Car requires a lot of infrastructure that are very costly. Traffic control, safety equipment, road bumps (how ironic) because indeed cars are fast and heavy. Biking made me realize how much it took to get a full fledged car culture.
[1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/the-gas-taxs-tortured-...
True. But then it’s counter-productive, because it really does not cover government spending to build and maintain roads (and motorways, and bridges, and tunnels). To be fair, roads are necessary and useful in a modern economy. But the same money on some reliable tracks for freighter trains could be even better in some instances, and now we have people saying that we cannot have that because trains are expensive. True, they are, but the comparison is flawed because we assume that roads are free.
Indeed, gas taxes will have to decrease, and that will be associated with increased maintenance costs (EVs and modern cars keep getting heavier, which results in more wear and tear). So it’s possible that at some point people will realise how much the debate is stacked against any alternative form of transport, but I am not too hopeful. Roads are just expected; people don’t really realise they we had to pay for them.
> "Increasing a truck’s weight [from 80,000 pounds] to 90,000 pounds results in a 42 percent increase in road wear. Pavement designed to last 20 years wears out in seven." https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2017/06/22/murphys-law-how-trucks...
> It would take 700 trips by bicycle to equal the damage caused by one Smart Car. It would take 17,059 trips by bike to equal the damage caused by an average car. And it would take 364,520 bike trips to equal the damage caused by just one Hummer H2. https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weigh...
When this all comes together, every cycling trip I take is a car left parked and that benefits everybody. That's why we don't tax cyclists for infrastructure and why it's counter-productive to raise it as an issue.
But this might be measuring something a little different.
Regardless, in my city (Seattle), an asphalt bike path near me (Alki trail) is still in perfect condition after a decade of frequent cyclist and pedestrian use, and adjacent car streets are riddled with potholes and cracks despite frequent patching.
The bike path near me was resurfaced recently, it wasn't bad before but it's certainly nicer now.
Also bike infrastructure degrades very slowly over time.
I've tried biking walking public transportation, cars are just better. I still bike for certain trips, but it's limited in usefulness.
That said, I do not plan to own a car as long as I live in a major city, it is just financially unsound and not really needed for me on a daily basis as I don't have kids.
For the most part I didn't miss the car. I just took it as "life".
But, a few friends owned a car and a few times a year I'd met up with them and notice that my world seemed 4x larger with car. They were going all over the place because it was easy and comfortable and while I wasn't a hermit I stuck to easy to get to places. I also joined a surfing group and the person that ran it owned a van and we would not have been able to get to the various beaches without it in any reasonable time frame using public transportation.
Another area was running errands. Back in car centric USA I might spend a Saturday going to 3-5 places (Home Depot, Costco, Target, the Mall) and at each place I might buy something I needed and just put it in the trunk and carry on. Where as in my 2nd life I could only go to a single store in a day because I needed to carry what I bought. Maybe that's good but it felt frustating not to be able to get shit done as quickly. Sometimes I could order or have things shipped but it took an extra 10 minutes to fill out the forms, more if there's a line, and then I had to be home to receive the packages.
You can't transport large or bulky items.
You are limited in how much you can transport (how much can fit in your backpack basically).
You can't safely store things. The value of a mobile location to store items is vastly overlooked by people who hate cars.
Cars are faster if you are going more than about a mile - even including parking.
You can't ride a bike in bad weather. Hard rain is very unpleasant, and snow is impossible.
If you live in a place with hills, bikes are just not practical.
Bumps in the road, potholes, etc, are very dangerous in a bike. There's a spot near me that has these "ripples" in the pavement that you can't easily see, and I fell after going on them, now I know to avoid them, but any new biker will also fall.
You can take passengers in a car ;)
the carriage limit is real, the mobile storage aspect is true too, weather is nasty
Mostly true, though plenty of bikes can haul 1-2 kids or 1 extra adult. There is a guy in my neighborhood I see take his kids to school every day in one of these.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/8/20791435/radwagon-electric...
> You can't transport large or bulky items.
Cargo bikes or bike trailers are extremely nice in flat cities, and even in hilly cities, e-bikes make them feasible. I routinely haul 100lbs up hills in Seattle with a trailer behind an e-bike.
Here's an article by (admittedly a bit of a bike fanatic) about hauling patio sets, stoves, grills, etc.
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2014/06/23/how-to-carry-majo...
> You can't safely store things
This is a good point and I think your observation about how it's overlooked is important. Going on multi-store trips in a bike is mildly annoying since you often have to take what you got from one store into the next store because you can't leave it on your bike.
> Cars are faster if you are going more than about a mile - even including parking.
This is highly dependent on the city you're in. In Seattle, bike is, by far, the fastest way for me to commute. My commute is 6 miles (West Seattle to Downtown). Biking, door-to-door, is 25 minutes. It's 35 minutes by bus or car. This is because a large chunk of the trip is on a dedicated use bike trail without stop lights or traffic.
> You can't ride a bike in bad weather
Amsterdam has pretty bad weather (it rains 50% of days of the year), yet somehow they have extremely high cycling rates. For me (in Seattle, also lots of rain), the game changer was getting a proper bike poncho: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLM_mTUuHlc
I agree that a torrential downpour like what you might get in the midwest is not realistic to cycle in. But for light to medium rain, the poncho punches above its weight.
> snow is impossible
They make it work in Finland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU
> If you live in a place with hills, bikes are just not practical.
Seattle and SF are both quite hilly, yet both have among the highest rates of cycle usage. This is a barrier for those starting from a low level of fitness, though. And even for otherwise fit people, it takes a few weeks for your legs to adjust to the new movement pattern.
E-bikes make hills trivial, though, which is why they are exploding in popularity (in Seattle at least).
> Bumps in the road, potholes, etc, are very dangerous in a bike.
Agreed. This is one of the reasons it's so important to have dedicated bike infrastructure. Road damage is proportional to the 4th power (!!) of a vehicle's weight. So cyclist infrastructure, once built, degrades extremely slowly compared to car infrastructure.
But bikes and walkers should have the advantage of more direct routes that take less time. Steps on roads on Queen Anne Hill being a good example, but there should be more of that type of thing. Grade separate bike lanes, bike tunnels, etc. They can be surprisingly thin and sneaking them in works wonders.
I take my 8 and 11y old daughters on my old granny bike. One on the handlebar, the other upright on the rear rack.
Besides you don't need passengers when everybody can take his own bike and chit chat while riding.
> You can't transport large or bulky items. > > You are limited in how much you can transport (how much can fit in your backpack basically).
False. Anecdote, I once bought a tree at a garden center. Everywhere I looked, people where struggling to put plants without spilling dirt on the trunk of their van/wagon. The only 3 who were fine were a pro with a pickup bed, a middle age guy with...a convertible and me...with a bicycle trailer made to carry kids.
> Cars are faster if you are going more than about a mile - even including parking.
Not so true. Cars are marginally faster or plain slower in many urban areas with lots of traffic lights and/or with heavy traffic.
> You can't ride a bike in bad weather. Hard rain is very unpleasant, and snow is impossible.
false. Hard rain is very unpleasant for drivers, most barely see anything. At least cyclists see where they are going. Also unless you live in a place hit by moonson, rain is rarely an issue. For the many days that forecast some rain, the actual chance of being riding at the exact moment it rains is not that high. There are not that manu days in a year hit by continuous rain all day long. Also I've commuted on snow for years, and more efficiently than many car drivers thanks to very efficient bicycle studded tires. In cycling we say there is no bad weather, only bad equipment. You wouldn't drive your convertible open during a thunderstorm, right?
> If you live in a place with hills, bikes are just not practical.
Not true anymore with e-bikes. Also fitness come with practice.
> Bumps in the road, potholes, etc, are very dangerous in a bike
You just learn to avoid them. Also skills increase with practice. Also there are bikes an bike. Using bigger tire volume help tremendously. Overall driving a car is much more dangerous. Despite the protection, odds of dying are statistically higher. Perception of danger in cycling is similar to people afraid of boarding a plane. Irrational. As is the perception of safety in cars.
Also because of suburban sprawl your commute on a bike can be an hour easy. I tried biking to work for a while - 23 minute drive but an hour or more on a bike. Great workout, but the lack of proper bike paths meant a few times broken glass gave me a flat miles (5-10) from home.
If you like a few miles away, maybe 5 or less, bike commuting can be a good option. Very few people live that close to work though.
Every time I used car or public transportation it was longer, more random (couldn't even tell when I'd reach my destination), costlier, more stressful during (angry drivers everywhere) and after (no certainty to find a safe parking spot).