Building a city optimized for bikes is a choice
distilled.earth
distilled.earth
So there is a massive opportunity to de-congest cities by shifting to (e-)bike transport. The key obstacles I see are:
* weather conditions. unfortunately bikes are not particularly practical in harsh winter conditions. So the goldilocks bike zone is not available to all. inventing potential means to extend it would be doing god's work.
* cultural. while oversized monster trucks are a particularly american obsession, the fact is that the common car has become a symbol of affluence and convenience across the planet. bikes were always a poor man's transport. politicians riding bikes still make people go "wow - how humble". the challenge is to change this perception
* vested interests. a good fraction of the global economy revolves around cars. an optimal reconfiguration of cities would not eliminate cars, but it would still significantly reduce the numbers in circulation. there will be resistance for as long as people can neglect the externality of wasting enormous resources for no good reason
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_steepest_roads_and_str...
Cold is a problem, but with the right gear, you can stay plenty warm down to 0F. I'm sure we could use microcars (https://microlino-car.com/en/microlino) or some other variation on enclosed ebikes to share bicycle infrastructure safely with folks who can't use bikes when it's truly cold out. The same strategy could work for extreme heat and humidity.
The real problem is safety, rooted in snow clearing and ice buildup. Many cities refuse to maintain bike infrastructure at all during the winter, allowing snow and debris to build up on bike paths and lanes between Nov and April. This means that even when roads are clear, bikes aren't able to use dedicated bike infrastructure during much of the winter months, forcing bikes into car lanes. And my experience as a bike in those circumstances tells me that many drivers are NOT accommodating to bikes in that situation. This problem exists year-round, but snowy conditions make it even more obvious that cars, pedestrians, and bicycles don't mix well in our cities.
Nobody needs to drive around massive SUVs, pickup trucks, and semis around dense downtowns. Many European cities get by with cargo bicycles and minitrucks (https://minitrucks.net/pages/direct-import-mini-trucks) to move 99% of packages and large items in city centres. The USA needs to keep large vehicles out of dense urban centres and turn as much infrastructure as possible over to pedestrians, public transit, bicycles... and microcars and mini trucks for the niche situations where those other modes of transportation won't work.
On the upside, I suspect people are in better physical condition.
No, if they can't bike there's always public transportation. If they can't even move in a wheelchair then yeah, I think you'd be trapped anywhere in the world without a caretaker.
So yes, they cycle.
Yes. There are also assistive devices like tricycles, mobility scooters and canta (enclosed microcars).
And bikeable neighbourhood also tend to be a lot more walkable.
And the netherlands have extensive public transportation networks
> Are they trapped at home?
Much less so than in the US, as they don’t need the ability to drive to get out. They are also significantly less dangerous to themselves and others, as they don't need to keep driving way past the age where they should really stop.
> What about the weather? How is biking in the rain or snow?
As they say in Scandinavia, climate is a clothing concern. Biking in the rain is a habit. It doesn’t snow that much in the Netherlands, but Finns do just fine (NJB has a video on Oulu, Finland, where people cycle year round and there’s 10~20 inches of snow from January to March).
Similarly in Germany we’re building a new Autobahn in the middle of a city (Berlin) under extreme costs, while still neglecting investment in trains, because we’re a car country.
Sadly SUVs and giant pickups are slowly becoming more popular in Europe as well.
It also affected engine designs as e.g. the english RAC horsepower was based on bore, hence the high frequency of undersquare 4s and 6s in english cars even upscale (e.g. Jaguar’s XK I6) as opposed to the oversquare V8s of american cars.
That said, having visited a couple of times, I've been impressed with how accommodating to foot traffic it is as well. Outside of downtown Amsterdam, you'll find an almost equal ratio of footpaths-to-bike-paths-to-roadways.
The fourth power law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law: “The stress on the road increases in proportion to the fourth power of the axle load of the vehicle traveling on the road”) is very harsh for heavy vehicles.
- Cars becoming affordable right about the same time as the U.S. was experiencing the postwar boom. If they had stayed too expensive cities might have expanded rail and other transport methods more in the postwar boom years.
- New construction methods allowing the building of certain styles of single family houses cheaply arose around the same time
- Several Supreme Court decisions like the banning of red-lining and the banning of public school segregation causes a lot of white people to move to more-expensive car-dependent suburbs as a way of preserving their ability to live in a segregated neighborhood. The GI bill was also structured in a way to exclude most African Americans from being able to buy homes. The resulting flight of wealthier white folks causes urban decay which causes more white flight to car-dependent suburbs.
- After initial suburbs were built out, the FHA set up regulations that made it more difficult to build suburbs that weren't car-dependent.
- Planners like Robert Moses hadn't been able to see the space inefficiency of when you have a huge network of suburbs trying to commute into cities via cars. Additionally, induced demand meant that highways into dense cities quickly fill up to capacity compared to more efficient methods of transport like trains or buses.
- The federal government went along with the car-dependent vision promoted by planners, partially because it hadn't been demonstrated yet. The costs of building car infrastructure and suburbs were heavily subsidized by the federal government. Maintenance costs are mostly localized, but not expansion, which encouraged more expansion of the suburbs to get more tax revenue from property taxes until maintenance bills come due and the cycle begins again (see strongtowns.org to read more about this phenomenon).
- As white people moved to the suburbs and drove personal cars, public transport became seen as something only poor-black people would do
- Alternatives like biking became dangerous because of all the fast-moving cars and not as practical in spread-out suburbs
- Status quo bias sets in, so we keep doubling down on existing patterns of development
I'm sure there are a lot of other factors that I am forgetting, but the US wasn't built for cars just because there was a lot of 'empty space' or whatever people like to say.
I understand you can cross the Netherlands, end to end, by bike, within 1 one hour or less. But it's not my reality.
I live in a fast growing area where the city is actively building greenways and has started to encourage a lot more dense, vertical development strategically around certain areas. Construction is happening one way or another, why have yet another urban area sprawling in every direction?
Sincerely, fellow European with a nearly identical life experience to yours.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU
Aptly titled "Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)"
1. Take thin "rain ponchos" for riding
2. Check out cloud radar website, like buienradar.nl , to decide when / via what route to bike
Also, there is absolutely no problem for the Dutch to bike at temperatures below the freezing point, in the height of winter (even though, granted, it isn't that far below zero centigrade). The bike paths are cleared of snow and things work just fine.
There's no bad weather, only bad clothes.
So I just suffered through the freezing rain and got home fine to a cup of hot chocolate and a change of clothes. It's actually fine once you're through it. It just sucks when you still have more than half an hour of freezing rain to look forward to. In fact, it's mostly those first 15 minutes that were the worst. After that, you get used to it, you adapt, and just continue through until you're home.
I think many US cities could do a lot better, mostly by limiting cars in certain areas. Already it is common to see bike rental stations near the parking areas near many city centers. It is just that the cars are still there too, and there isn't always a safe way to cross some areas even in the center.
Outside of city centers it is a combination of sparsity and impossible to cross highway exchanges. Even in century old urban neighborhoods it is single family dwellings with yards andboicket fences. Not hard to ride in as long as you know any car door may fly open at any time. But the sparsity means you are probably riding a long way to find groceries. The highway exchanges have no side street alternatives and they slice up cities so that if you want to cross from one section to another, you are going to have to take your bicycle onto a road with no shoulders and high speed limits.
Lastly, I have ridden to get groceries in the Netherlands, it was quite pleasant. Even in winter when it isn't fun, you can bumdle up and ride to work. I apoke with people who did. Riding to work (or shoo) when the temp varies from -10C to well over 40C presents additional challenges. Apart from the Pacific Northwest, the US climate isn't anywhere close to as pleasant year round as the Netherlands. Some parts of California are nice enough I guess.
Flywheels perhaps? Though it'd add weight to the bike…
Harsh weather continues to he an issue.
I cycled through it during rush hour one day. It was very humbling to be passed uphill by ladies cycling in leopard print mini-skirts and heels. Granted I was overweight, had 80 pounds of camping gear on my bike and was pacing for an 8 hour day, but...
Ebikes fill a gap, they increase commute 'radius' for a lot of people, allow elderly to ride when they wouldn't be able to with a normal bike, etc. \
Also in my opinion ebikes are going to be critical for us to role out the Dutch model in other locations that are not as insanely flat. I cycle everyday for school rounds and general errands on a normal 7 gear bike without batteries but even if they had the same bicycle infrastructure as the Netherlands, I would probably not do the same in hilly cities like Granada, or Bristol or Lisbon, because I would just be sweating all the time.
Whatever idea you have of ebikes on steroids is simply niche and not what the average consumer buys as an ebike.
Electric mopeds is another problem though.
[0]: https://www.calbike.org/studies-show-increases-in-biking-and...
Assuming any US cities focus on bikeability, by the time we've figured things out enough to actually worry about this problem, hopefully the Dutch will have figured it out. I know ebikes are a very real concern in the Netherlands and there's a lot of active lawmaking on the subject right now.
I'm not familiar with the Netherlands, but in Belgium legislation was introduced to tackle that problem. Above 25km/h, they are essentially considered motorcycles, requiring a similar driver's license and follow the motorcycle rules of the road. (https://www.vlaanderen.be/speedpedelec)
E-scooters are limited to 25km/h and follow cyclist rules, e.g. they cannot be used on sidewalks.
The number of speed pedelecs in the Flanders region is relatively high, because many companies have started offering leased e-bikes as a way to do tax optimization. (sadly, the same tax incentive exists for car leasing, so the number of cars on the road is still too damn high)
And remember, that a bike lane doesn't have to just be human-powered bikes: it could be e-scooters, e-bikes or perhaps even microcars.
Lots of people want to bike or would appreciate it once they get used to it, but often the infrastructure simply isn't there. If you build good bike infrastructure (nut just the occasional bike path, but a network of them), it will be used, and will remove a lot of strain from the car infrastructure.
I don't think many people want to ride around short distances downtown in a car, hunting for parking spaces at both ends. I really don't like the idea of forcing municipalities to spend tax dollars retrofitting cities for cars. It's quite literally ripping apart the streets to satisfy 5-10% of the population. No thank you.
Do you live in a US city centre? Or do you live in the suburbs, miles out, and want the privilege of driving your large vehicle directly into those city centres when you want to cosplay as an urbanite? I don't know many folks who live in downtowns in US cities who want to drive a personal vehicle around everywhere they go; it's inefficient, expensive, and stressful.