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Comment by awjr | Hacker News Reader

I find the focus on congestion within the transport space to be perplexing. I'm guessing it is to do with the visibility of congestion. Waze recently did a survey and identified the Netherlands as the best place to drive (https://www.waze.com/driverindex).

The Netherlands is also the only western country with a negative obesity trend expected to hit 8% by 2030, currently at 10% vs the UK's 25%. The USA I believe is getting close to 36%.

We can try and blame our diets, however our built environment is creating a public health crisis of inoordinate scale. The car is very much to blame for this.

The car and car sharing is not the answer to traffic. Creating segregated end to end cycle networks with good junctions enabling people to choose to ride up to 5 miles to school/work is absolutely critical to avert this public health crisis.

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Much of the academic research I have read (Check out Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes) shows the exact opposite to be true.

Our diets accounts for dramatically much higher cause of obesity than our environment and specifically cars.

I'm just going to point at the Netherlands their obesity rate of 10%. They have designed in an hour or more of exercise per day into just getting around. In the UK some cities have stats where people are known to just do 20 minutes of walking exercise per year.

> In the UK some cities have stats where people are known to just do 20 minutes of walking exercise per year.

No way that's correct unless the U.K. has cities full of bedridden people. 20 minutes of walking is 3.3 seconds per day. You need a catheter or a wheelchair to walk that little.

I did qualify it as exercise. In other words, somebody deliberately 'going for a walk to exercise'. It would be interesting to know how many people do no form of exercise.

You also claim that the Dutch "have designed in an hour or more of exercise per day into just getting around." You're using two entirely different measures so your comparison is useless. If only "deliberate" walking exercise counts, then there are probably lots of Dutch getting no exercise.

Diet definitely has a bigger impact than exercise, but isn't there still a correlation between more urban areas and lower obesity even when controlling for poverty?

There may be other factors to urban, non-car-based living besides the extra physical activity that encourages lower weight. It's maybe as simple as without a car you can't go to Costco and stock up on huge sacks of unhealthy foods in one go -- beats me, I'd be interested to learn more.

On my phone so I can't find the right metastudy but yes, there is an inverse correlation between urban lifestyles and obesity rates but it's a tenuous one. In cities like Atlanta, St. Louis, Montgomery, and San Antonio the difference in obesity rates from rural and suburban areas in the same state is almost nonexistent but Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York see much lower rates in obesity. (within city limits, their metropolitan areas are a while different animal).

I have a feeling that it's mostly due to a hybrid peer pressure/economic effect. When you're in a group of friends and the majority want to go to a healthier restaurant or everyone in your neighborhood goes to the local mom and pop grocery store instead of Safeway, it becomes a self reinforcing pressure to eat healthy. More healthy restaurants will open and more small grocery stores will be built to serve individual neighborhoods while market share is slowly taken from unhealthy restaurants and chain groceries. Eventually, a significant portion of people who would otherwise have trouble controlling their weight stick with the healthier diet out of inertia or convenience.

I also saw a study (although not a very conclusive one) that suggested that discrimination could play a part. A higher cost of living in cities means that a lot more jobs that can support the lifestyle have a physical appearance component to them. Salespeople in high end boutiques, consultants, etc are economically more viable in denser areas and if clients or employers discriminate based on looks, there will be fewer job opportunities for the obese, making it harder for them to live in urban areas.

Do you know if there's a study that breaks this down by population density instead? My intuition (having lived for 6 years without a car in Atlanta) is that obesity levels aren't going to be significantly different in a sprawling, low-density city like Atlanta, where everyone drives, but in a dense, walkable, and public-transit friendly city like NYC you will see a difference.

Not off the top of my head but there are plenty of such studies. That still wouldn't give a clear picture because Los Angeles is also a low density car centric city but because it's in California, healthy eating is culturally more prevalent and fresh food is easier to come by.

Here is my logic by anecdotes and observation --

All the factors matter, and obesity definitely has a social component.

The jobs not only have a physical appearance component, the performance expectations and constant competition may mean you need more endurance. I'm not fat, and I'm not ripped, but I sure as hell feel a major performance boost in my own work when I eating healthy and exercising daily vs when (years ago) I was sitting inside all day drinking soda. I can't imagine how I would feel or perform if I had kept that up post-30.

Chain restaurants share commonality with big box retail. In a major city taking a client to Applebees much less Mcdonalds isn't going to cut it. In some cases rent may be too high to even support their business model, replaced instead by small shops and food trucks and larger restaurants at higher price points.

If the car was less important, the parking lot didn't matter, and people walked, would everything collapse in to more centralized walking cores? If so, would they serve anything healthy, or are the big cities an outlier because of the wealth and performance pressure?

Agreed in simple terms - cutting on high calorie food specifically sugar is better than exercising for body weight. However what if the environment (one conducive to riding bikes) causes us to make better dietary decision. In this case the focus should be on the environment.

This is correct in absolute terms. OP refers to relative rates of obesity based on variable cultural/jurisdictional attitudes towards cycling vs. cars.

I think at some point you are going to have to accept the fact that no, cars are not going to go away in the US. You can crow all you want about how much better mass transportation is but you're arguing for the benefit of society to the detriment to the individual, something that will never fly in the American ethos.

Biven that all the near-term technological improvements like AR systems, electric/non-internal-combustion engines and size coming down (Smart Car and equivalents have been gaining traction in the US for some time), combined with the basic geography of most of the US outside of cities, combined with the politics, combined with things like national security (why we built the international highway system in the first place), all predict a future where no, rail lines stuffed with humans who then take rideshares to their final destination are not going to be our reality.

I'll also tack on that progressives' constant attempts to belittle car owners does a very poor job convincing anyone that mass transit should be or even can be our future. When you sneeringly tell, say, a middle-aged mother who has relied on cars her whole life and continues to rely on cars now, that she's just made arbitrary choices to need a car and she could eliminate the need for one easily, she's going to laugh at you, as she should. Unless you want to expand the definition of "choice" to be "anything that is not an involuntary biological function" it's just naively facile to say something like that, but these threads are full of people ready and able to tell their fellow Americans how they should live. That's just not going to effect any change at all.

You're largely correct, but it is also true that the car ownership centric choices made on infrastructure and city growth turned out not to work so well either.

The best near to mid term developments probably involve cars still being quite central to many Americans lifestyle, while simultaneously becoming a bit more expensive and less convenient (e.g. less subsidized infrastructure, less central to urban planning). Simultaneously (some?) urban centers can become significantly less reliant on car ownership. Everyone can (and should) make their own choices, but we can work on having those choices less distorted by the policy objectives that have emphasized car (and for that matter home) ownership over other alternatives.

> you're arguing for the benefit of society to the detriment to the individual

Isn't that just a marketing challenge? Seems like going carless can be presented as a benefit, with many pros over cons, if the infrastructure begins to get built out.

With driverless smart-cars (which, I know, might be as much of an impossible nerdgasm pipe dream as flying cars):

* You no longer have to pay for insurance on a car that spends 90% of its time idle in your garage, nor gas, nor maintenance - except for the fees built into "hiring" the car, which is directly proportional to your use of it.

* No more car payments, either. No longer are you taking an instant 25% hit as soon as you drive a 2017 Hyundai Sombrero or whatever off the lot.

* For a lot of people, losing their car is financially crippling. If you wreck your car that you depend on driving to work in, most times insurance doesn't pay out enough to replace it with an equivalent car. Often, it doesn't pay out enough to replace it with any car.

* Tired of figuring out who in your four-driver family gets to use the car this weekend? Now your husband, Tiffany and Timmy can all get to their football game, football game, and football game on Saturday.

* Tired of spending three hours a day chauffeuring your kids to school and extra-curricular activities? Not anymore.

etc,. etc.

People are downvoting you, but I see this as a very valid argument. When you live within an environment where the only realistic choice is to run your own car then you are correct.

So you design a world where the car is necessary, you gut public transport, making a car more necessary, and use road design to make walking practically impossible.

Then you get angry at progressives.

Highways engineers, town planners, and policy makers are directly responsible for your reliance on the car through the encouragement of urban sprawl.

Then again this is probably acceptable to you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrxxX-59b58&t=102s

The bicycle infrastructure that is mentioned in the parent comment would go a lot further to helping many Americans towards a more active lifestyle (and do so in a fairly cost-effective way). Combining ridesharing with mass transit isn't changing the fact that someone would be sitting down for an hour or more of their day that they could have spent moving under their own power. The change that the parent comment is advocating for would aim to get people off their butts and using their legs.

I love the cycling idea, but for big chunks of the US it couldn't work. I live in Austin and ride my bicycle to work whenever I can, however my office has showers. Without showers here, I'd never do it (and would hope that nobody else would either).

Frankly though, the obesity problem is almost entirely about diet. More exercise would be great, but wouldn't address the actual problem.

showers are part of cycling infrastructure I guess.

I personally find the focus on diet to be unproductive. When I'm exercising well (meaning not too much, but e.g. enough to peg my Apple Watch), I simply tend to eat healthier. When I'm not, I tend to eat less healthy.

It's not just about habit ... my taste fluctuates with how healthy I have permitted myself to be (movement, breathing and strenuous exercise). For example, salad tastes better / cookies don't taste as good.

Eh... I try to eat healthy on regular days. But after a good exercise I'll happily let myself eat some delicious junk food.

Yeah, people tend to overlook the role climate plays in these comparisons. There's an enormous difference in cycling's viability as a primary means of transportation in a place like the Netherlands where average high temperatures rarely exceed 75, as opposed to Texas where a typical summer will have a prolonged period of temps in the 90s and multiple 100+ days.

The average high temperature in Amsterdam's warmest two months is 70F.[0]

Austin's average high temp is warmer than that for every month except December, January and February. In the warmest months, the average highs are 96 and 97. [1]

[0]: http://www.holiday-weather.com/amsterdam/averages/ [1]: https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Texas/Places/austin-t...

Heat isn't the only issue. From Wikipedia for the Netherlands:

Ice days (maximum temperature below 0 °C (32 °F)) usually occur from December until February, with the occasional rare ice day prior to or after that period. Freezing days (minimum temperature below 0 °C (32 °F)) occur much more often, usually ranging from mid-November to late March, but not rarely measured as early as mid-October and as late as mid-May.

I live in Montreal. I bike 9/12 months, and just take public transit / car sharing services in the winter months, or when I need it. I assume the Dutch do the same. I also lived in Austin for 6 months until July, and I found that the weather was pretty uniformly bikable because the heat was dry, though yeah, having showers at the office can be necessary if you live far away. It almost never rained, though. That's a big plus for biking.

Like most lifestyle issues, it's mostly just a matter of getting used to it.

If everyone cycling in the netherlands would take public transport or drive when it's cold/snows/rains the roads would be in constant gridlock and public transit would collapse.

Bike paths and roads are diligently cleared/salted in the Netherlands. So many people rely on bike paths to get to work or their train that I doubt ride sharing or taxis could handle the load.

The train is a big deal. Judging from comments I've read on web forums (granted, a pretty noisy and biased data source), most Dutch with longer commutes will combine cycling and public transit. In contrast, an American with a (say) 10 mile commute, must choose between cycling and driving. Those who do commute by bike in the US are dealing with more extreme weather and longer average distances, with little or no bike infrastructure.

32F is definitely warm enough to bike. I've Skied for 8 hours in 20 degree weather with no complaints. Exercise keeps you warm.

It's also cold enough for black ice.

During the winter, I ride a bike with studded tires. It makes a huge difference -- even black ice is navigable with care. Knobbly ice is actually worse because it pushes the bike around.

I live in Madison WI, and was curious about how it compares to Amsterdam for weather: About 15F hotter and 15F colder, give or take, also with more day-to-day variation.

Winter cycling is definitely its own beast -- not just weather but also darkness and the attack of road salt on the bike. I've got a dedicated winter bike that comes out when the salt trucks come out.

Much as I love riding throughout the year, I don't even mention it when I'm encouraging people to commute by bike. For anybody who's on the fence, getting them to try riding once per week during good weather is a great start.

Urban roads + cycle paths all get salted though ?

From my perspective, the worst months in Austin (July and August) could be doable with a shower at work. Without one--totally unthinkable unless your job involves outdoor labor. I biked daily for 3 years when I lived in Boston but there's just no equivalent to putting on a big jacket for heat/sweat.

Look at the dew point (which far better comparison than humidity because it doesn't fluctuate with temperature). Here are the August daily averages for Austin[0] and Toronto[1].

Toronto's dew point range (~53-63) has a max that is right around our minimum (Austin range: ~63 - 72).

Also keep in mind that, Toronto's daily high temps in August (~77F) are right around Austin's lows (~76), with our highs reaching around ~97F.

I'm going to suggest that you may be misremembering how humid it felt - in my opinion there's no way to bike any reasonable distance for the majority of July and August (and often June and September as well) without showing up a sweaty mess. At least I haven't figured out how to do it--even though I bike commute regularly from October - May.

[0]: https://weatherspark.com/averages/29672/8/Austin-Texas-Unite... [1]: https://weatherspark.com/averages/28390/8/Montreal-Quebec-Ca...

I also live in Austin. I moved downtown and got rid of my car 1.5 years ago. I bike everywhere, including work every day (3 miles) and I don't have the sweats and showers problem. Unless you bike to work in the middle of the afternoon, it's not going to be above 90F. Also, it's not a race, you can take a slower relaxing pace, kind of like fast walking. If that's still an issue it's like saying you can't go outside because you are going to sweat. Maybe there is something I just don't get, but I've never had the sweats or needed a shower. If every time some one has a drip of sweat they have to shower there would be showers in every restroom. I've gotten sweaty eating too much or too many spicy foods.

While the physics of weight loss certainly supports diet over exercise, let's also consider the overall effect of our sedative culture. I believe it contributes greatly to the modern afflictions of anxiety and depression. That our bodies crave more physical activity, as the legacy movement is in our biology, only recently shut out in the last couple hundred years (or less).

When you think about how much someone eats, it helps to think about why. The exercise could help on more than one front.

Unfortunately, it's not an easy problem to solve.

I live in LA and I have to drive to work because there's just not simply a viable alternative to where I have to commute to (West Adams area to West Hollywood.) The bike lanes across LA are spotty at best and there's a good chance you're going to get hit/brushed by a car because the closer you get to Beverly Hills/West Hollywood, the more impatient/asshole-ish drivers become.

LA is trying to solve this right now with better public transportation, but even then the line that runs into Beverly Hills/West Hollywood requires me to take I think a train and a bus before I can even get to it (also it's not complete for another 4 years, I think.)

surely there's a bus that goes straight up fairfax?

edit: looks like the 217 bus goes up fairfax and into west hollywood. why not take that?

The 217 bus would be perfect if it had a stop in between its San Vicente and Santa Monica stop. It would probably be another mile walk from there.

It ultimately does come down to convenience. :( Commuting by bus/Expo line means easily adding another 30 minutes to my commute if I happen to hit all the correct times at once.

Surely the city could find a series of roads that could be made into one-way streets, and have segregated bike lanes on the other side?

There are a number of issues with this. One, Los Angeles is VERY sprawling; people are traveling from every direction to every other direction, there are no easy routes you can make that will cut very much traffic. You would need to turn a LOT of streets into one-ways with bike lanes.

Two, the traffic density and management is crazy here. So many traffic lights and stop and go traffic. Major streets are constantly crossing other major streets, which require long stops at lights while the other major street moves through. Riding a bike in the area is especially hard, because you are constantly having to come to a complete stop, wait for 3 minutes, and start again.

This also makes otherwise walkable neighborhoods very difficult for pedestrians to navigate. Red lights need to cycle much, much faster.

This. It's also really, really annoying that all the lights on an entire stretch of a street cycle at the same time. It really fucks up traffic. To make it even worse, people often try and race to the other side even on yellows and block up the intersection, which makes traffic even worse.

I didn't realize it was such a huge problem until I moved to Los Angeles a few weeks ago. We did a bang up job finding an apartment with grocery stores, restaurants and parks within walking distance. Unfortunately, the red light situation makes it somewhat difficult to get to these amenities.

LA needs to do a better job of balancing pedestrian and motorist interests. With more and more people abandoning or at least de-emphasizing cars, I hope and expect this balancing act to happen sooner rather than later.

I see it happening in different parts of LA. Santa Monica and West Hollywood are starting to adopt the "rent-a-bike" system that I've seen in NYC and Denver. They're also starting to set up more bike parking areas to be more bike friendly. I don't know how well it will work out in the long-run, but I do really hope to see more bike lanes in LA to encourage bike commuting.

I'm not sure if you're already aware of this, but NYC has also been aggressively building out cycling infrastructure since the Bloomberg administration. So your point is not unknown to policy makers:

http://www.amny.com/transit/new-york-city-to-reach-1-000-mil...

I have Sadik Khan's book on her work in New York http://www.jsadikkhan.com/streetfight-the-book.html

It could get confusing if she came to London to work with our Mayor Sadiq Kahn.

NYC's problem is also distance. Depending on where you're coming from biking could take 1.5-2hrs each way. I enjoy it but the problem is with extreme rising housing costs people are pushed further and further.

Though to be honest, a SAFE biking lane system would be a much welcome gift in NYC. Currently in certain areas I have to work doubly hard to not get killed daily.

Yup and without protected bike lanes you only get those people 'brave enough' to venture out. To get people on situp and beg bikes (or ebikes) riding in normal clothes, you have to have visible end-to-end safe lanes.

Look at London. They removed two traffic lanes, installed wide cycle lanes and now move 5% more people through the space. 70% of traffci through Blackfriars is people cycling, mostly in day to day clothing.

And in a dense urban core in a mild climate that makes perfect sense. Which greater Manhattan is not.

What? NYC is perfect for biking.

I wouldn't say that NYC is uniformly perfect for biking throughout the year. The summer is very hot and humid, effectively requiring you to shower before going to work. The winter is cold, and the roads and frequently covered in snow and/or ice.

Both of these problems can be worked around, but they are daunting for anyone who's not already fairly dedicated; a newbie isn't going to ride to his law office in 95 degree weather, or through slush.

(And that's just the weather; I'm not taking into account the crappy car traffic through most of Manhattan, or the huge valley around 125th street, or the fact that going across the Brooklyn Bridge is incredibly annoying whenever pedestrians are present, etc.)

Digging through [0] (and matching my experience), NYC appears to average summer highs of mid-80s and winter lows in the 20's There are plenty of days outside of those ranges in Feb and August, but there are a solid 6 months/year of reliably comfortable cycling weather.

As to your footnote, both of your geographic problems are avoidable by knowing the city better. Both the Hudson River Greenway (low) and Riverside Drive (high) provide very convenient ways to avoid the 125th St Valley on the west side, and St Nicholas Ave does the same on the east.

Further, what self-respecting (and sane) cyclist would take the Brooklyn Bridge when the Manhattan bridge is __right__ there and in every way nicer to ride on?

[0]: https://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KJFK/1972/1/2/P...

Which is really a function of rent control. NYC heavily subsidizes a retired population while discouraging ultra high density development. Further, after changing jobs it's often better not to move.

So, you sacrifice density on people who don't have a economic incentive for living in the city, discourage short commutes, and discourages increasing density.

ED: Yes, that includes Rent Stabilized.

Huh? Rent Control apartments only represent 1.2% of the total rental stock in the New York City. That is as of 2014 and so its likely less now as that number only ticks down. How is that heavily subsidizing a retired population?

http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/hpd/downloads/pdf/2014-HVS-initia...

Also the idea of people paying peanuts for a rent controlled apartment is largely a myth. It is discussed in detail in this article:

http://citylimits.org/2015/03/09/nycs-endangered-species-a-r...

From the above article:

"Olive Freud, a retired schoolteacher, and her husband, Edgar, a retired engineer, also pay more than $2,000 a month in rent for their rent-controlled, two-bedroom unit on West 72nd Street"

To qualify for "Rent Control" the apartments must be occupied since July 1, 1971 so that 1.2% is effectively 100% retired people.

Further 1,030,000 units are "Rent Stabilized". However, "Rent Stabilized" is really just another type of Rent Controlled with different rules.

PS: From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_control_in_New_York Non-regulated 2011: 39.1%.

That 1.2% figure for the number of rent controlled apartments in 2014 equates to 27K apartments. I was responding to the OP's claim was that New York City was "heavily subsidizing" retired people.

Lets say that those 27K apartments have two occupants - the reality is probably less. so that is 54K people out of population of 8.1 million. The percentage of people that rent in NYC is ~ 70%(see link below) or 5.6 million? Would you consider that 54K a heavy subsidy burden on the majority of renters even if they were only paying peanuts which they are not see my second link above.

https://www.nakedapartments.com/guides/nyc/renting-in-new-yo...

The retired population in NYC is not 5.6 million. Further, these are older buildings which are not being replaced in part from rent control. So, the 'Gap' is wider than just 27,000 missing apartments.

In any case there still is a highly subsidized subset of the overall retired population that is part of the problem.

Nowhere did I say the retired are 5.6 million people. I used 54K people as the number of retired people at 2 people per each of the 27K rent controlled apartments. I also stated 5.6 to be the total number of all renters using 70% of 8.1 million total residents. Using 54K people again as an example mean that .96% of the populating is in rent controlled apartment. In reality that number is probably much lower because we are talking about an aging population.

I have provided actual numbers and data to demonstrate there is not a high subsidy. You have not provided any supporting evidence to the contrary.

This aside it is pretty disturbing that you keep insisting retired people are a "problem." They have as much right to live New York City as anyone else. They have paid into the system longer than anyone, they stuck it out through the tough times - the bad old days when New York City was a crime-ridden and financially insolvent city. They are not freeloaders by any measure.

I said, "heavily subsidizes a retired population"

Which says nothing about everyone, or every retired person, just these 27,000 apartments with vastly below market rents. On it's own this is not a big deal, but it really is a solid example of the problem with other forms of rent control.

The wider subsidy across ~1,030,000 apartments is a smaller subsidy, but also part of the same problem.

PS: Some of them could also afford to live in the same area without the subsidy. But, they also create jobs for people in the city further driving up demand for housing and thus rental prices.

> Further 1,030,000 units are "Rent Stabilized". However, "Rent Stabilized" is really just another type of Rent Controlled with different rules.

Rent Stabilization has very little to do with retired individuals, unsurprising given its broad scope. How is your comment relevant?

The rent controlled apartments called "Rent Controlled" are just one part of the problem. As these people needed to rent their apartment starting in 1971 those 27,000 apartments are rented by retired people. Which generally don't do daily commutes but do reduce density making other peoples commutes longer.

The much larger rent controlled group aka "Rent Stabilized" includes plenty of retired people, but also many working people who are discouraged from moving due to their below market price rent and the difficulty in finding new apartments. The working fraction of that much larger group creates congestion issues from these longer commutes, while the retired people reduce effective density.

TLDR; I am making more than one argument for why each type of rent control is part of the problem.

They could be referring to rent stabilization, which is closer to 50%:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_control_in_New_York#New_Y...

(not that I'm convinced either is a problem for this discussion)

In NYC rent control refers to a program that freezes rents. It is all but gone, with less than 2% of rental units still in the program. Rent stabilization is a much bigger program that limits rent increases. That program has about 45% of rental units in it. Though it is worth noting that in many parts of the outer boros the market rent is less than the legally mandated rent stabilized rent, and so rent stabilization doesn't end up meaning much.

While I think eliminating rent stabilization would help, it isn't a magic bullet. What's really needed is more units. As compared to many other cities NYC is decent about greenlighting new units, but they can do better.

First, they need to reign in an out of control landmark process. Individual buildings are one thing, but when they start designating entire neighborhoods it is a problem. Second, there's some significant upzoning that can still happen. Related to the first point, it is one thing to preserve the character of parts of Greenwich Village that are quite nice, and another to preserve the character of the east village. The character of the east village is ugly dense housing. You can best honor that legacy by building modern ugly dense housing instead of "preserving" century plus old ugly dense housing. Third, the housing lottery is a affordable housing theater (a la security theater). It is a waste of everyone's time. Fourth, the city and state should not be putting their thumbs on the scale in negotiations between construction unions and developers. Construction unions have quite enough bargaining power as it is. Higher construction costs push developers towards luxury units. Fifth, the city needs to do its part in terms of developing infrastructure -- above all public transit, but also schools, water, sewage, etc.

I agree, but I think that's part of a larger picture.

There are a huge range of perverse incentives on all sides of this issue right now. In a completely non rent controlled environment then there is a much larger incentive for renters to support new construction that reduces rents across the board. Which, IMO would impact the landmark process that has less to do with Landmarks than NIMBY.

>"In NYC rent control refers to a program that freezes rents"

This is not actually correct. Your rent in a rent controlled or rent stabilized apartment is still subject to increases in rent but there are guidelines on how much those increases can be.

In most cycling-oriented countries, those kinds of distances would be dealt with by better bike parking at the train stations. "2-fare zones" in NYC are still generally within a quick bike ride of a sub-1-hour subway ride to all of Manhattan.

IMO, less congestion makes for roads that are less terrifying for bicyclists.

Netherlands is a special case in terms of human-powered transpo. It is flat, engineered, and has relatively tame weather. Some of us do not live beside calm waterways and associated setbacks and level grades so loved by bikes. The nearest waterway to me is more gorge than river. The road in front of my house has a 30* slope in places and, at the moment, is covered in ice. Bikeing to work in my town is a fundimentally different experiance than the average netherland commute.

Segregated cycle lanes need to absolutely be a priority. I was considering cycling to work (London), and literally this morning walked outside for a break to see a load of paramedics and some poor person under a truck at the junction outside my office. Needless to say, this soured my view distinctly. City cycling in London is really dangerous, and courts are highly favourable towards drivers.

I cycle here everyday and don't find it very dangerous if you're careful. The city has done a lot for cyclists in the last years (highways are only one example) and the fatality rate is relatively stable for several years now, even though cycling numbers increase by ~20% each year.

Most lorry drivers are very aware of cyclists now, so if you don't try to pass them on the left (where they can't see you even if they wanted to), they'll be careful to stay away.

I also don't know where you get the argument with the courts from. Any evidence for that? I've never seen police pulling over a cyclists, but I've seen several occasions of police pulling over cars that stood in cyclist areas (the ones in front of traffic lights).

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