Let us have safe bicycle infrastructure do that we can bike to those stores, how about that? And with that, add mixed constructions in the suburbs so that people have small local stores around.
A bike costs a fraction of a car
Bicycle infrastructure building and maintenance costs a fraction of that for cars
Bicycles don’t emit CO2. And for those wise asses saying that the cyclist does, it’s a fraction of a fraction of a car because you’re not lugging 2 tonnes of stell around to transport you and a bottle of milk.
Cycling infrastructure is much more efficient, you can push a shit tonne more people over the same road if you don’t need big ass cars. Yes, even your Mercedes smart car is I ass compared to a bicycle
It creates much much less pollution from tire dust
It’s much safer, bicycles kill only a fraction of the people that cars kill all year round
It’s healthier, people do exercise not because they went to the gym, but all day every day with their bikes
It cuts the noise pollution
It’s cheaper because no taxes, no gas needed, maintenance is a fraction of that of a car.
It’s way less wasteful
It lowers aggression. Though it may or may not exist, I’ve never heard of bicycle road rage
Need more?
Less cars is less parking spaces. Parking spaces get cities barely any taxable income. Instead of these ugly ass concrete wasteland parkitsoaces you can now have restaurants with outside patios which can be taxed. Couple that with the cheaper infrastructure, and that alone should be an obvious reason as to why do this
It’s really not that much slower. For typical short trips, bicycles usually only add some 10-20% of required time to your trip.
For any trip over say, 5-10 kilometers, use good public transportation
For those once in a lifetime trips where you actually need a car because you need to transport something huge, use one of those Evo rent-a-car.
In the Netherlands, a huge amount of people don’t have a car. Not because they can’t (they totally can) but because it’s stupid to have one. You can go everywhere by bike, you can jump with your bike in a train when needed to go further, cars are expensive and bad for everyone, why even have one?
I agree with all of this and personally I have replaced as many car trips as I can with a bicycle
however I also recognize that that’s simply too far for most people right now, at least in my area. people love their cars. I would just love it if they weren’t so damn dangerous and offensive, and I wasn’t nearly killed every time I go out and they come near me. that’s literally a 50/50 chance when I bike to the grocery store that somebody nearly kills me (actually in the past 3 weeks that ratio is a little bit safer, but history shows that I’ll have a bunch of things happen in a short time to bring it back to even).
first we need people to recognize that they don’t need massive vehicles. then an extension of that logic is that they don’t need a motor vehicle for a lot of things.
Bicycle road rage does exist, between road bikers and regulars, between fast electric and regulars and in general because plenty assholes do also ride bicycles if the infrastructure is good enough.
That works in the city but i live in a remote area, and have an hour and a half round trip to work every day because its not economically viable for me to move closer.
Since I doubt Canada/BC will spend the money putting in viable public transit/high speed rail, I just want them to do the bare minimum to allow me to afford to stop burning gas to afford my next meal.
While striving for turning every small town into a walkable city sounds great and amazing on paper, the reality is it won’t happen, so we should push for baby steps in the right direction instead only focusing on the absolute ideal.
You’re saying “this solution won’t work for me so nobody should have it”. Try instead “good that it works for you, but I need XYZ so we can tackle the problem on both fronts.”
Go read the rest of the thread, where I agree the ideal is great, but we should be taking realistic steps towards it, instead of an unrealistic, all or nothing attitude that doesn’t take rural Canadians into consideration.
stuff like this is why I want to focus on the wide, sweeping generalization of “smaller vehicle is better”
there’s no need for someone in your position to drive a massive crossover for your commute in case you need to pick up 30 lb of groceries after work. you can do that with a hatchback, and pretty much the biggest reason that people don’t choose to do it with a hatchback is that they’re afraid of the bigger heavier vehicles on the road
I still push bicycle infrastructure, but I’m not going to push for everybody to get on bikes. I’m going to push for everybody to stop having such goddamn offensive dangerous vehicles (yes please drive at me at 90 km/h with blinding headlights in a 4,000 lb vehicle with a hood that is above my eye level when I’m in a vehicle with 8 in of ground clearance), and try to get them to realize that no it’s not okay because it came that way, you bought it and you have a responsibility as the owner and driver
And I don’t drive a large crossover, I drive an escape phev, carpool with 2 other people, and use it for more than just ‘30 pounds of groceries’.
I have filled it to the brim and gone camping multiple times this year, use it to transport my recycling to the transfer station every couple months, and at least twice a year do a large grocery shop at the Costco 4 hours away, stuffing it as full as I can manage.
I regularly use it to transport things that wouldn’t fit in a vehicle smaller than this one. Hell, I managed to stuff my stove in the thing, though only just barely.
For my daily commute, since I charge it both at home and at work, I only burn 3-4L of gas, which I would say is quite good for nearly 150km.
The only way for my daily/weekly/monthly/yearly routine to be more eco friendly is if I could afford to trade it in for a full electric vehicle - and with the trips I do on a regular basis (including camping, day trips to the ‘nearby’ lakes, occasional work driving), I would need something with a range above 600km, preferably 700km to be safe in the winter. Otherwise I would have to maintain 2 vehicles - one an electric with a range of at least 200km and the other a small truck or mid sized SUV, and that kind of defeats the entire purpose.
10%? Try 1%… For every 1 of me in this area there are literally 10 lifted king cab shortboxes that never get used for truck purposes on the highway for the same commute as me.
The excuse is always “but I need it if I go offroad or want to tow my boat/camper to the lake!” as if they do that more than once a year.
Us as well. I am disabled. One hour drive one way to the hospital. Grocery store is half an hour. A train would be awesome but they keep ripping up tracks here so that’s not likely.
Let us have safe bicycle infrastructure do that we can bike to those stores, how about that? And with that, add mixed constructions in the suburbs so that people have small local stores around.
Not everyone live in a big city where there is everything you need in terms of grocery and services.
Living in a small city, I can walk to do most of my day by day routine, but I need a car to be able to go where there are services/shops that are not present. And being a small city the public transportation or every solution where you just rent the car/bike/whatever to use a couple of hours are not really present since it is not economically sustainable (too few people spreaded on a relatively too big area)
Let us have safe bicycle infrastructure do that we can bike to those stores, how about that? And with that, add mixed constructions in the suburbs so that people have small local stores around.
A bike costs a fraction of a car
Bicycle infrastructure building and maintenance costs a fraction of that for cars
Bicycles don’t emit CO2. And for those wise asses saying that the cyclist does, it’s a fraction of a fraction of a car because you’re not lugging 2 tonnes of stell around to transport you and a bottle of milk.
Cycling infrastructure is much more efficient, you can push a shit tonne more people over the same road if you don’t need big ass cars. Yes, even your Mercedes smart car is I ass compared to a bicycle
It creates much much less pollution from tire dust
It’s much safer, bicycles kill only a fraction of the people that cars kill all year round
It’s healthier, people do exercise not because they went to the gym, but all day every day with their bikes
It cuts the noise pollution
It’s cheaper because no taxes, no gas needed, maintenance is a fraction of that of a car.
It’s way less wasteful
It lowers aggression. Though it may or may not exist, I’ve never heard of bicycle road rage
Need more?
Less cars is less parking spaces. Parking spaces get cities barely any taxable income. Instead of these ugly ass concrete wasteland parkitsoaces you can now have restaurants with outside patios which can be taxed. Couple that with the cheaper infrastructure, and that alone should be an obvious reason as to why do this
It’s really not that much slower. For typical short trips, bicycles usually only add some 10-20% of required time to your trip.
For any trip over say, 5-10 kilometers, use good public transportation
For those once in a lifetime trips where you actually need a car because you need to transport something huge, use one of those Evo rent-a-car.
In the Netherlands, a huge amount of people don’t have a car. Not because they can’t (they totally can) but because it’s stupid to have one. You can go everywhere by bike, you can jump with your bike in a train when needed to go further, cars are expensive and bad for everyone, why even have one?
I agree with all of this and personally I have replaced as many car trips as I can with a bicycle
however I also recognize that that’s simply too far for most people right now, at least in my area. people love their cars. I would just love it if they weren’t so damn dangerous and offensive, and I wasn’t nearly killed every time I go out and they come near me. that’s literally a 50/50 chance when I bike to the grocery store that somebody nearly kills me (actually in the past 3 weeks that ratio is a little bit safer, but history shows that I’ll have a bunch of things happen in a short time to bring it back to even).
first we need people to recognize that they don’t need massive vehicles. then an extension of that logic is that they don’t need a motor vehicle for a lot of things.
Bicycle road rage does exist, between road bikers and regulars, between fast electric and regulars and in general because plenty assholes do also ride bicycles if the infrastructure is good enough.
Other than that, all valid points!
That works in the city but i live in a remote area, and have an hour and a half round trip to work every day because its not economically viable for me to move closer.
Since I doubt Canada/BC will spend the money putting in viable public transit/high speed rail, I just want them to do the bare minimum to allow me to afford to stop burning gas to afford my next meal.
While striving for turning every small town into a walkable city sounds great and amazing on paper, the reality is it won’t happen, so we should push for baby steps in the right direction instead only focusing on the absolute ideal.
You’re saying “this solution won’t work for me so nobody should have it”. Try instead “good that it works for you, but I need XYZ so we can tackle the problem on both fronts.”
That’s… Not at all what I am saying.
Go read the rest of the thread, where I agree the ideal is great, but we should be taking realistic steps towards it, instead of an unrealistic, all or nothing attitude that doesn’t take rural Canadians into consideration.
I misunderstood you then. We seem to be of the same opinion.
stuff like this is why I want to focus on the wide, sweeping generalization of “smaller vehicle is better”
there’s no need for someone in your position to drive a massive crossover for your commute in case you need to pick up 30 lb of groceries after work. you can do that with a hatchback, and pretty much the biggest reason that people don’t choose to do it with a hatchback is that they’re afraid of the bigger heavier vehicles on the road
I still push bicycle infrastructure, but I’m not going to push for everybody to get on bikes. I’m going to push for everybody to stop having such goddamn offensive dangerous vehicles (yes please drive at me at 90 km/h with blinding headlights in a 4,000 lb vehicle with a hood that is above my eye level when I’m in a vehicle with 8 in of ground clearance), and try to get them to realize that no it’s not okay because it came that way, you bought it and you have a responsibility as the owner and driver
And I don’t drive a large crossover, I drive an escape phev, carpool with 2 other people, and use it for more than just ‘30 pounds of groceries’.
I have filled it to the brim and gone camping multiple times this year, use it to transport my recycling to the transfer station every couple months, and at least twice a year do a large grocery shop at the Costco 4 hours away, stuffing it as full as I can manage.
I regularly use it to transport things that wouldn’t fit in a vehicle smaller than this one. Hell, I managed to stuff my stove in the thing, though only just barely.
For my daily commute, since I charge it both at home and at work, I only burn 3-4L of gas, which I would say is quite good for nearly 150km.
The only way for my daily/weekly/monthly/yearly routine to be more eco friendly is if I could afford to trade it in for a full electric vehicle - and with the trips I do on a regular basis (including camping, day trips to the ‘nearby’ lakes, occasional work driving), I would need something with a range above 600km, preferably 700km to be safe in the winter. Otherwise I would have to maintain 2 vehicles - one an electric with a range of at least 200km and the other a small truck or mid sized SUV, and that kind of defeats the entire purpose.
right, like you’re using your vehicle appropriately for its capabilities. people seem to think that they need to use it at 10% of its capabilities
10%? Try 1%… For every 1 of me in this area there are literally 10 lifted king cab shortboxes that never get used for truck purposes on the highway for the same commute as me.
The excuse is always “but I need it if I go offroad or want to tow my boat/camper to the lake!” as if they do that more than once a year.
Us as well. I am disabled. One hour drive one way to the hospital. Grocery store is half an hour. A train would be awesome but they keep ripping up tracks here so that’s not likely.
Not everyone live in a big city where there is everything you need in terms of grocery and services.
Living in a small city, I can walk to do most of my day by day routine, but I need a car to be able to go where there are services/shops that are not present. And being a small city the public transportation or every solution where you just rent the car/bike/whatever to use a couple of hours are not really present since it is not economically sustainable (too few people spreaded on a relatively too big area)
🤣🤣🤣