Comment by zucked | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zucked | Hacker News Reader

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I ride my bike to work. It's fantastic. Commute isn't a four letter word to me - I get exercise, time to think, I see my neighborhood and surroundings in a new way through all the seasons. I don't do it every day, sometimes I WFH or drive to work, but most of the time, 8 months out of the year, I ride my bike.

Someone is going to come along and say "BuT I dOn'T hAvE AnY bIkE pAtHs!" That might be true. Almost nobody has a bike path from their front door to their office. I sure don't. But if you stare at a map long enough, you'll find a way. It might mean you add a detour to ride a safer route. It might mean you have to drive half way. It might mean you take public transit half the way. I can't solutionize for everyone, but changing up your commute really changes things. It doesn't have to be such a miserable existence.

If I rode my bike to work, it would be 3 hours a day. Plus the 2 showers after each ride, packing extra clothes to change into, etc.

Not sure if you are in the US, but here what you are saying is absolutely not true for most people. Most of the country is so incredibly car centric that there’s absolutely no way you could bike 30 miles across a city. And then in most places the public transit is incredibly bad.

For example, I am a 40 minute, 30 mile drive from the city center. Most people in this area would consider that a reasonable commute. It would take 2 and a half hours to bike that distance in melting Florida heat and heavy aggressive traffic. It would take 2 hours by a succession of busses.

If I wanted to live a nice bikeable distance from the business center, I would pay dearly for it home price.

It didn’t have to be like this, but at this point we are so committed to suburban car-centric sprawl that there is now way back for most of the country and things like walkability, bike friendly and rapid public transit are going to remain luxury goods.

I'm in the US. I'm 10 miles from my work, in one of the eastern-most suburbs. I cross dozens of major stroads (arterials with HEAVY vehicle traffic) in my commute. The temps here in the summer are regularly 90+ degrees.

Solution? I got an e-bike. Again, I'm not saying everyone can bike the whole way. Take a bus for the first or latter half. It can be done if you actually want to make the change.

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