A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
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Cycling would also help to reduce the amount of dangerously fat people. Which is an ever increasing problem.
And not just fat people. It helps prevent cardiovascular diseases.
For me the biggest benefit aside from generally increased fitness is how it helps with my mental health. It's hardly a new revelation that exercising regularly is good for your mental health. But it's so much easier to get yourself to move when you have to to get somewhere than it is if it's purely for exercise. At least for me.
But it’s so much easier to get yourself to move when you have to to get somewhere than it is if it’s purely for exercise. At least for me.
That's definitely not just in your case!!
We can keep going. Reducing the amount of fat people will ease the strain on hospital systems and health care expenses.
Even if expenses remained the same, the reduced number of patients would mean more attention and level of care per patient.
True story: I was just at presentation for cyclists... there were maybe 30 of us. Every single person, young and old, were trim and healthy looking.
Go to any car show, and let me know if you can say the same. LOL
I dated someone for a couple months who was really into cycling. Like, she'd ride from NYC up to Storm King (~75 miles) for funsies. She had the body of a greek god. (Was also super smart and pursuing an interesting career. I'm still sad she dumped me, but she was reasonably kind about it.)
It also help to just feel better in general.
Electric cars have very little upsides compared to gasoline cars. They're basically made for the car industry. Not the consumer.
What we need is more cycling and public transportation.
That statement is just straight out false. Yes electric cars still represent a huge deal of energy needs for producing, but they are much, much more efficient at using energy than ICE cars. If I remember correctly it was something like 40% vs 90% energy efficiency? That's why if you put several electric cars connected in a row, place them on tracks, externalize the power source, and you get the most efficient way of travelling - trains.
It may help with the car pollution but car infrastructure is also miles and miles of lanes that add to the heat island effect and force homes and business further apart, reducing density. The secondary and third order effects of car culture are significant.
Not to mention that all that car infrastructure is bankrupting US cities/towns (maybe places outside the US too, but I wouldn't know).
Yes, and electric cars still produce lots of tire and brake dust. But to say they are not an improvement over ICE cars, is a lie.
Roads and highways would be perfectly fine cycling infrastructure, if we just got the giant motorized death machines off of them.
I liked your comment, but there is a lot more space that could be regained for pedestrians as well if we cyclists took only the space we needed. Car infrastructure is easily converted into one, but not into the other and asphalt causes heat islands.
Plus, roads are important for the people who can't walk or cycle as well as for emergency services. Goods can't all be transported by bike, either. Of course, that doesn't require multiple lanes. Part should be kept, part turned into small green spaces to compensate for the environmental effect of the road, and part should be used for separate cycling and walking spaces. It becomes a bit more complex with streets that aren't big enough for all that, of course.
Yeah, but bicycles don’t have the same profit margins as cars
Edit: just gonna add that I was being snarky with this comment. I’m for walkable cities with quality public transportation infrastructure.
Bikes really are a downward spiral. First people don't need to spend 20% of your annual salary into their car so they have all this extra money that they can use.
Worse! Since they are now traveling through their city in open air rather in a glass and steel prison they might start noticing local businesses and spend their money there rather than the billionaire's owned giant box store.
And now that they arrive home on their bike they will stay to notice their neighbors, maybe even say hi and start building local communities. It's also much easier to build a local community when you don't have deadly machines that you need to avoid passing in front of your house all the time.
My $4k piece of carbon and $3k hunk of titanium would like to have a word...
I would bet just about anything that the only reason profit margins could possibly be higher for a car is due to volume
which, if everyone rode bikes, wouldn't be an issue at all.
Absolute profit, sure
cars are more expensive, so they'll win out.
Might be less of a difference than we would think since every shared car would presumably become multiple bikes.
Eg: Family of 4 that have 1 car, turns into 4 bikes?
Of course big oil wouldn't like that very much. Screw you big oil, you are a turd.
Cycling and walking are also far healthier options since they count for the whole "if you walk at least 30 minutes a day your chances of heart conditions drop by 70%" thing.
Even better, the fewer the cars around, the better it gets for everybody who walks and cycles (due to decreased pollution and less danger on the road).
Even electric cars and even if 100% of our electricity was from renewables still pollute due to the micro-particles produced by the tires when rolling on the road (and heavier vehicles make this worse).
I just want cheap and reliable mass transit.
Yes! Fuck this individualistic "you should cycle instead of taking the car" language. We need collective investment in mass transit, because not everyone can bike to work, and even less people want to do it in the rain.
I have an EV and I still agree with this. An EV is better than an ICE vehicle but it is no substitute for designing cities around people - footpaths, cycle lanes, recreation, public transport etc.
to be honest; a factor of 10 seems a bit low
who do I need to kill to get the infrastructure going?
You can start with politicians like Doug Ford in Ontario, Canada. He passed bills letting him rip out fairly new bike lanes from Ontario's largest city's downtown, banning the entire province from building new bike lanes without his approval, and hidden in his bill is legislation that lets him build highways without doing any environmental assessments.
All while Canada is in a economic and housing crisis, a time where bicycles and bike lanes can lower cost of living and support denser housing developments.
The emission savings from replacing all those internal combustion engines with zero-carbon alternatives will **not **feed in **fast enough **to make the necessary difference in the time we can spare: the next five years. Tackling the climate and air pollution crises requires curbing all motorised transport, particularly private cars, as quickly as possible. Focusing solely on electric vehicles is slowing down the race to zero emissions.
Ah thank god we still have 5 years. Now the climate scientists just need to advise the general public to start shooting all the cars through the motorblock because it has been scientifically proven that is the one way we'll make it.
Published: March 29, 2021 10.59am EDT
OH MY GOD!!!! WE ONLY HAVE A YEAR LEFT TO MURDER ALL THE CARS??
I think something that gets regularly overlooked is scooters. They can be gas or electric and they will drastically reduce emissions. ICE scooters can do 100 mpg and the manufacturing emissions are going to be a sliver of what a car or truck would be.
Make one that doesnt go BrrrrAAAP ! And I'm onboard:-D
On a serious note, electric; bikes, scooters, cargo bikes, small utilitarian vehicles, busses are the future of the city IMO.
Buy a Japanese brand and it'll probably be a 4 stroke. The 2 strokes (most of the cheap Chinese bikes) are dirty and noisy, and pollute a lot more. IMO, 2 strokes shouldn't be allowed on the road anymore.
A part of the prevalence of two stroke engines is ofc they're cheap and light and easy to service, but another reason people like them is they produce more power for a specific cubic centimetre, and insurance often works with just engine size not type or power.
Unfortunately I live where its cold and raining 99% of the time. They are trying to build a line from where i live to where I work though so it might be bearable to bike the distance to the station in the rain
Bicycles just aren't suitable for cold places. They only work in places with warm, sunny weather. Like Norway.
The netherlands, a huge cycling country, is also known as a dreary place where it rains more than the sun shines. You just put on a good waterproof outfit and you're good. Cycling heats you up as well, so as long as you have good clothes I would say its doable up to and including freezing temperatures, depending on the road surface.
I live in Denmark and despite wind and horrible weather still we manage to bike everywhere for most of our needs.