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Comment by btrettel | Hacker News Reader

> For instance, as a bicycle commuter, I'm aware that many if not most of my colleagues live many miles from work. Thus the debate about transportation mode is practically moot.

Yes, as a cyclist myself I've had people tell me "Cycling is impossible in my case because of the distance." But what they've actually done is optimize for driving, which makes cycling inconvenient. If they optimized for cycling then driving might be inconvenient! If someone wants to make an intervention here they need to catch people at a particular time (i.e., moving) rather than random times.

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> But what they've actually done is optimize for driving, which makes cycling inconvenient

Did they optimize for driving, or optimize for affordability?

At every place I've ever worked, "optimize for cycling" has actually meant "optimize for being a millionaire". The housing near work is literally 250% more expensive than regular housing, and most people can't afford that.

And even if you do optimize for cycling, at some point you'll have to get a new job that wrecks this plan. Do you force your family to move every 2-3 years, everytime you get a new job, so you can continue to live cycling-distance to it? If you have a spouse, which of the two of you gets to live cycling-distance to work?

In my experience going car-free and moving closer can easily be cheaper. At my previous apartment (Austin, TX) I paid maybe $200 more per month in rent to live within a few miles of my work. The savings from not having a car definitely exceeded that in my case.

As for the remainder, you're making a number of assumptions that don't apply in many cases. I'm not arguing that cycling is good for everyone, just that often optimizing for driving means making cycling more difficult.

First off, not everyone has a family. I don't, so this criticism doesn't apply to me at all.

I know one cyclist who has moved his family for every job he gets. When he gets a new job, so far they've been so far away that moving was necessary even if he drove, though. (Not actually sure he cycled before he moved to Austin, now that I think about it, but still.)

I also know at least two cyclists who have lived in the same place for long periods of time. In one case I don't believe their spouse works, and in the other case I believe their spouse might drive.

The point remains that driving provides the most flexibility and choice for families and everything else is a downgrade. As you yourself pointed out, for one spouse to bike the other one may have to drive.

Bike advocates tend to be disproportionately single, white and male, and for those reasons they tend to underweight that flexibility.

> at some point you'll have to get a new job that wrecks this plan. Do you force your family to move every 2-3 years, everytime you get a new job, so you can continue to live cycling-distance to it?

you could give preference to jobs that don't require moving

That can be hard. Very few people have all that many realistic options, especially when they have to wrestle with things like health benefits, age discrimination, and so forth. There are relatively few places in the country where a person can find multiple jobs within cycling distance of affordable housing.

You'd think this would work in the bay area yet it hasn't. I've changed jobs four times since 2006 and none has ever been within thirty miles of the next.

I was actually thinking the bay area was the least likely because of the separation of housing and employment centers.

Anecdata, in my area housing next door to work is no more expensive in absolute terms, but you get somewhat less for your money, so people who desire 4,500sqft, a three car garage, and fancy interiors buy outside of town in exchange for a forty minute commute.

(The growing problem is that quite a lot of people have had this idea, and now the county roads are overburdened)

No, people are optimizing for things like family over work (which is good and should be strongly encouraged as part of work-life balance). It just so happens that driving is the most flexible way to get to work, so it looks like they're optimizing for driving.

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