Hacker News Reader

Comment by de_watcher | Hacker News Reader

There are places where it's cold, where it rains and snows. So we can't bike everywhere.

The good thing about the driverless cars is that they solve the parking problems in the cities. We can even add lanes or pavements by removing all parking spaces in the city centers.

View on HN

You can absolutely bike in the cold, and in the rain, and even in light snow. Also, public transit & busses can get you further without even the dreaded prospect of burning a calorie.

Removing free rental of public space to park your private vehicle is something I _do_ endorse though!

After commuting by bike for a number of years the only weather than I found sensible to avoid was very strong winds - I got blown off my bike onto the side of a lorry once, fortunately I was OK but I did get a scare!

In the Seattle area, if it’s 38F or below, I use four wheels. In 35 years of riding a motorcycle, the singular time I’ve dumped one on the street was black ice when bike’s temp sensor was screaming, “it’s 38F, ice! Ice!” One time it was right. :-( That, and I’ve dumped enough bicycles in similar conditions that I’ve just quit doing it. So total, there’s about a week of days every winter that I drive. I’m fine with that, because as I’ve mentioned elsewhere in this thread, I ain’t young anymore, and that collarbone is gonna snap one of these days if I don’t start exercising some caution.

> There are places where it's cold, where it rains and snows.

Like Amsterdam and Copenhagen?

> The good thing about the driverless cars is that they solve the parking problems in the cities.

They solve the search for parking by humans. But if you want to get the cars out of the city while they aren't used, you practically double the traffic and emissions.

No, not like Amsterdam. I love Amsterdam, but I'm so tired of it being used as an example of how we should all be on bikes. It has a very temperate climate. The weather in most of the US isn't as mild and cool as Amsterdam.

There are cites in the US with great weather, for example San Diego, Santa Barbara, all of Marine and Sonoma Counties in CA have great weather (sadly it is having wild fire problems right now). I agree that we could be biking in those places more.

The US as a whole has climate all over the place, from polar (N. Alaska) to tropical (S. Florida) to a desert. The coldest it has ever been in the Netherlands is -27 °C, but the continental US has gotten down to -57 °C (Alaska has reached -62 °C). The hottest it has ever been in Amsterdam is +41 °C while the US has reached +57 °C.

It's true that these are crazy extremes and we can't decide on public policy based solely on rare events, but there are big cities all over the US where it is too cold to bike. Consider:

Average Weather: days at or below temperature:

    City (population)   -18 °C    0 °C  
    -----------------   ------   -----
    Amsterdam   (821 K)   none    none

    Minneapolis (422 K)    23      148
    Chicago    (2716 K)     7      122
    Denver      (620 K)     7      157
    Milwaukee   (595 K)     7      126
    Detroit     (673 K)     4      115
    Indianapolis(872 K)     4      104
    Rochester   (208 K)     4      129
    Buffalo     (259 K)     3      124
    Cleveland   (386 K)     3      104
    Hartford    (123 K)     3      125

It also gets too hot to bike in the US:

Average Weather: days at or above 38 °C:

    City   (population)      38 °C
    -------------------      -----
    Amsterdam   (821 K)       none

    Phoenix       (1626 K)     107
    Las Vegas      (642 K)      70
    Riverside      (328 K)      24
    Dallas        (1341 K)      17
    Austin         (951 K)      16
    Sacramento     (502 K)      11
    Oklahoma City  (644 K)      11
    San Antonio   (1493 K)       8
    Salt Lake City (201 K)       5
    Houston       (2313 K)       4
    Kansas City    (489 K)       3

Some very hardy people do bike in the cold. See [1], the worlds longest winter ultra-marathon (running, biking or skiing 1000km, the last 500 miles without support!!!) It might be the hardest race in the world. (There are not very many other races where contestants have had to be evacuated by helicopter because they were being stalked by a pack of wolves.)

[1] https://www.iditarodtrailinvitational.com

Minneapolis has some of the highest percentage of Bike Commuters in the US at around 3.5% only falling after Portland at ~6% and San Francisco which is a nudge closer to 4%.

The entire west coast has weather at least as favorable to bike commuting as Amsterdam, yet the percentages of people commuting that way are still far lower than Amsterdam simply because the infrastructure isn't there.

People who think nothing of skiing or snowboarding in winter conditions are convinced that biking is impossible in those same conditions. It makes no sense.

Another factor to remember is snowfall. Where I live, we push snow to the side on roads, but it tends to stick around and accumulate for months at a time. Adding a secondary* infrastructure around bicycles would be costly.

But the big one is that the Netherlands has about half the population of Canada in an area the size of New Brunswick. Obviously they can afford better transport infrastructure than we can.

* Where I live, bike lanes become snow banks circa mid-January.

Where they expect annual snow and have segregated bike lanes you simply plough those, too. I've seen this in Sweden in Uppsala. You bike across a hard pack of snow, just like the cars on the roads. The cars need studded snow tires but the bikes are okay without. In the melt when you can have ice patches then studded tires on your bike are possible.

Amsterdam and Copenhagen don't get very cold.

The canals freeze. That's sea water, too.

I'm not saying it never gets cold, just that the climate is much warmer than, say, Wisconsin.

I grew up in Southwestern Ontario and we had days were school was cancelled due to cold, not snow. They were worried about frostbite on any exposed skin.

I keep forgetting that since the dawn of time, humans have been so sensitive to environmental conditions that it is a wonder we survived as a species. I get what you're saying, but in the end it boils down to "it must be 72F and dry anywhere I go". A little rain isn't going to kill you, leave the car at home today. Don't want to ride in the rain? Then don't ride in the rain, I certainly won't judge. But it is not some failing of the design of human beings that makes us incapable of doing so.

they solve the parking problems in the cities

By turning the general traffic lanes into de facto moving parking spaces?

So you're admitting that your solution involves a reduced quality of life?

Trench foot builds character.

You mean places like... Amsterdam? Plenty of rain here. That won't stop people from biking. If the majority of people own a bike, but not a car, biking becomes the default. Even with rain.

No places like Wisconsin and Minnesota where there's week spans of high temps that barley get above 0F and wind chills that will give you frost bite if you're exposed for too long.

I live in Seattle, rain sucks to ride in and most people don't have facilities to change or shower at work. That's a luxury not a standard.

It's all a moot point anyways because all this assumes everyone lives within biking distance of work and that work trucks/vans don't exist for a valid purpose.

I went to school in MN, and regularly did 1 mile walks in all weather including highs of -25F. You learn to dress for it.

> The good thing about the driverless cars is that they solve the parking problems in the cities.

They only solve them by doubling the traffic problems. I'm not a civil engineer so I'm not sure which problem is harder to solve, but this hardly seems like a free lunch.

>There are places where it's cold, where it rains and snows.

So what? Can you only bike on sunny days? Get better gear.

Hell I motorcycle year round even when it drops below freezing. When it gets real crazy I just take the bus for a day or two.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com