in the area where I often forget to close my garage overnight and leave the front door open (very very low crime rates) the women feel unsafe. A lot of sensationalism in the news regarding every minor thing happening might be to blame but I have a wife and a daughter and am godfather to several girls so I understand 2. Inconvenient - what if after work I want to go to ____ and ____ and ____. Now I got to track back home and then perhaps change clothes, clean the house... and then get into the car to go to _____.
- NicuCalcea 7mo ago
  Of course, both are better. A lot of Americans probably won't be able to commute on a bicycle, but could easily use one for shorter trips like visiting friends, doing groceries, getting a burger, etc. Even with commutes, there are lots that could be done on a bicycle. I briefly lived in the US and had a 6-mile (~10 km) commute. It was an unpleasant experience because there was exactly zero cycling infrastructure along the way, but otherwise it was a brief 25-minute trip, shorter than any of the commutes I've had in Europe. Not a single one of my American colleagues, all of whom lived locally, cycled or took a bus.

queenkjuul 7mo ago

Switched from driving to biking and my life is 10x better, js

_heimdall 7mo ago

Is it really? Electric vehicles require a lot of resources to produce, and those resources are produced globally and shipped overseas multiple times. The batteries are only expected to hold up for 7-10 years, ask my 2014 Volt how the hybrid battery pack is doing. I get that a change in lifestyle is more difficult for the individual than a change in what we are buying. My point, though, was that only the former is going to have a much greater impact.