Not really. I live in Northern British Columbia and there are people riding their bikes in all weather. Ebikes have a temperature limit, but you can get winter tires for your bicycle. Unless you drive for a living, it’s perfectly reasonable.
Yup. I’m of the opinion that cars inside cities need to be much more heavily regulated. I believe that the quality of cities would be improved hugely by providing cheap & plentiful parking on the outskirts with solid transit links into the city, and taxing people to the moon for parking inside, with very few parking spots.
This would keep cars where they make sense: inter-city and rural. Keep them out of my dense urban environment, and keep the roads free for service vehicles, buses and ambulances.
I come from a semi-rural midwestern area, and my first experience with a subway system (or really, any public transit that ran more than once every 3 hours) was in Boston.
Granted, we flew in, so other than renting a car or ridesharing, we didn’t have a choice, but other than needing to plan for the walk rather than the drive, and one very scary bridge we had to cross many times due to where the hotel was (I struggle walking on surfaces I can see through, regardless how far the drop), there was absolutely no need for a car, and indeed it would have been much worse (I dislike all driving and city driving is absolutely horrible - used to live in Houston - plus finding and paying for parking blah blah blah. No.). It was glorious to wait 5 minutes for the next train, then do whatever while getting there.
If my area even had a decent bus, I’d use it, but we don’t. In the 10 years I’ve lived in this town I’ve seen a bus a handful of times, and frankly that’s not often enough to consider relying on unless you have no choice. I do have a bike but I need an e-bike because everything is fairly distant and steeply downhill from my house (seriously, I can go further uphill, but there’s nothing there worth going for, unless you enjoy cemeteries and farm fields) and I’m not even close to in shape enough to bike it. I did get a stationary bike with the goal of getting in shape enough to bike around town, but that’s not going well at all 😅. But I could see a bike in a city. I’d even be fine with mopeds in city limits (not really that different from e-bikes, just ICE instead of battery) as long as there’s no cars. Waste of space and dangerous in cities. Plus all those heavy boxes moving single humans is horrible for air quality which primarily impacts those walking… so it’s dangerous even if you are the absolute best driver in the world.
I am of the exact same opinion. I like having clean air and green spaces in my city and I’m really tired of the constant battle to walk places safely. If I am walking somewhere, I am guaranteed to have to avoid a car who didn’t care that there was a pedestrian with the right of way- or even smack in the middle of the crosswalk for that matter.
Talk about not thinking about others in a different situation than yours. I need to drive 45 km to work, as I live on an old farm. Electric bicycle would take me 4 hours one way, then 8 hours of work, and then 4 hours back home. That’s 16 hours of day. 8 left, which would mean I sleep.
Now tell me: when do I shower? Clean the house? Do chores and maintain the animals and vegetablegarden?
Edit: I stand corrected. 2 hours on bicycle… It’s 4 hours accumulated. Still to far most of the year.
Not trying to suggest that this makes an ebike your answer, but an ebike typically moves at ~25kmph (and can be cheaply jigged to go up to 50kmph), so the trip should be 2 hours or less, depending on terrain and all that fun stuff.
Even so, 4 hours of commuting is still too much, and as I said, I’m not trying to argue with you - or tell you how you should be moving yourself around - just looking to correct what appears to be a bad estimate of travel time in your comment.
Dammit! You are right. The 8 hours is walking. My mistake. But yeah, 4 hours is a lot. Terrain is not an issue, as I live in Denmark lol. Even so, I’d have to be on the road most of the time (rural Denmark), and many drivers seem to try to hit cyclists. It’s enough when I cycle into the nearest town.
Read my other comments in this thread and you’d see the answer is clearly no, I am not suggesting that. It’s almost like you intentionally ignored the fact that I already addressed rural commuters and attacked an earlier comment to avoid that I had.
That greatly depends on where you live.
Not really. I live in Northern British Columbia and there are people riding their bikes in all weather. Ebikes have a temperature limit, but you can get winter tires for your bicycle. Unless you drive for a living, it’s perfectly reasonable.
I’m talking about rural vs suburban vs urban, not climate.
Fair enough, but if only rural people drove and everyone else walked, rode bike or transit in town it would make a huge difference.
Yup. I’m of the opinion that cars inside cities need to be much more heavily regulated. I believe that the quality of cities would be improved hugely by providing cheap & plentiful parking on the outskirts with solid transit links into the city, and taxing people to the moon for parking inside, with very few parking spots.
This would keep cars where they make sense: inter-city and rural. Keep them out of my dense urban environment, and keep the roads free for service vehicles, buses and ambulances.
I come from a semi-rural midwestern area, and my first experience with a subway system (or really, any public transit that ran more than once every 3 hours) was in Boston.
Granted, we flew in, so other than renting a car or ridesharing, we didn’t have a choice, but other than needing to plan for the walk rather than the drive, and one very scary bridge we had to cross many times due to where the hotel was (I struggle walking on surfaces I can see through, regardless how far the drop), there was absolutely no need for a car, and indeed it would have been much worse (I dislike all driving and city driving is absolutely horrible - used to live in Houston - plus finding and paying for parking blah blah blah. No.). It was glorious to wait 5 minutes for the next train, then do whatever while getting there.
If my area even had a decent bus, I’d use it, but we don’t. In the 10 years I’ve lived in this town I’ve seen a bus a handful of times, and frankly that’s not often enough to consider relying on unless you have no choice. I do have a bike but I need an e-bike because everything is fairly distant and steeply downhill from my house (seriously, I can go further uphill, but there’s nothing there worth going for, unless you enjoy cemeteries and farm fields) and I’m not even close to in shape enough to bike it. I did get a stationary bike with the goal of getting in shape enough to bike around town, but that’s not going well at all 😅. But I could see a bike in a city. I’d even be fine with mopeds in city limits (not really that different from e-bikes, just ICE instead of battery) as long as there’s no cars. Waste of space and dangerous in cities. Plus all those heavy boxes moving single humans is horrible for air quality which primarily impacts those walking… so it’s dangerous even if you are the absolute best driver in the world.
I am of the exact same opinion. I like having clean air and green spaces in my city and I’m really tired of the constant battle to walk places safely. If I am walking somewhere, I am guaranteed to have to avoid a car who didn’t care that there was a pedestrian with the right of way- or even smack in the middle of the crosswalk for that matter.
The great majority of people live in places where an electric bike would be good enough.
Talk about not thinking about others in a different situation than yours. I need to drive 45 km to work, as I live on an old farm. Electric bicycle would take me 4 hours one way, then 8 hours of work, and then 4 hours back home. That’s 16 hours of day. 8 left, which would mean I sleep.
Now tell me: when do I shower? Clean the house? Do chores and maintain the animals and vegetablegarden?
Edit: I stand corrected. 2 hours on bicycle… It’s 4 hours accumulated. Still to far most of the year.
Not trying to suggest that this makes an ebike your answer, but an ebike typically moves at ~25kmph (and can be cheaply jigged to go up to 50kmph), so the trip should be 2 hours or less, depending on terrain and all that fun stuff.
Even so, 4 hours of commuting is still too much, and as I said, I’m not trying to argue with you - or tell you how you should be moving yourself around - just looking to correct what appears to be a bad estimate of travel time in your comment.
Dammit! You are right. The 8 hours is walking. My mistake. But yeah, 4 hours is a lot. Terrain is not an issue, as I live in Denmark lol. Even so, I’d have to be on the road most of the time (rural Denmark), and many drivers seem to try to hit cyclists. It’s enough when I cycle into the nearest town.
It does depend. I live maybe 5 miles from the closest dollar general and maybe 15 from the closest town.
I live 40 miles from work. They don’t have showers are you suggesting I cycle 40 miles in the British rain?
Read my other comments in this thread and you’d see the answer is clearly no, I am not suggesting that. It’s almost like you intentionally ignored the fact that I already addressed rural commuters and attacked an earlier comment to avoid that I had.
Yeah I did, because I didn’t know I was expected to read every other interaction you’ve had in this thread before I could comment.
Obviously I’m not supposed to do that!!
It’s literally one comment down. You can’t not see it on the screen.