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Comment by btrettel | Hacker News Reader

Cyclist here. I've told people that this can be true in the US as well (taking the exact same route even). I picked my current apartment because it has a relatively short bike commute. Going from my current apartment to where I work takes about the same amount of time by bike or car because the car is at best 5 minutes faster to the general area but that advantage is quickly lost when one has to park and walk to the building. With my bike I park 100 feet from the door.

Some drivers might say that counting time to park is "cheating", but I strongly disagree. Time from door-to-door is what matters.

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When you factor in rush hour, it's definitely true for the Bay Area.

I live in San Jose, a morning car commute on the 101 is ~30mins, return is ~50-60mins. Riding my bike is 45mins (43-48) each way.

It's a complete wash and I get 90mins of exercise per day.

If you don't want exercise, get an e-bike and go faster for less effort!

I live a lot closer to work - 4.5 miles straight down Central Expressway. Even though my route is no better than what I could do by car, both my average and variance are much better by bike than by car. Typically 15 minutes door-to-door by bike. I can't touch that by car, with evening commutes often taking 45 minutes. I wave at my coworkers when I bike past them.

When I am in SF often I can walk faster than I can drive.

In La Jolla, I had a bus pass because I had been running errands. I was tired and we had more stuff to do, so I took the bus since I already had a pass good for the whole day. It didn't cost anything.

My sons walked to meet me somewhere midway to where we were going. They arrived about the same time I did.

I would get ahead of them because the bus is faster -- when it's actually moving. Then we would sit at a light or get stuck in traffic, and I would watch my sons pull ahead of the bus.

When we first gave up our car, it took no more time to pick up groceries on foot than by car. The same scenario often took place, where a car would zoom past us, then get stuck trying to turn into the parking lot. We were going into the store while they were looking for a parking space.

Cars on the open highway going long distances are absolutely much faster than someone walking. But for many local trips, they aren't as advantageous as many Americans assume them to be and will vociferously argue they are when presented with such stories.

I live in a suburb so I have to drive to many places but I have started to notice that even if I can't walk to the store in less than 20 min it feels a ton less stressful than driving for 3 and parking for 5. I should probably get a bike as this is the perfect distance for it.

You should be able to walk 4.5 miles in 45 minutes.

A 10-minute mile pace is definitely not walking speed--that's about twice as fast as most people walk.

Walking speed is 15-20 minutes per mile...a 4.5 mile walk for most people would be closer to 90 minutes.

FWIW A recent study found that e-bike riders get more net exercise, because they ride more. Basically Jevons Paradox.

Absolutely. When I was biking in college, I could reliably beat my driving friends to any destination within a mile or so. Which, given that we all lived in the middle of a college town, covered most of the places we wanted to go.

I currently live about 1.5 miles from work, and I'd love to bike it, but this suburb has no bike lanes, sidewalks, or shoulders, and intersections that are terrifying even in a car. :(

Same with me in Calgary, AB, a big, spread-out city by Canadian standards. My daily commute is ~5km each way and it takes 12-20 minutes depending on weather, type of bike and how energetic you're feeling. Visiting my family is 25km each way and takes about 60-70 minutes. Driving time would be 15-40 minutes for work (depending on time of day) and 30 minutes to family with no traffic. My takeaways:

* for shorter urban distances the bike is way faster almost all the time

* for longer suburban distances it marginally slower but not as much as you'd think

* The quality of the time on a bike is much greater up to ~20 minutes, then tapers off rapidly in poor conditions; even riding in the rain or cold snow is preferable to sitting in traffic if you're not out for too long.

* My trip is typically short enough that it takes longer to get ready to ride than to actually complete the ride

I ride a bike for very selfish reasons; the shared benefits are just a nice bonus.

> I've told people that this can be true in the US as well

It's certainly true where I live. My daily commute is ~10 minutes faster on a bike compared to driving, even ignoring time needed to park.

This is also true for my commute in Palo Alto, even without the “door-to-door” qualifier. I don’t even particularly like biking, but I’ll gladly bike when it’s significantly faster + cheaper.

True for me, and like many posters I'm also in the Bay area. Even though my commute is tiny (3 miles each way), the time it takes is a wash. By bike there's a trail I can take which is nonstop. By car the variance is much higher, depending on traffic, which stop signs are red, etc.

I suspect that the bike would win for my old commute (5x longer), where I'd hit congested highways every single day. Slow and steady beats stop and go.

The city I lived in prior to my current location was much larger. My commute was about 5 miles each way. Driving it would take between 1.5 and 2.5 hours (more if there was an accident)! I could bike the same distance in about a half an hour.

My wife and I are in the process of shopping for a house, and the two factors we're weighing the most are bikeability and walkability.

In Baltimore, bikes routinely will pass cars driving inside the city because cars stop at all lights (well, they should anyway), get stuck in traffic, and have to circle for parking. That said, it feels unsafe and the number of bikes is still low.

When I lived in San Francisco, my commute from the Inner Sunset was 40 minutes by MUNI (subway), 40 minutes by bike. Driving was out of the question.

reminds me of

"our city is just as big when you count the suburbs!"

but by that standard you have to count the bigger city's suburbs too

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