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Comment by Lndlrd | Hacker News Reader

In Seattle I know many people who live on flat routes and don't bike. I don't think the hills are the main deterrent. Anecdotally, it sounds like fear factor (especially riding near cars) and sweat (even if office has a shower) are the big ones.

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There's a lot of social pressure for women to wear makeup which is especially hard to pull off if you bike to work. A woman with tasteful makeup is perceived as more professional, even if it's just subconsciously. I'm sure there are men here who will object to that statement, but 9 times out of 10, when a guy thinks a woman is wearing "no makeup," she's actually wearing primer, foundation, concealer, mascara, eyebrow pencil, lipstick, and blush and just hasn't done anything too obvious.

Because of this illusion, women don't want to be seen bare-faced by their coworkers (because society's expectation of what a woman looks like without makeup is actually a woman wearing a lot of makeup so the real no-makeup look is shocking). Now a woman who wants to bike to work has to decide if she'll hope her makeup stays looking good after a bike ride, do her makeup twice, or go without makeup for the bike ride (and risk being seen without makeup going into the office). This doesn't bother all women, but it's no wonder that a lot of us choose not to go through this minefield of issues.

Those are the two biggest obstacles for me personally, as well. I live in Providence and it is VERY unfriendly to bikes. I routinely get honked at for going slowly (10-15 relative to what cars want, 30ish). Cars don't look out for me, there are often "bike lanes" that are really just painted pictures of bikes (wow, such safety), and there are hardly ANY other bikers. Then, I get to work and it's just a run of the mill government office, no shower, no bike room, no bike racks...

Yeah sure, but let me tell you biking from Ballard to Montlake on the Burke Gilman was awesome and easy. Now I live on Capitol Hill (Seattle) and don’t bike cause the climb is a killer.

You can bike part way and put your bike on the front of a bus to go up a big hill. You can rent ebikes for pennies to go up the hill, you can get your own ebike for 500 bucks.

All of these things apply to me too :-) I live by a big freaking hill, 300' up and whenever I ride I have to take a shower. If I had a flatter hill I'd ride my bike the 4 miles to the p&r a lot. Instead I drive my stupid car.

Ebike rentals aren't pennies. My last ride was $4 for about a mile. I was surprised.

I always bike to the UD or the ID (depending on what side of the city I'm on) then grab the light rail to Broadway station.

Buy an e-bike: they’re perfect for daily commuting without that one hill being a disincentive.

Yeah Burke Gilman should get even better whenever the missing link is completed.

Bristol, England is notoriously hilly, but 7% of all peak-time journeys are made by bicycle.

http://bristolbybike.blogspot.com/2009/11/bastard-hills-of-n...

https://bristolcycling.org.uk/cycling-trends-in-bristol/

I’m somewhat of a risk taker. I first rode a commuter bike in DC, a slow traffic biker-friendly city. I did so for about two years. Many years before that (as a teen) I did BMX and half pipes. I’m competent on a bike.

Much of the time I spent on the bike commuting was fucking terrifying.

I would guess commuting on a bike around cars is prohibitively scary for many folks.

Don’t forget bike parking. I don’t trust locking up my bike on the street in Seattle; I’ve known people who’ve had bikes stolen out of “secured” parking rooms. And there aren’t too many places to chain a bike either.

Seattle has crap for actual bike infrastructure. We dropped some lines at random on a map with no connections, and especially no east-west routes. It's getting better but man if the Burke is still basically the only east-west MUP in the city.

Here's the graph: http://seattlecitygis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/inde...

Note that only the red/orangey color (MUPs) and bold blue lines (protected cycle lanes) count; the rest are just paint on roads.

Neighborhood greenway = tons of speed bumps, nominally cars should depart after a block or two; otherwise ordinary residential road.

Sharrow = just a road.

Non-protected Bike lane = debris-filled shoulder, or worse, parked car door zone.

There is also the time factor... I have to get my kids to school/daycare in the morning and then pick them up before 5:30 when daycare closes... I already feel squeezed by these hours at work, and having to add time to my commute is a non-starter.

> fear factor (especially riding near cars)

a credible one at that.

Yeah. I used to commute by bike in Seattle but stopped after hamburgerizing my face trying to dodge a car coming out of a garage on the hill between 2nd and 3rd. I have plenty of coworkers with similar stories of accidents or near-misses that spooked them out of bike commuting.

I still enjoy cycling in the area in general, but downtown during rush hour is a meat grinder.

Hills might not be the only or even the main deterrent but they are definitely a deterrent in SF. In college we'd joke that someone should install a chairlift, and while I'm not sure that's the solution, I still think something similar would reduce the reliance on Ubers, Lyfts, etc.

because bicycles are fair weather solutions to transit and even then if the distance is within the rider's ability which far too many over estimate. then throw in convenience and security.

still this solution of theirs isn't really worth the money being sunk into it, there is no reason to not work along side ride sharing services to get people between their destinations and light rail or bus stops

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