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Comment by infinotize | Hacker News Reader

The growing realization that walkable and bikeable cities are neato easily outpaces the ability to construct that into a reality in the US. There are decades of intertia from cheap cars and fuel and the "suburban-dream" lifestyle that has resulted in car-first cities, and the cost of rearchitecting and rebuilding that infrastructure is huge and takes years. Old world cities were laid out pre-car and it's much more convenient for them to revert to a pedestrian/cyclist focus (in addition to prevailing attitudes).

It's also not feasible for everyone to afford to be able to live downtown in a walkable city with the way cost of living is increasing, and gasp some people may even prefer to trade a commute in a car for not having to live in a box, or have a little space/land to raise a family, grow a garden, etc (the solution there being better rail networks).

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Yes, it does take years.

And you know what? The cities that started doing that years ago (like Portland) are now blanketed in bike lanes, bike thoroughfares, and bike-friendly infrastructure that makes the city thick with non-car commuters.

On some streets (North Williams and Vancouver, for you Portlanders), the bike lanes are always full. You can sit there and watch hundreds of bikes roll by in an hour. That's a lot of traffic that, 10 years ago, would've been cars.

So, yeah, it does take time.

Start lobbying your city to start it today. 10 years from now, it's a whole new world.

There's a problem, though: bike is nice for good weather, but when weather is bad, most of those bicyclists will abandon bike, and you need enough car and public transport capacity to take them to work. So you end up paying for those roads and rail capacity and whatever.

I've noticed this because I ride bike to work regardless of weather, and in January in Finland, that means I'm almost alone on those nice bike paths (which are fairly well cleared of snow).

Portland etc may be slightly more convenient in terms of climate, but still I imagine winter will cut down the number of cyclists.

> I've noticed this because I ride bike to work regardless of weather, and in January in Finland, that means I'm almost alone on those nice bike paths (which are fairly well cleared of snow).

I live in Arlington, VA, directly across the river from D.C. Now that it's getting to be spring again, I've been noticing far more people walking and biking places. When it rains or snows, I've also noticed the foot and bike traffic are drastically reduced.

We definitely need the capacity to handle inclement weather in our transportation network.

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