Not a great article, which is unfortunate given that pro-cycling articles always get the same tired responses in defense of driving (it doesn't work for my particular situation, it's too cold some of the year in some places, etc...).
Public transport doesn't allow for social distancing and there's no space for additional cars.
For urban society overall, more people cycling results in decreased travel times due to less traffic congestion, a healthier population (both from the exercise and distance) and reduced air pollution. Plus there are great economic benefits. Not everyone needs to cycle for everyone to benefit.
If American local governments want people to use bikes for urban mobility then they need to tell law enforcement and prosecutors to actually take bike theft seriously. In many cities it's tough to even get police to file an official report for a bike theft. And the few thieves that are apprehended are typically released with a slap on the wrist. I've seen homeless camps in the Bay Area filled with bike parts, obviously stolen, and the police do nothing.
I'm not going to ride my bike to the store unless I can be sure it will still be there when I come out.
Anybody who has ever had a car stolen already knows how (un-)seriously police take that crime, so it's unlikely they'll start taking seriously the theft of bicycles that cost something like 1/40th to 1/80th of what typical cars cost.
Police are never going to get into the business of tracking down your private property. It's not a good use of their time.
The good news is that you can largely mitigate the risk of almost all kinds of bike theft with some pretty basic preventative measures.
I use both a heavy U-lock and a thick cable lock. I've never had a bike stolen though I have had accessories stolen.
You don't need to make your bike impervious to being stolen, just harder to steal than another bike near it so that the thieves pick that one instead. That isn't particularly hard in my experience. In my case I have two different types of locks as that increases the chances that a thief won't have the right tools to defeat one of the locks. E.g., if a thief has something to pry a lock off that would work on the U-lock, that won't work on the cable lock.
We recently moved to a community where we can bike to school, work, and shop on a path that is separate from the road. It has exceeded my expectations on how easier it is to use my bike for daily transportation.
Having biked in NYC pre and post bike lanes, I will say that, while riding in downtown traffic was a fun unique experience if you're into that sort of thing, riding a bike share bike in the bike lane made me feel the same way, that bike as a primary transportation could be real there as well.
There are lots of cheap used bikes on Craigslist that will last a long time. Maintaining them is way cheaper than maintaining a car. Cheap bikes are not as targeted for theft, a cheap lock will go a long way towards protecting from theft.
If you don't mind me asking, what state is this community in? I've been looking for a change and the western states seem appealing. Something like this would factor into my decision.
In general I think this is more about cities using the reduced traffic and shutdowns to accelerate their existing infrastructure plans. There are a reasons why cycling & walking ties in to COVID-19 (mostly getting people off of public transportation), but all of the places which are doing this were already heading down this path (for good reasons).
This is the worst possible time to start an infrastructure project. The intermediate states matter, and construction sites are evil.
San Fransisco's Vision Zero is why I haven't been able to cycle to work in two years. In the name of bicycle safety, the city tore out my bike lane and replaced it with a ditch.
I don't really need it; I'm a confident vehicular cyclist and I'll take a traffic lane. But the lane I need to be in, which used to be a straight line, is now gated behind an extremely dangerous zipper merge around a half-finished bus boarding island. I have never been more afraid on the road than when navigating a situation allegedly intended to make me safer.
The sidewalks in my neighborhood are being widened, and pedestrian bulb-outs are being added to make crossings shorter. Which means that for the forseeable future, the sidewalks are narrow passages between construction fences, and it's impossible to social-distance with oncoming traffic. The sidewalks around intersections are completely fenced off; to cross the street, you must get within inches of the cars.
All of these things will be great to have, when they are completed in 2030. But until then walking and cycling are much, much worse than they would have been if things were left alone.
This feels like trying to shove this into the opportunity available. There is no indication that cycling is better for the virus. If anything it might make things bad. You now have people sweating all over and trying to take showers and so touching everything.
I thought the page will talk about scientific advantages to cycling or something like that but it just rambles hope about cycling benefiting from this.
Not defending the article, but if the alternative is for everyone to drive cars, I think you need to think about what that means for a second.
1. Everyone in the US has to own and maintain a car. (I've saved $85k by not owning a car over the past 10 years.)
2. We have an increase in the number of 2000 lb steel boxes driving around, polluting, being built and trashed.
3. More drivers, more deaths. Driving is already a leading cause of death in the US.
4. Further sprawl, growing infrastructure costs, higher taxes.
5. Further decline of spontaneous interactions in the US.
There are many many other negative externalities of car dependence. Cycling is an opportunity to reduce our car dependence, and is safer than public transportation for COVID.
Yes, sitting in your personal, 40 thousand dollar, 2 ton steel box anytime you leave the house is the best way to avoid COVID transmission. But it also destroys the earth, social ties, lives, etc.
> This feels like trying to shove this into the opportunity available. There is no indication that cycling is better for the virus. If anything it might make things bad. You now have people sweating all over and trying to take showers and so touching everything.
I don't think you understand what this is about. Most of the cycling for transportation is short hops, 0.5 - 2 miles and low key. No sweating or showers involved unless you live in Phoenix (in which case you have my sympathy regardless). I have a 7 mile commute and since it's cool in the morning and I'm not working out hard. I don't need to shower when I get to work.
Also, e-bikes are likely to be a bike part of this which makes the sweatiness even less an issue even if your commute is longer.
It does feel like they are trying to shove this solution in there to some extent. Many large cities have been trying to find ways to increase the amount of cycling and walking regardless. Cars and their infinite demand for resources (parking, wider roads, gas stations) have become a growth dead-end in dense urban areas.
As a transportation cyclist for over a decade, I never liked the disruptive activities some cycling activists do. I'm not convinced that they're effective at anything other than angering drivers.
neither protest nor anti-protest; someone once told me, if the drivers of the cars -- have experienced being a cyclist -- then they will treat you with some deference; if the drivers of the cars -- have not experienced being a cyclist -- then they find it easier to dismiss, endanger and rage against you. Decades of urban cycling in the USA have shown all angles of this.
People who can afford cars are going to continue driving them. Given the option between bicycling and driving, someone who can afford a car or already has one will likely opt to drive if public transport becomes impractical because of reduced capacity, mask wearing, etc. The poor are left to either ride "filthy" buses and trains, ride a bike, or walk.
> People who can afford cars are going to continue driving them.
Right now businesses and residential units are required by law in most cities to provide parking, take that away and the cost of owning a car goes up quite fast. If you have to pay $500/ month to park your car, it won't just be the poor who live the car-free lifestyle, lots of people with opt out of that.
In the Netherlands, almost everyone rides a bike (rich/ poor) because it's the best way to get around cities. In the US, nobody rides bikes because the infrastructure is designed for cars. In the UK and Paris (where this article is focused), they are somewhere in-between and trying to get closer to where the Netherlands is.
With respect to COVID-19 transmission, it seems to me like anything that takes some potential carriers off public transportation improves the situation for the remaining passengers, whether that's privately owned cars, taxis, ride-sharing, cycling, or others deciding to walk.
One point people overlook is that cars are an existing item that many people already posess. A fast change to biking can put a high demand on their production, which is also based on steel or, even worse, carbon fiber. And then in 6 months many people are going to trash or forget about the bike, essentially just causing a temporary production spike with lasting effects on the environment.
I think more accent should be put on NMF bikes, Natural Material Frame, like those made of bamboo [0] or wood. These materials absorb CO2 from the air to grow, unlike steel or carbon which produces it.
1 A lot of us cant or prefer not to live in the heart of the city
2 Most offices are not built with showers and secure bike parking - for longer distance commuters last time I worked in central London I wanted to use a Brompton but boss said no I cat store it in the office so that was that.
This article doesn’t really say much. It makes a vague claim that cycling promotes social distancing, but so do cars. In fact, enclosed cars are much more distant than bikes trailing each other at ten feet lengths. As far as I can tell the author is asking for driving infrastructure to be repurposed under the guise of the pandemic, but it just comes off as an opportunist grab while everyone who might care about driving convenience is distracted by the virus.
Most cities with a subway or significant bus infrastructure have very high population densities. "Everybody drive" is not going to work in places where driving isn't already the default mode of transit.
Plus, few people can afford it. Have you looked at the price of a parking spot in e.g., major parts of Boston or NYC? 5-6 figures to buy, or hundreds/mo to rent, and that's with working mass transit. I guess that those prices would at least triple if everyone started driving. Lots of wealthy people take the subway and commuter rail.
I don't think cycling is the solution. But cars are definitely a non-starter.
The problem is that cars don't scale as a transportation solution. They take up too much space. Normally public transport fills the gap, but it's hard to keep your distance in a crowded train.
Bikes on the other hand scale much better. You can easily double a road's throughput with bikes. Now take away lanes used for parking and even more bikes fit on the road.
Ubiquitous car ownership is physically impossible in urban areas— usually at least 10 people live in a building one or two parking spaces wide, and even if parking were solved, urban roadways cannot handle all those cars driving at once — and many people are unable to drive for health, financial, or legal reasons.
Bicycles (or other small wheeled vehicles) are much more accessible to more people now that electric power is practical in addition to human power.
In many urban areas, there is a lack of _any_ safe bike routes from point a to point b, which is not the experience of the motorist.
The places discussed in the article rely far more on public transportation than cars for day to day transportation. It is also impossible for either Paris and London to transition from public transportation to cars because you can't widen city streets.
[+] [-] liminal|5 years ago|reply
Public transport doesn't allow for social distancing and there's no space for additional cars.
For urban society overall, more people cycling results in decreased travel times due to less traffic congestion, a healthier population (both from the exercise and distance) and reduced air pollution. Plus there are great economic benefits. Not everyone needs to cycle for everyone to benefit.
[+] [-] nradov|5 years ago|reply
I'm not going to ride my bike to the store unless I can be sure it will still be there when I come out.
[+] [-] JAlexoid|5 years ago|reply
What I cannot, at all, live with is when a line of 10 trucks is packed on a segregated bike lane and the cops do nothing.
[+] [-] dionidium|5 years ago|reply
Police are never going to get into the business of tracking down your private property. It's not a good use of their time.
The good news is that you can largely mitigate the risk of almost all kinds of bike theft with some pretty basic preventative measures.
[+] [-] shahbaby|5 years ago|reply
I didn't realize how bad bike security was until I got an expensive ebike.
Pandemic makes this problem even worse due to fewer eye witnesses and social distancing.
[+] [-] hanniabu|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] btrettel|5 years ago|reply
You don't need to make your bike impervious to being stolen, just harder to steal than another bike near it so that the thieves pick that one instead. That isn't particularly hard in my experience. In my case I have two different types of locks as that increases the chances that a thief won't have the right tools to defeat one of the locks. E.g., if a thief has something to pry a lock off that would work on the U-lock, that won't work on the cable lock.
Having an ugly bike probably also helps.
[+] [-] TYPE_FASTER|5 years ago|reply
Having biked in NYC pre and post bike lanes, I will say that, while riding in downtown traffic was a fun unique experience if you're into that sort of thing, riding a bike share bike in the bike lane made me feel the same way, that bike as a primary transportation could be real there as well.
There are lots of cheap used bikes on Craigslist that will last a long time. Maintaining them is way cheaper than maintaining a car. Cheap bikes are not as targeted for theft, a cheap lock will go a long way towards protecting from theft.
[+] [-] newleaf|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ogre_codes|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JAlexoid|5 years ago|reply
(I suspect that this problem is also in other cities with large mass transit investment)
NYC is also horrible at keeping bike lanes unobstructed and street parking is literally the worst thing in NYC for a road user.
[+] [-] closeparen|5 years ago|reply
San Fransisco's Vision Zero is why I haven't been able to cycle to work in two years. In the name of bicycle safety, the city tore out my bike lane and replaced it with a ditch.
I don't really need it; I'm a confident vehicular cyclist and I'll take a traffic lane. But the lane I need to be in, which used to be a straight line, is now gated behind an extremely dangerous zipper merge around a half-finished bus boarding island. I have never been more afraid on the road than when navigating a situation allegedly intended to make me safer.
The sidewalks in my neighborhood are being widened, and pedestrian bulb-outs are being added to make crossings shorter. Which means that for the forseeable future, the sidewalks are narrow passages between construction fences, and it's impossible to social-distance with oncoming traffic. The sidewalks around intersections are completely fenced off; to cross the street, you must get within inches of the cars.
All of these things will be great to have, when they are completed in 2030. But until then walking and cycling are much, much worse than they would have been if things were left alone.
[+] [-] programminggeek|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yalogin|5 years ago|reply
I thought the page will talk about scientific advantages to cycling or something like that but it just rambles hope about cycling benefiting from this.
[+] [-] kristo|5 years ago|reply
1. Everyone in the US has to own and maintain a car. (I've saved $85k by not owning a car over the past 10 years.)
2. We have an increase in the number of 2000 lb steel boxes driving around, polluting, being built and trashed.
3. More drivers, more deaths. Driving is already a leading cause of death in the US.
4. Further sprawl, growing infrastructure costs, higher taxes.
5. Further decline of spontaneous interactions in the US.
There are many many other negative externalities of car dependence. Cycling is an opportunity to reduce our car dependence, and is safer than public transportation for COVID.
Yes, sitting in your personal, 40 thousand dollar, 2 ton steel box anytime you leave the house is the best way to avoid COVID transmission. But it also destroys the earth, social ties, lives, etc.
[+] [-] ogre_codes|5 years ago|reply
I don't think you understand what this is about. Most of the cycling for transportation is short hops, 0.5 - 2 miles and low key. No sweating or showers involved unless you live in Phoenix (in which case you have my sympathy regardless). I have a 7 mile commute and since it's cool in the morning and I'm not working out hard. I don't need to shower when I get to work.
Also, e-bikes are likely to be a bike part of this which makes the sweatiness even less an issue even if your commute is longer.
It does feel like they are trying to shove this solution in there to some extent. Many large cities have been trying to find ways to increase the amount of cycling and walking regardless. Cars and their infinite demand for resources (parking, wider roads, gas stations) have become a growth dead-end in dense urban areas.
[+] [-] pajaroide|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nradov|5 years ago|reply
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseas...
[+] [-] perfunctory|5 years ago|reply
Unfortunately, urban planners and authorities is not how you promote cycling. This is how you promote cycling [0]. You rebel.
[0] https://file.ejatlas.org/img/Conflict/2797/stop_de_kindermoo...
[+] [-] btrettel|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mistrial9|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] msla|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Stubb|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ravenstine|5 years ago|reply
People who can afford cars are going to continue driving them. Given the option between bicycling and driving, someone who can afford a car or already has one will likely opt to drive if public transport becomes impractical because of reduced capacity, mask wearing, etc. The poor are left to either ride "filthy" buses and trains, ride a bike, or walk.
[+] [-] ogre_codes|5 years ago|reply
Right now businesses and residential units are required by law in most cities to provide parking, take that away and the cost of owning a car goes up quite fast. If you have to pay $500/ month to park your car, it won't just be the poor who live the car-free lifestyle, lots of people with opt out of that.
In the Netherlands, almost everyone rides a bike (rich/ poor) because it's the best way to get around cities. In the US, nobody rides bikes because the infrastructure is designed for cars. In the UK and Paris (where this article is focused), they are somewhere in-between and trying to get closer to where the Netherlands is.
[+] [-] sokoloff|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stetrain|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cipritom|5 years ago|reply
I think more accent should be put on NMF bikes, Natural Material Frame, like those made of bamboo [0] or wood. These materials absorb CO2 from the air to grow, unlike steel or carbon which produces it.
[0] https://diverahub.com/
[+] [-] C1sc0cat|5 years ago|reply
1 A lot of us cant or prefer not to live in the heart of the city
2 Most offices are not built with showers and secure bike parking - for longer distance commuters last time I worked in central London I wanted to use a Brompton but boss said no I cat store it in the office so that was that.
[+] [-] nradov|5 years ago|reply
https://triathlontaren.com/diaanour/
[+] [-] hanniabu|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwawaysea|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwawaygh|5 years ago|reply
Plus, few people can afford it. Have you looked at the price of a parking spot in e.g., major parts of Boston or NYC? 5-6 figures to buy, or hundreds/mo to rent, and that's with working mass transit. I guess that those prices would at least triple if everyone started driving. Lots of wealthy people take the subway and commuter rail.
I don't think cycling is the solution. But cars are definitely a non-starter.
[+] [-] adrianN|5 years ago|reply
Bikes on the other hand scale much better. You can easily double a road's throughput with bikes. Now take away lanes used for parking and even more bikes fit on the road.
[+] [-] akgerber|5 years ago|reply
Bicycles (or other small wheeled vehicles) are much more accessible to more people now that electric power is practical in addition to human power.
In many urban areas, there is a lack of _any_ safe bike routes from point a to point b, which is not the experience of the motorist.
[+] [-] zerni|5 years ago|reply
There is no way cars are the solution to this.
[+] [-] ogre_codes|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mc32|5 years ago|reply
On the other hand people could wear a full face mask with good screw on filters too.
[+] [-] stetrain|5 years ago|reply