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Comment by joaonmatos | Hacker News Reader

I wonder why velocipede users end up on the sidewalks. Could it be because they do not feel safe on the road, where they should be? Or that bike lanes have no separation from the road and often have larger vehicles parked there?

In general, I suspect someone is purposely ignoring the gas-powered, 3-ton metal elephant in the room (road?).

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For some of those EVs, like standing scooters, it's definitely half safety issue. By design they are less safe and stable than bicycles, I've seen multiple crashes (especially on wet surfaces). Plus, as a rider, you might assume someone who can afford a car or taxi would think of themselves as a more important person so you'd rather not slow them down or they might get angry--and they are the one driving a multi-ton metal box soft only on the inside. As a result somehow it's acceptable to inconvenience people who move with less environmental impact and protection (pedestrians as opposed to car drivers), while it should be the opposite.

Re cars, I don't like them and the fact that many modern cities tend to be designed around them. This is at least partially why EVs are used. But that design issue can't be solved quickly, and meanwhile conceding the remaining safe surfaces and normalizing powered transport is moving in the opposite direction of the solution.

Actually, I find that conceding the remaining safe surfaces and normalizing powered transport is exactly the solution.

As the general population experiences both the benefits and the drawbacks of powered transport, cities are much more responsive to creating dedicated space for vehicles of this type. Even painted bike lanes are preferable to the usual status quo of rolling the dice in a regular lane against multiple F150 drivers on cell phones on a city street. And as such infrastructure improves further, the benefits of using that infrastructure for the powered transport rider increase dramatically vs competing against people walking on a sidewalk.

Every new lane you add makes a city less dense and less walkable. If you prefer sprawling suburbia and drivers ignoring traffic rules as the norm, that's your choice.

The denser the city, the smaller and fewer the roads and intersections, the less resources you need to handle and prevent reckless driving, the more people choose against driving, the more viable the public transport system, the smaller the environmental footprint of the city, the less pollution from car tyres and exhaust, etc.

Well of course there is no "one size fits all" solution. Where there is space for sidewalks, bike lanes beside the road and an adequate amount of greenery/trees, that's the way to go (even if it means sacrificing some parking space or a car lane); where there is not enough space, either create a "shared zone" where all vehicles are limited to walking speed, or convert it to a pedestrian area.

Agreed. Don't add lanes at the expense of density, take the existing lanes away from cars. Make the experience hellish and expensive for them so they stop driving around in cities where, for the most part, they shouldn't be, and turn that space into pedestrian walkways, cycle/micromobility infrastructure, and perhaps the occasional park or extra canal.

Declare war on the automobile in urban environments, electric or otherwise.

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