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Comment by primeblue | Hacker News Reader

It will be ironic when these millennials grow up and have children, then try cycling to do the weekly groceries with three kids in tow.

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As uiri pointed out, transporting a family by bike is very common in other countries so it's not unrealistic at all. Though with how heavily the US is built around cars, the first wave of people trying it will have to make sure to live in the right places in the right cities.

Also, people who don't live the suburban car life typically don't buy "weekly" groceries.

...or get their shopping delivered.

Via a car

It's actually usually a refrigerated van (bare in mind you'd have chilled and frozen items and those vans can be out for two hours at a time due to having multiple deliveries loaded).

But the type of vehicle is a moot point as it's not the shopper who has to own nor drive it. So they can still run a household without themselves owning a car (which was the point of the discussion)

not in first world countries - you don't want the death rates of say India on the roads

You mean countries like Germany, Holland or Denmark?

I suggest you google for "fiets met kinderzitjes" (bike with child seats) to get examples of how you can transport 2 small children on one regular bike.

Once the children get older they can get their own bike. If you need to transport more than 2 children, get yourself a second parent or a bike that's designed to take cargo (yes I just called your children cargo).

My mother raised me and my sister on her own, using just a bike.

Seattle is a very hilly city, increasing the challenges for bike commuting for normal people. An electric bike can help but increases the price substantially.

At least in Amsterdam where I biked around a bit, it seemed flat as a pancake.

That's why you build separate bike lanes. It works fine for the Netherlands, but it does require a large investment in bicycle infrastructure.

As someone who grew up in New York, people were getting their groceries delivered long before the days of online shopping, where most grocery stores provided a service at checkout where they'd bring all the groceries to your house after you selected everything, and the fees were pretty reasonable too given someone didn't need to go around the store for you.

You can cycle to work and do weekly groceries by car, you know? Or you can just do groceries more often than once a week. Or you can buy yourself a trailer for your bike, or a backfiets.

Or you could simply order your weekly groceries and have them delivered so you don't have to keep track of all the children in the store.

I hear a certain Seattle-based business provides such a service.

How much more % wise will your grocery bill be if you have it bought/delivered to you? 20%? 25%? 30%?

on a 500$/month grocery family budget you are looking at 100$ - 150$ more for convenience potentially. Its a lot of money for most.

My local grocery store charges $20 for delivery, with purchases of more than $200 having free delivery. It's not as expensive as you think.

Have you calculated how much a car costs compared to a bike?

yes cars are expensive. for my local situation here im looking at 1.5hrs commute by bike one way or 3 hrs round trip...every day. plus bad winters to deal with. car is worth the convinience ... in my case.

Move closer to work you say? Any cost saving from getting rid of one car will be overshadowed by expensive home prices. Real estate is not really affordable for most folks these days....

Why would delivery be a percent of the total goods cost? NYC has had in-store grocery delivery for a either a flat fee or flat fee per bag for decades.

If your weekly groceries are like $100 and the flat delivery fee is $15, then that's 15%. You can't just buy milk for the next six months in one go to make the percentage smaller.

....therefore it isn't a flat delivery fee?

Someone could easily turn around and say a car is $1000 a month for a "convenience". shrug

Yeah, it is so difficult to manage that with a trailer or biporteur/cargo bike (e.g. https://www.hollandbikes.com/5321/velo-biporteur-babboe-city... )

These seem to be quite common in Europe (especially the Netherlands but elsewhere like Germany too). With better cycling infrastructure, there is no reason that they could not catch on in North America.

I've seen more of these pop up here in Seattle, but I think biking downtown and biking kids around at night is dangerous.

Seattle is still a car culture.

Bicycle infrastructure is not something that just appears one day. Even bike Meccas like parts of the Netherlands took decades to build out that infrastructure.

I kinda see where you're coming from but it's awfully heavy handed and ultimately blames a lack of determination on having children. A good deal of people live by the bicycle, "millennial" or not. There's no virtue signaling happening here. You can either get over it or continue to have a bad attitude- it's not up to me.

What are you talking about? The oldest millennials are already 35. And lots of people who predate the millennial generation bike in Seattle.

This is from five years ago in Palo Alto so it's doable in America.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/swoo/8148861498

Some of my other acquaintances use a bike trailer or a trail a bike instead of a cargo bike for their kids. It helps that most of Palo Alto is close to flat.

Alternately, they have a motor vehicle and use it sparingly.

"Saint or GTFO" is a losing debate strategy with an aware counterparty.

But Amazon will deliver your order. :-)

Even if they do so what, they still will have saved a few years worth of traffic congestion, emissions and will have gotten exercise as well.

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