I feel the same.I am more of a casual rider, but when I ride my bike in me feel so good. It is a source of health and happiness. I hope to be able to do it for many years. I wish cities in this side of the Atlantic had more biking infrastructure.
[1] https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1230-marc...
Bicycle is "a band that rolls across the country on bicycles and rocks in towns and cities along the way. ... 'Heavy metal folk rap' is how the New York Times coined the band's sound."
Unfortunately the link to the band's page appears to be gone, and there's nothing on google about them. Rare to find something these days that has almost 0 web presence!
a) Biking as exists in the U.S. / Canada is a leisure-class demographic activity and not a "bread-and-butter" earning activity. If you did a survey of bicyclists you'd find they are of a certain tax bracket nowhere remotely close to low-income. Study after study shows they skew high income earners / well educated.
b) The average non-wealthy American wants thinks his tax money is going to keeping the road infrastructure in good repair.
c) Outside of well-heeled zip codes we are not going to see bike lane infrastructure be given priority over such more pressing concerns.
d) We could all have great things if we were not warring all the time to get small things passed, much less a luxury ( in the scheme of things ) like bike lane infrastructure.
I'm not even talking about the opposition from businesses here.[1]
[1]
S.F.
Several businesses along Valencia Street have posted signs in their windows that read, “This Bike Lane Is Killing Small Businesses and Our Vibrant Community,” with a QR code for the San Francisco Small Business Coalition. |
https://content.sfstandard.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/in...
San Francisco Valencia Street Bike Lanes Bad for Business?
https://sfstandard.com/2023/12/08/san-francisco-small-busine...
Cambridge, Mass
‘It's a Disaster': Cambridge Store Owners Say Bike Lanes Are Bad for Business
https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/its-a-disaster-cambridg...
This line of argument reminds me of the red-dots-airplane meme. In places where bad infrastructure makes cycling impractical as anything but a hobby, of course you mostly get lycra-wearing midlife crisis guys who do it as a hobby. In places where the infrastructure is actually good and safe, you get a whole spectrum of people riding.
Out of all the people I know the only person that does not ride a bike is my middle age father who owns a motorcycle. Even my nearly 90 year old grandma uses a tricycle (for safety) to do her grocery shopping.
[1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1403896/cycling-particip...
EDIT: To be a bit more productive about this, I referenced Guerra et al. [1] which shows that cycle commuting seems to be negatively correlated to income in the US and sharply negatively correlated with single vehicle ownership and positively correlated with being male. But this is just commuting and we know that there's more to transportation than just commuting and commuters tend to be more male as a whole anyway.
[1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136192092...
People don't tend to notice the guy riding his Wal-Mart mountain bike on the sidewalk on his way to work.
And they also don't tend to notice all the sensible, practical, riders who know to take the (relatively) car free residential side streets en route to wherever they need to be.
Successful cycling cultures elevate the status of cycling, but they also denigrate the status of the car; people in these cultures are slightly embarrassed when they drive, because cars are recognised as being somewhat antisocial.
Another part of this problem is affordable housing. People can't live close to where they work. Reduce this problem along with improving biking infrastructure and you'll see an uptick in biking.
"Several businesses along Valencia Street have posted signs in their windows that read[...]"
Sure. Several businesses said the same thing about protected bus lanes, but studies have shown it's increased business for those on the path, because it makes it possible for _more_ customers to actually access their businesses.
Cars are fundamentally worse than public transportation or biking for small businesses as a whole, as they reduce density, and further consolidation, which favors larger businesses and hurts small businesses. The problem is that business owners tend to be drivers and their biases don't line up with reality, which is why you tend to see their personal politics interfere with their business interests.
Go over to Amsterdam and see how little bicycling actually gets done outside of the core that HN loves to throw up as this cycling utopia.
Real people have real world needs. Bicycling meets very few of those. Especially in places that have barely four months of precipitation-free bicycling weather. Please stop thinking the world is like the urban cores of a handful of cities.
If Amsterdam doesn't do it for you, try Utrecht.
woziacki’s income bracket also doesn’t apply here. You can get a decent second-hand bike here for 200-300 Euro (more than an order of magnitude cheaper than a car) and maintenance is much cheaper than a car, plus no vehicle taxes, road insurance, etc.
I cycled daily as a commuter when I lived in Atlanta. You wear a jacket and overpants. It’s just not that big a deal.
Portland is widely known for its cycling culture, and it rains all the time.
In Belgium around 32% cycle to their work. [2]
I would think that is a significant amount no?
I cycle to my work every day. It is around 9 KM and takes me around 20 minutes. For rain you have a rain suite, for winter you have a jacket. The amount of times I took the car in rainy Belgium is 4 times in 2023 because of storm conditions.
As more and more people are starting to see the hassle free transportation method of cycling, they also start taking the bike and infrastructure keeps improving.
[1] https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/visualisaties/verkeer-en-vervoer/pe...
[2] https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2024/04/15/ongeveer-32-procent-...
I have a seat that a kid can sit in comfortably for school drop off.
I carry rain pants and a waterproof shell in my cargo pockets on the bike, and my helmet has a magnetically held visor. Once you have a waterproof shell, weather is really not a deterrent until it's physically difficult to move the bike.
So, it's a mode of transport that covers nearly every trip, in nearly every condition, nearly year round.
When I go to the country to visit family, I take my bike. I can navigate just as well, but much slower in rural areas (most people drive faster on rural roads than in urban areas and the distances are longer.)
I'm also (believe it or not) a real person. Bikes absolutely work for real people who live real lives.
Nothing that you have written is original. These are the usual arguments against micro-mobility. They don't stand scrutiny, and they are actively being disproven across a growing number of locations around the world, small and large.