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Comment by rolenthedeep | Hacker News Reader

Our cities are designed for cars. Hell, most of our society is designed around owning a car. It is horrendously impractical in a lot of places to go without a car.

Our public transit systems are largely garbage, if they exist at all. Bike lanes are extremely rare, and are really just used as free car parking.

Take my commute to work for instance. It's about 3 miles, but it would be impossible to bike, as there are huge and dangerous hills. Likewise, walking would be very difficult. It takes about 10 minutes to drive to work, and a bus would be over 40 minutes.

We have major infrastructural failures that make it very impractical to exist without a car in most cases.

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Our suburbs are designed for cars. Our cities are retrofitted for cars.

That might seem pedantic but I’m not trying to be. The point is that we do actually have significant areas of population which are ready to be reworked to prioritize cycling without completely changing the way we live.

Suburbs can also prioritize safe cycling. Take a look at bentonville Arkansas. It has a tiny downtown but most of it looks and functions like a suburb. They’ve made it safe for everyone to ride their bikes to commute and for pleasure. It’s not a blueprint by any means, it’s a passion project by some rich folks, but it’s proof that the suburbs can be retrofitted with a vision and will.

Bentonville's core is vastly different from the surrounding suburb/exurb/metro area which is mostly 0.5+ acre lots built in confined subdivisions connected via 4-8 lane arterial stroads - typical American car style suburban planning. The damage is done, retrofitting this development pattern to suit cycling over F150 throughput is just not something that will be achievable in the Bentonville, or the greater US.

I live in Kansas City and there is a valiant effort happening here to put in meaningful cycling infrastructure. There are bollard protected lanes from downtown out to the inner ring suburbs, additionally we have a residential grid that would allow safe cycling around town, but the new lanes are going completely unused. Visit the KC reddit and look at the vitriol being spewed - 'why are my tax dollars being wasted on this', 'i cant park', 'it ruins business'... These are the people coming from our outer ring suburbs where cycling is just not an option - they can't even fathom a place without cars.

Have you looked at what's happened in Bentonville in the last few years? The cycling infrastructure that's been built extends well beyond the core and does a remarkable job connecting the suburban style development with the downtown core.

They've built miles and miles of greenways and off street bike paths. I was there three months ago and rode all over town without once feeling threatened by auto traffic. Is it perfect? No, absolutely not. But I defy anyone to go there, ride their bike to commute around, and walk away thinking "getting around by bike in in the US is impossible."

I don't think Bentonville is repeatable everywhere, and it may even be a fluke, but it's certainly proof that it can be done.

I'll admit it has been 3 years since we considered moving there (we tried living for a month to get the feel of it), but I wonder how well suburban style development is going to scale for utilitarian cycling to occur. The population is what, maybe 100k now? What about when its 10x that? (think DFW)

I don't think it does, and I don't think bentonville is the ideal. I just think it's proof that it's possible to start mitigating and designing toward a better future with what we have.

Eh, they will change their minds pretty quickly once they can't afford fuel for their car any more.

That is nice, but I wonder what the ratio of driving to riding bicycles is in Bentonville. I assume the residents still own cars.

Is improving cycling infrastructure thereby increasing miles traveled by bike a success? Or does this need to be completely binary?

This morning I would have had to bike in the dark, in a 35f rainstorm. Not going to happen.

I've done such things. It is surprisingly not bad if you spend ~$500 on fluorescent breathable rain gear and lights.

The biggest problems are leaves on the stupid green paint they coat the bike lanes with, and increased stopping distance / driver fatigue for the cars.

Storing the rain gear at your destination in a way that lets it dry out is also a big concern.

Being cold is not an issue at all. If anything, you will be too hot while rising.

Realistically speaking, what percent of the commuting population could do this on a daily basis? Many people have additional limitations that also need to be considered. E.g. Have to pick up the kids after work, have to shop after work, age/health constraints, etc.

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