Yes, there are always a few folks who will pull their bikes out in 0°F (-18°C) and go out on icy roads, but they are a vast minority. And a lot of cities in the world experience those kinds of temperatures.
Also, bikes (especially individual bikes) are not very compatible with many types of disabilities. We really should keep accessibility in mind when working on Urban areas.
> Yes, there are always a few folks who will pull their bikes out in 0°F (-18°C) and go out on icy roads, but they are a vast minority. And a lot of cities in the world experience those kinds of temperatures.
The majority of population centers are outside of regions with that kind of low temperatures. Even if the temperatures get that low, its usually not for the majority of the year. And cities with well planned out and maintained cycling infrastructure do demonstrate that cycling even with low temperatures is a feasible mode of transportation.
> Also, bikes (especially individual bikes) are not very compatible with many types of disabilities.
Getting rid of cars that don't _need_ to be in a city makes space for cars that do need to be there. Very few people who are seriously debating this topic are for banning every kind of motorized vehicle outright. Obviously there are many cases where cars/trucks are the only feasible/best option, even in a city. Emergency vehicles, delivery trucks or vehicles for people with limited mobility.
> We really should keep accessibility in mind when working on Urban areas.
Cars are incredibly expensive. They are even more expensive if you have special needs (that is, if your disability even allows you to drive at all). Pedestrianized and bike friendly areas, that often go hand in hand with well designed public transportation infrastructure, are far more accessible than car-centric planning ever could be.
Umm no they’re not. And the ones that are just have the opposite problem half the year. Very few cities are in a climate where all but the most hardcore people will want to bike more than half the time.
Go down the list of American cities by population. NYC, Chicago, Philly, etc. Not biking in the cold months. Megacities in Texas, Cali, Florida, AZ: not biking in hot months.
This might work for Honolulu or San Diego and that’s about it, even if you completely disregard the 50% of the population that couldn’t ride a bike in any weather due to being old, injured, obese, etc.
It’s preposterous to think this is an actual solution.
Getting rid of cars necessitates some other motorized form of transport from which you can’t easily fall and get injured.
I lived for a couple of years in Amsterdam. Cycled fine in the rain, snow or sunshine. Then again, the infra was amazing and supportive. Can’t speak for the cities you mention though but in Phoenix where I live now, cycling in Summer is impossible.
If you get less than an inch of snow a month and it doesn't stay long enough to go through thawing and freezing cycles, then bike infrastructure can handle it reasonably well. If you get a foot of snow at times and the snow you get in November hasn't melted by March, then bike infrastructure and the safety of riding bikes on segments of road that are difficult to plow, biking in the winter may be more problematic.
I'd suggest a trip up to Minneapolis, Madison, or Chicago in January and consider how bikeable those areas are and if it would be reasonable to do a commute.
(And as an aside, I don't consider those areas to be AI drivable in the winter either)
Deeply freezing temperatures, ice, snow, all of those are completely ridable on bicycles, but you have to ride with very fat tires, often called "fatbikes"[0]. You can ride those bicycles in just about anything; I've ridden them across frozen lakes and up chunks of frozen glacier in the dead of the Alaskan winter, so cold roads don't sound particularly scary. If you want to have a single bike that you can ride in any weather very easily, an electric "fatbike"[1] makes for a super versatile single-person car replacement.
It's worth noting that the nearby city of Tucson is a cycling mecca for pros during the offseason and many avid cyclists continue riding throughout summer. If Phoenix were better designed for the climate it's in (e.g. dense, narrow streets between high thermal mass buildings and lots of shade), the summers would be far less intense.
Winter cycling is really not anything like as hardcore as people imagine it to be, especially in the pretty mild winter cities you mention of NYC and Philly. NotJustBikes has a great episode featuring Oulu Finland which has harsh winters but still has a way higher modeshare of cycling in the Winter than cities in North America do in the Summer https://youtu.be/Uhx-26GfCBU
With well maintained/shoveled/prioritized bike infrastructure, cycling in the Winter is actually quite pleasant and no big deal at all. There's an argument if we're talking about Winnipeg or Saskatoon, for the couple of months that it goes down to -30 celsius, a lot of people might call it quits, but those extreme temperatures are only around for 2 months, not the whole Winter.
I wish there were a lot more good biking infra. in the US. But the fact of the matter is that a lot of these "bikes can take over the future" are total pipe dreams if you just try to ignore the fact that they are bad modes of transportation for a lot of people a lot of the time.
Austin TX has made huge strides in the past few years making bikes a better option - a ton more bike lanes, more and more of those are protected, and related options like tons of electric scooters and MetroBike bike share. Still, the city is fundamentally laid out for car transportation, and so far this year it has hit 100F on 68 days.
Bikes may be a good addition, but the idea they can totally replace cars in a lot of American cities is ludicrous.
I think it's a fallacy to just say that bikes are bad modes of transportation for a lot of people a lot of the time, based on experience in one location.
Trains won't work without rails, airplanes don't work without airports, ships won't sail without water, cars don't work quite so well without roads (4WD notwithstanding), and bicycles are a lot less useful without bicycle paths.
Put in the relevant infrastructure, and many kinds of transport become very good modes of transportation for a lot of people a lot of the time.
Literally nobody is saying that bikes can "totally replace cars" in ANY American city. That is such a straw man argument. The mode share for cycling in Austin is something like 1%. We are only saying that a lot more trips could be done by bike. Even if we multiplied the number of people cycling by 10 it would still be a small portion of the number of people driving.
Biking in Austin around the lake is totally fine weather wise. Keep your commutes to the mornings and use an eBike at a leisurely pace when it’s peak summer. Come Fall, the weather is absolute bliss for riding!
Minneapolis famously has a strong year-round cycling culture, despite being one of the coldest and snowiest cities in the US. It's all about the infrastructure (e.g., good paths) that's proactively maintained (e.g., clearing snow quickly).
In the meantime cities in Finland experience multiple inches of snow a day and still manage to have high cycling numbers during Winter.
The number one predictor of cycling participation is decent infrastructure that is maintained. Hills, winter, rain are all a distant third place to having decent infrastructure and then maintaining that infrastructure. Cycle paths regularly plowed? High cycling activity. No cycling infrastructure and a habit of plowing snow onto the sidewalk? No cycling activity.
Lowest temperature in NYC last year was 15F. Its cold, but it's not that cold. Tons of people still bike in winter. And if they don't, we have trains and busses. The nice part about orientating transit around bikes is that people tend to live reasonable distances from the places they need to go.
> Umm no they’re not. And the ones that are just have the opposite problem half the year. Very few cities are in a climate where all but the most hardcore people will want to bike more than half the time.
I am surprised that you city NYC as an example. Especially in cities as dense as New York, pretty much every car owned by a private individual represents a policy failure. With a car ownership in NYC of ~45% [0] these are quite a few failures. Even with temperatures like in Chicago or Los Angeles, riding a bike would be very well possible for large parts of the year, regardless of heat or freeing temps, as long as the infrastructure is there.
People tend to over-estimate the actual need for their car incredibly. Even in the US, probably the most car-dependent place in the world (so I have been told),
60% of vehicle trips are less than 6 miles (9.6km) [1], that is very well within (e)biking distance. In dense urban centers the average trip length is likely even shorter, thus an even better fit for biking. But even in sprawling cities or suburbs, car dependency could likely be dramatically reduced with relatively little investment.
Everybody here keeps talking about bikes (so do I), but there is more to it. People completely ignore that especially in cities, space is at a premium. So usually the most efficient form of transportation should win, but that did not happen in most of the western world. Instead, everybody built rows like crazy. As a matter of fact, bringing people out of their cars and onto bikes or public transit, you free up a whole lot of space in crowded cities. That would be a very good opportunity to invest in improving transit, creating living spaces, public spaces or for businesses to expand.
> Getting rid of cars necessitates some other motorized form of transport from which you can’t easily fall and get injured.
Absolutely true, cities should be accessible regardless of age or disability. Current city designs aren't really doing well in that regard. As I pointed out, removing vehicles that shouldn't be in cities frees a lot of space for vehicles that must be there. Also, good that you mention obesity considering city design and thus car-dependency has been linked to an increased risk of obesity for years now [2].
But a necessary addition to the falling/injury statement: if you have proper infrastructure in place (enough capacity, safe separation from car traffic, continuous pathways) the risk of getting injured while cycling can be significantly lowered compared to the status quo.
> The majority of population centers are outside of regions with that kind of low temperatures.
Do NYC, Boston, and Chicago not count? As well as all the other people who live in similar latitudes? There are also a large number of areas where it's too hot to safely rely on bikes for transportation without risking heatstroke in vulnerable populations. If anything, areas like San Francisco are outliers in terms of being good for cycling.
It gets to 0F in NYC for... maybe 4-5 days a year, tops (most years never). Same with Boston and Chicago. If it gets that cold it's big news (yes, I've lived or spent time in all three). You're talking about like, one week in January that makes it unbearable, which is what busses, subways and the like are for.
> Yes, there are always a few folks who will pull their bikes out in 0°F (-18°C) and go out on icy roads
Luckily this doesn't apply everywhere.
> Also, bikes (especially individual bikes) are not very compatible with many types of disabilities. We really should keep accessibility in mind when working on Urban areas.
Well, sure but neither are the small cars that people often prefer in urban areas. Grade level light rail can be great for accessibility but can be hard to drop in place and expensive. Building out bike infrastructure is pretty cheap and in many circumstances can leave more space for other uses. It's a lot easier to get in and out of a van on a street narrowed for bike lanes, because either traffic will have to wait, or will be slower moving.
I used to care for a man with quadriplegia as a care assistant for about a year. It made me realize a lot of things with disability parking.
Everything took 5x as long, handicap spots were hard to find, and you can forget taking a train if you want to do anything else that day.
The wheelchair van was his lifeline to the rest of the world.
So from that, I'm personally against banning cars in city centers for that reason.
It wouldn't be too difficult to restrict roads to handicap placard drivers and a limited number of commercial vehicles. You'd just need a lot of cops and parking enforcers (not bad for job creation!)
And, while I'm no road engineer, I imagine the results would be a large drop in car traffic, and very little infra to build to make it happen.
You can even just block off certain roads and turn them into pedestrian only spaces.
Parking and lane enforcement can and should be automated. The disabled status is linked to the license plate and driving on the wrong road with that status leads to an automatic fine. In the UK we already have automatic fines for speeding, jumping lights, stopping in a no stop zone, using a bus lane, not paying a toll. This is no different.
Fair, but infrastructure is notoriously hard to build in the US.
The US disabled status works different here too.
You're only given disability privileges while in a car with your own handicap placard in the window (it's assigned to a person)
I actually like this a lot better than a plate because it's trivial to know if someone in the car actually needs a spot or not, and discourages use of the car by friends/family that don't qualify for using the (often limited) access to handicap spots.
Also allows you to drive any car and still get the same privileges.
I'm clearly not opposed to special accommodations for people who need vans and other special transport. I don't think it's a good argument for the status quo though. It's possible to restrict most private vehicles from a city center and still allow things like vans the disabled. Obviously there is tension here around pedestrian only streets, but making sidewalks more accessible to electric wheelchairs seems very doable.
Bro it gets freakin' cold in the winter in Austin, TX and we're further south than Tunis, Tunisia; San Diego, CA; Alexandria, Egypt; Casablanca, Morocco; Tucson, AZ; Basra, Iraq and Osaka, JP. How much further south would you like us to go? Should we conquer Mexico just so we can ride bikes in December?
What risks should my very pregnant-for-the-last-three-years wife take? What if we lose a child or for that matter _her_ because she slipped on the ice? How is she going to get groceries for our family of five-soon-six from the grocery store that is miles away from our house?
You people don't live where the rest of us live. You're callously indifferent to the pain caused by policy designed to inflict economic damage on the middle class. POSIWID. You hope you can condense the economic violence into the other-world you would prefer to live in.
I'm from Ohio where I rode a motorcycle in the dark for my second shifts at the warehouse through the entire winter and I still wouldn't wish bicycling _by necessity_ in the winter here on my worst enemy. Good way to cull the elderly if that's what you're going for. We can't all be healthy 20-something males though.
I wouldn't bike in Austin regardless based on the infrastructure, but a lot of people bike here in NYC in the winter. People do the same in Berlin and many other cold cities.
> What risks should my very pregnant-for-the-last-three-years wife take?
Whatever the two of you are comfortable with? I'm not here to tell you how to live.
> You people don't live where the rest of us live. You're callously indifferent to the pain caused by policy designed to inflict economic damage on the middle class
I disagree. I'm not trying to impose anything, except some bike lanes in urban cores at the expense of a little on street parking. I grew up on a farm and have live in a few different kinds of places in the US and I get it people have different lifestyle preferences. I'm not trying to make anyone bike if they don't want to, I'm in support of making it easier in already dense places.
You do you my guy, I'm not trying to tell you otherwise.
Overall, we're not trying to force you and everyone else to cut over to bikes tomorrow, since for those individuals like yourself, your environment doesn't support biking at all. Hopefully though, we see a greater focus on building environments where biking does make sense, and less on car-centric living. However, to break down some of the specifics you mentioned:
The average low in Austin Texas is 43°F with rare dips below freezing (32°F). Looking at the temperature history for the last winter, Austin saw temperatures drop to freezing on 7 days during December and January[1]. When it's not freezing, at those temperatures, you can absolutely ride a bike safely and comfortably (though you'll need to put on some extra clothing to stay warm). As for your other questions:
> What risks should my very pregnant-for-the-last-three-years wife take?
She should take the risks she feels comfortable taking. In the opinion of me and my wife (we live in Seattle), we'd feel quite comfy biking in your city (as long as the paths are safe) during any of that weather as long as it's not freezing. If it was freezing and we knew we needed to go somewhere, we'd take a fatbike[2] (yes, that's their unfortunate name, and they work great in snow and ice with their huge tires).
> What if we lose a child or for that matter _her_ because she slipped on the ice?
That would be tragic, but ice means we all take that risk every time we travel by bicycle or by car. Driving a car on the ice is dangerous, even if driving feels safe and familiar. Thankfully, traveling on a bicycle means you're traveling at lower speeds, so should an accident or slip occur, the likelyhood of serious injury or death is far lower than at high speed in a car.
> How is she going to get groceries for our family of five-soon-six from the grocery store that is miles away from our house?
Cargo bicycles[3] make getting groceries, even lots and lots of groceries, even transporting small furniture, easy! However, you living many miles from a grocery store does make this all more difficult; I realize that where and what type of housing is available isn't totally up to you.
Baked into your comment is the statement of some real facts: that bicycling infrastructure isn't well developed where you live, the entire environment of where you live is built around making transport by car the easiest and often the only available option, and if you tried to adopt it personally now, it would be unfamiliar, dangerous, slow, inconvenient, etc. I think you're right that all those things are true. Trying to convince folks that they should bike to the giant Walmart that's 10 miles away for their daily groceries in the same way they might via a car, that's probably not going to go well, and I don't think it has gone well. That's why most of the constructive discourse I see, like the original article, is focusing on reshaping urban infrastructure around bicyling since that's where the density is. Hopefully we see that happen, and hopefully in the coming decades we see a reduction in investment into car-centric living (huge car-only suburbs with only homes and nothing to walk to for miles around), and an increase into more modest walkable suburbs with greater support for mixed use land (closer grocery stores) and the higher density housing (smaller lot sizes and smaller homes) which provide enough density to support the businesses in those walkable areas.
Like most difficulties with cycling in the cities, the most dangerous part of it are sharing resources with cars. Cycling in the winter isn't so bad if properly dressed. Even now, the cycle paths get plowed before the roads.
> Also, bikes (especially individual bikes) are not very compatible with many types of disabilities. We really should keep accessibility in mind when working on Urban areas.
Totally agree. Most bike infrastructure works well for those with disabilities. The coming goal with bike friendly cities is livable cities for all, and not one that's built for cars first, and people second. It's the same sharedd evil conspiracy agenda. ;)
I lived in minnesota, five mile commute. Cold is very very doable. Ice does suck, but that's more of a tire issue. Cold and snow? Eh, bundle up and biking in winter is actually kind of fun. The cold really isn't any different than getting into a cold car in winter. The car warms up when you drive it, you warm up when you ride a bike.
Rain really sucks though. I don't have a good solution for rain.
What is the best for bike commuting is the lack of aggravation from driving, and knowing that basically no matter what you'll get from X to Y in a known amount of time. There's no traffic jams in bikes, at least not in the US.
Oh, aside from security risk, the ability to basically ride directly to where you're going and park RIGHT THERE is the #2 best thing about biking places (#1 being the reduced stress).
E-bikes should be even more amazing. I was a triathlete so I was a fit biker and wind/hills didn't bother me, but e-bikes eliminate that for the whole population.
What sucks:
- securing bikes, they are simply far too easy to steal. I guess in europe and big US cities there are real problems with this: tracker chips don't work, U-locks get shattered with liquid nitrogen, etc. What's nice about e-bikes is that you can get a heavier bike with a bit more security, but still, easy to drive up with van, shatter lock, take bike.
- rain, already mentioned
- flats are still far too common
- bikes aren't really that much of a money saver if you already have a car. They help with stress, fun, exercise, but between bike tuneups and flat tires and other stuff, they aren't really that cheap. Especially once you get into panniers and racks and that type of thing.
- drivers and danger in general. Bikes aren't a safe mode of transportation in the US unless you have good dedicated bike paths (Minneapolis is really really amazing for this, I never appreciated it until I moved somewhere else).
Motorised vehicles (both public transit & other private/vocational/individual) are a fantastic utility, and one we should never get rid of. The problem is scale: bikes can absolutely supplant a significant portion of current motorised urban transit.
A system that requires nearly everyone to drive cars is not compatible with disabilities. If fewer people drive, it frees up road space for people who actually need to drive, as opposed to people who drive because it's the easiest way to get around. Also note that cars are often not a good fit for many kinds of disabilities. Public transit works much better with only minor modifications.
Why is driving a 2 ton car safer in icy conditions than riding a 20lb bicycle?
And the disability thing: there are a wide variety of disabilities. 76% of disabled people are able to ride a bicycle [1]. Only 60% of disabled people are able to drive a car [2].
If a car slides a little in a corner, there's a good chance to correct it. If a bike slides a little in a corner (at least the front wheel) you are definitely going down.
Well, yea—the person inside the 2-ton steel cage is probably going to be fine. It's the nearby pedestrians, cyclists, houses, etc. whose safety I was interested in.
I would argue that various forms of cycles (going well beyond the UCI definition of a bicycle, but still using common components powered primarily by a human) are much more compatible with disabilities than cars are. I've seen both double-arm and double-leg amputees cycling, among others.
Cycles (bikes, trikes etc) are sometimes more compatible with disabilities. As they support your weight, they can be better for people with standing/walking issues. Some sight issues can be dangerous for driving, but manageable for cycling (e.g. I'm a bit short sighted which is fine for cycling as if something is too blurry, I can just go closer to it if I need to read something). The ability to come to a stop safely in almost any scenario means that some sufferers of epilepsy can safely cycle whilst being unable or not allowed to drive (here in the UK, I think there's a time limit of something like three years since your last attack).
I live in a place where it is very consistently below -20C in the winter. Sure, I'm not going to bike in that (especially +snow), but you know what? Being able to do most of my intra-city travel by bicycle 75% of the year is still a big win over 0%.
Cycling in the winter is fine, actually. Bikes cope with snow and ice better than cars, and the physical exertion keeps you warmer than you would be on foot.
> and the physical exertion keeps you warmer than you would be on foot.
Only if you are not sweating. Once you sweat its game over. You are probably thinking of very short pre sweating distances.
Only way to bike moderate to long distance is to dress in layers and shed layers as you get warm and let the moisture get out. You also need moisture wicking base layers and moisture expelling mid layer.
Thunderstorms in Florida, also. Or even just the humidity. If you want to go anywhere looking like you just jumped fully clothed into a swimming pool, sure, go for it.
At those very low temperatures, but also at very high hot temperatures, you are basically living like an astronaut. In that case I don't see a way around the car as well.
But for disabilities, the infrastructure for bikes is much better accessibility wise. It allows for electric wheelchairs or wheelchairs with handcycles in front. The car roads are often too dangerous or require the ability to drive, whereas a bike path is low-key and allows all kinds of slower traffic.
> Also, bikes (especially individual bikes) are not very compatible with many types of disabilities. We really should keep accessibility in mind when working on Urban areas.
That’s what accessibility-oriented public transit is for. The goal isn’t to replace all transit with bikes; it’s to reduce the dependence on cars by leveraging bikes more to make safer, healthier urban environments.
Not in summer, they aren't. Arizona, Texas, etc. I don't even ride my motorcycle in the hot months. I just wish we built more European style housing with shops on the bottom floor with housing above it, walk able city blocks, etc.
But for those conditions a car also isn't a good fit. I've seen it in Sweden, where they have snow or ice on the roads for months and they drive Ski-Doos instead. Haven't seen a self driving one yet.
Yes, there are always a few folks who will pull their bikes out in 0°F (-18°C) and go out on icy roads, but they are a vast minority. And a lot of cities in the world experience those kinds of temperatures.
Also, bikes (especially individual bikes) are not very compatible with many types of disabilities. We really should keep accessibility in mind when working on Urban areas.