It's a perfectly viable supplement to good public transit.
It’s currently about 95F and humid every day where I live (mid-sized US city). I start sweating the moment I step outside. Add 10-15m worth of physical activity and I’m a disgusting smelly mess for the rest of the day. I hate that I live in a place that is car centric. But bike travel is not realistic here either even though most places I go to are easily within biking distance.
We have to collectively realize that the competition we’re up against is a private, quiet, climate controlled box with a built-in entertainment system that takes you directly from point A to point B reliably and on demand. Oh and a nationwide set of infrastructure built to accommodate it. People will absolutely pay a premium (both in $ and time sitting in traffic) as a trade off for those features. Additionally an enormous chunk of the market does not believe (or at least believe enough to care) that it matters for the climate. Environmentalism as a selling point for public/bike transit will never be effective on ~50% of the market.
The solution has to literally be better than cars in order to win. And cars have a lot going for them, to the point where most people have implicitly built their entire lives around the ubiquity of car availability. Transit advocates don’t seem to “get” this. We’re not asking people to change their mode of transit, we’re asking people to change their entire way of life for an alternative that they don’t believe (and may be right about) is better
Of course it’s not just Americans. I’ve got southern German friends who love the American car centric lifestyle.
The frame of the comment is quite vulnerable to survival biases though - if the transport has taken a step back from cars then the people who stopped travelling will not be visually observable.
Although I do think car-first cities are a plague and it'd be better not to have them.
Furthermore, our cities are simply bigger and more spread out. You’ll counter by saying we need denser, more walkable cities even though we obviously can’t just tear down our cities and start from scratch.
It's doable, but it's also the most time consuming and impractical way of transportation, compared to the other options, so therefor it's bad.
Just because you can find a weird amish guys who insists that riding a horse is great, doesn't make that a good way of transportation, or something that we should start doing more.
My connection to the center of Stockholm takes 45-60 minutes counting the time to-from stations, I bike the same distance in about 40-45 minutes. I get some exercise, I get to bike to any street I want to in more-or-less the same amount of time. It's bad for you, so just swallow that as a personal opinion but don't come with sweeping statements that "it's therefore bad", this is totally subjective to one's level of discomfort and/or laziness.
I prefer the bike than the great public transportation here for any trip where I won't be carrying more than what my cargo backpack can carry.
I don't agree with the logic of your statement ("it's not perfect for me so therefore bad"), also coming after biking infrastructure is a very weird hill to die on...
Being forced to do activities that are uncomfortable and strenuous = bad. The whole point of our society is to transcend this. There are a million ways to do exercise and sports, and to spend your life and time and energy. Just because someone doesn't like cycling like you, doesn't make them lazy. That's an unbelievably self centered and arrogant viewpoint.
My logic is that cycling is bad because 1. it's not powerful and 2. it's sensitive to the weather, and 3. most people don't do it. Doesn't matter what you personally like.
> My logic is that cycling is bad because 1. it's not powerful and 2. it's sensitive to the weather, and 3. most people don't do it.
> Being forced to do activities that are uncomfortable and strenuous = bad. The whole point of our society is to transcend this.
Pretty self-centered I'd say.
Think you might find that your biology disagrees somewhat, there. Try sitting in a bathtub 100% of your life and see what happens with your health.
Yes, yes, being forced is bad. But it does help against laziness :)
For heat, it will depend individually. Personally I've biked at +35C and it was fine until i stopped due to the wind/movement refreshing.
The majority of people commute by scooter/moped in Jakarta, so it's clearly doable in climates as hot as those you mention.
> even though we obviously can’t just tear down our cities and start from scratch.
You don't have to. Reclaim the roads/stroads by building in the middle and leaving a single one-way lane on each side.
Yeah and the majority of people in Dhaka where I’m from walk everywhere. The true goal of urbanists and environmentalists is for us to live like we’re impoverished people in the third world.
Nobody wants to walk or take public transit in that heat and humidity. Especially not with two or three kids, or carrying tiffin containers of leftovers after a dinner party. My family members who came over from Dhaka to the US moved to places built around cars as soon as they could afford it. My cousin just moved to Texas (after studying in Queens) and is loving all the open space, the houses with pools, etc.
I can't speak for all environmentalists but I'd like people to live pleasantly wherever they like if they can do so sustainably. Probably most Dhaka residents, like most people anywhere, would prefer to stay in their home city and country if possible, just improved. In any case giving everyone in the world a Texas-sized house and pool is not on the table no matter what until we invent personal fusion generators and matter replicators.
Having climate-controlled walkways or more comfortable transit options specifically for people with kids should be available in every city, "impoverished" or "third world" or not. The world certainly has the resources for it.
Bangladesh has about the same population density as the Houston metro area. So it would be totally possible for most people to have cars and houses if it became an advanced service economy.
> I can't speak for all environmentalists but I'd like people to live pleasantly wherever they like if they can do so sustainably.
It's not really up to environmentalists in the first world.
> Probably most Dhaka residents, like most people anywhere, would prefer to stay in their home city and country if possible, just improved. In any case giving everyone in the world a Texas-sized house and pool is not on the table no matter what until we invent personal fusion generators and matter replicators.
I think that's an accurate reflection of what people's end goals are, yes. Using technology to increase the standard of living, just as in western countries.
We are also predominantly complaining about people in the "first world" disregarding the environment due to minor convenience and unfortunate economics.
(But we only have one planet for now, and as things are, nobody is entitled to a free pass to be environmentally irresponsible anymore.)
Indeed, when you bike to work you're mimicking truly impoverished people like Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark.
Sometimes I wonder if aggressively pro-car anti-bicycle people ever tried using a bicycle seriously...
Similarly, biking to work does not make you impoverished. Having to bike to work, or living in a society where most people bike to work, strongly suggests you are impoverished.
In Denmark at least, most people bike to work, so the latter part is at least objectively false.
In case anyone is curious, the following PDF provides some statistics on this issue: https://trimis.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/project/docu...
Tldr: 20% of commuting trips are by bicycle, 13% by public transport, and 60% by private car/van. Of all travel miles, 5% are by bicycle, 10% by public transport, and 77% are by car/van.
I've also biked and seen others on the Maréchaux, through all arrondissements. Same in the Petite Couronne suburbs, and i have friends living in faraway places that have well bike parkings at their train stations.