Hacker News Reader

Comment by digging | Hacker News Reader

I'm unfamiliar with Minneapolis - sounds pretty amazing if there's a strong bicycle culture there, but not if "people" only means <1% of commuters. Bicycle enthusiasts live everywhere and are willing to make difficult or risky trips; we can't judge a city by whether or not hardcore bicyclists can survive there.

NYC is an extreme outlier, we love to see it, but about 98% of the US doesn't live in the area served by NYC transit. I am sure the population of Minneapolis is much smaller, too.

The vast majority of the US is prohibitively difficult to traverse by any mode except car. (Actually, it's usually a highly frustrating and dangerous experience by car, too.) I see reports of more than 60% of the population living in suburbs, which are, as a general rule, designed to discourage non-car travel.

View on HN

NYC is also an outlier in that there's really no cultural expectation that you own a car and drive. As an adult professional, I'm not sure there's any other US city where I would choose not to do so simply because friends and activities are so often structured around owning a car and certainly being able to drive--even if there's decent transit. You can work around it to some degree (and I know a couple people who do) but I doubt I'd choose to.

In San Francisco it's common to not own a car, since parking is expensive and often not available and insurance is high also. At one point in the mid-90s I vaguely remember the ticket for parking illegally was less than the average parking space, until the city realized it. But SF is very small, so public transit/Uber/etc gives you many options to get around. Where I live now, if you have no car you go nowhere.

SF does have somewhat lower car ownership than the average American city. I know a couple in SF who don't own one. Though I'd observe that, in addition to muni and some cycling, they lean heavily on Uber, Zipcar, and conventional rentals so they're carless mostly in the sense that they don't own one and have to park it but they certainly use and drive cars in some form on an ongoing basis.

Minneapolis, average high temperature in January: 24F / -5C

Twin Cities Normal Monthly Snowfall in inches (1981-2010)

    Jan  Feb Mar  Apr May   Jun Jul Aug Sep   Oct Nov Dec   Annual
    12.1 7.8 10.2 2.5 Trace 0   0   0   Trace 0.6 9.3 11.5  54.0

https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Minnesota/Places/minn...

https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/climate/twin_cities/snowfall.htm...

I will honestly take 20’s and dry over 40’s and wet. Until it gets in the deep negative numbers, I’ve never found cold to be a reason not to ride. You create heat when you ride, so comfort is easy to manage through layers.

I don't think they're designed explicitly to discourage non-car travel. It's quite easy to ride a bike around the suburbs and kids in particular do it all the time. It's just that as a function of everyone wanting a quarter acre lot and cul-de-sacs, the neighborhoods themselves take miles to navigate and then you have to get to a main thoroughfare or possibly even a freeway to then commute 10+ miles to work or to get groceries or see a movie or whatever you might want to do. Try riding a bike 15 miles with 2 kids in tow while picking up groceries on the way back home from some after-school activity or sport. It's just not feasible.

> It's quite easy to ride a bike around the suburbs and kids in particular do it all the time.

First, I don't agree. Most of the suburbs I've lived in or near have extremely low bicycle traffic, even though kids do it sometimes.

But more importantly, where are those kids going? Usually either nowhere, or to another suburban house. They're probably not getting groceries or otherwise leaving the residential area.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com