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 cycle almost every where, at every weather, but at distances above 30km, it’s just taking too long to be viable for every day tasks or visiting friends and family.
Public transport is neccessary.
I used to cycle out of necessity but after a while i just got sick of it from either not wearing enough and being too cold, wearing too much and being too hot, and having to guess correctly whether it’ll rain or not but be miserable even if I prepared for it.
I always have my rain poncho with me. I love when it rains because it feels like sitting in a tent where your head sticks out.
I always get too hot under anything waterproof no matter how cold it actually is outside, especially if I’m exercising. I hate how they eventually feel like they’re sticking to your skin
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 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.
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.
There are some very cool electric ones now.
I recently bought one that does ~40km on a single charge and doesn’t go above 25km/h and honestly I don’t get why anyone would need more (people living in the hellscape distopya commonly referred to as “the US” need not reply).
I used to cycle 7 km to work, but now, after moving to suburban village, there is no way to go other way than car. Especially with small kid. Unless you are fit enough to do 25 km every day by bike and risk your life (and potentially kid’s) on the street between cars. So no, there is not realistic to “fuck cars”. I am speaking from European perspective, probably US has the car things much more fucked up.
risk your life (and potentially kid’s) on the street between cars
I dunno, boss, seems like a plenty good reason to say “fuck cars” to me.
Yes, I can be pissed by cars for that reason, but will this make them disappear or make less needed? Sure, many people could go by bike not the car and they are just lazy bastards, but some just need a car
Did the 2x12km for theee years, only got ran down once.
I did have beast legs though :-)
I had to fix the tyre tube every week (cost similar to LPG fuel) until I started to pump for almost maximal pressure. It was fucking frustrating, also without proper infrastructure, riding a bike is not fun at all
Did you have those slim “racing” wheels? Up the tire size just one size and you’ll be way better off.
I got myself an old mountain bike, works wonders in the city with all the potholes and crap.
Not racing, but trekking tyres. I suppose the mountain bike tires are far better (the city crap bike roads can be worse than mountains I think).
but they’re not handicap friendly… public transport serves a purpose… edit: I’m not saying keep using cars, I’m saying get more trains and rail… and then free up space for more bike lanes whatever
They always ignore the rest of the world. Sure you can bike ride in yor little university town built from riches pillaged from the world but the rest of the world? You want India and Africa to ride bikes? Did they include the absolute infrastructure update in their calculations?
“Cars are more accessible for poor people” is certainly a take that someone could have.
Cycling and related infrastructure are orders of magnitude cheaper.
Ah yes cause there’s only cars and bicycling! /s
You know there are other forms of transportation right?
Feel free to make a point if you have one.
Sure I’m paraphrasing my other comment:
Bicycle is just a poor vehicle choice for these regions and I’d argue most of the world in general and I say that as a recreation e-bike lover - its just not a good transporation method for mass adoption.
Motorbikes for one are much more viable because the winters are easy and the terrain can be too difficult for muscle powered bicycles. Also Motorbikes can carry a lot compared to a bike just look up some photos like this one https://i.imgur.com/t4aWcFx.jpeg - that’s a 500-1000usd motorbike doing your job for years. Minimal maintenance and fuel use and relatively low polution. You couldn’t even get a decent e-bike in europe for this.
The rest is filled in by public transportation - busses, trains, rickshaws, converted pick up trucks, minibuses, ferries etc.
I’ve been living in Asia for almost 20 years now and bicycle is not it trust me. It’s only viable for rich compact well developed countries and anyone who says otherwise really needs to get out more.
Cool well this sub is called “fuck cars”, not “fuck everything that’s not a pedal-powered bicycle.”
Like sorry, but you’re arguing against something that just hasn’t been said.
Cars are bad for motorbikes too. Bikes are still way better than cars.
But also, walkability and bicycle friendly infrastructure isn’t out of the reach of south east asian countries. That’s not a feature of wealthy countries - like I said, it’s very cheap.
I don’t have the details to hand, but usually when poorer nations have bad infrastructure, it’s mainly down to structural adjustment policies stopping them from investing in their own people’s welfare to keep them more desparate and easier to exploit as cheap labour.
Anti-car people in general are going to want to end poverty in general, which means the squalid conditions of a lot of these places would change. It’s not a matter of changing one thing and leaving literally every other variable untouched. Anti-car advocacy is part of a wider a holistic change in society.
Like I’ve spent time in Ho Chi Minh City, and yeah, the place is a sea of motorbikes. It’s a health & aafety disaster. But it’s a flat city. There’s nothing to say bicycles couldn’t be used there.
Tbh I have no idea what you’re talking about so have a nice day I guess
Cool story, you’ve got loads to say but no ability to listen. Thanks for wasting my time.
It’s not like poor Chinese, Vietnamese or Indian people would ever use bicycles. The very idea, how ludicrous. Haha.
They use motorbikes 🤦♂️
Colonial extortion built the cycle infrastructure…
Oh, goodie. Lemmy always delivers, lmao.
Wat?
Cycling would also help to reduce the amount of dangerously fat people. Which is an ever increasing problem.
This reminds me of a story of a guy that lost his license due to an accident he caused, he was extremely overweight and had heart medication.
His coworker asked what he was going to do about it and if there was a possibility of him quitting or getting fired because he couldn’t drive to work anymore.
The guy asked his coworker for a spare bike and started going to and leaving from work in a bycicle from that point on and about a year (or maybe less than a year?) later, the guy is already off heart medications, lost something along the lines of 100kg, something crazy, and he was as fit as he could be.
He got his license back and decided to not drive anymore unless absolutely necessary. They guy was essentially unrecognizeable.
As inspiring as that sounds, I wonder about how easy it is for someone facing obesity to ease into cycling. Their own machine and their balance struggle will have an uphill battle against that weight, and it may be especially scary if they live in a car heavy area.
Curious about this story, since I may know people who would benefit from such experience, both in terms of fitness and extra transit options!
I got you (apologies for the Reddit link)
https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/1jl1l7h/mate_lost_his_licence_for_dui_and_its_been_the/
Fk yeah Jeff
Increased exercise won’t reduce the number of fat people. Fat people are caused by hormone levels typically due to diet. If you increase calories burned and do not address the hormones, fat bodies will simply increase caloric intake to maintain the balance.
Cardiovascular health and strength improves with increased activity. And these are great health benefits. But diet is the way to reduce the amount of fat one is carrying.
We can keep going. Reducing the amount of fat people will ease the strain on hospital systems and health care expenses.
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Expenses was a broad statement by me. To elaborate, it would lower expenses by reducing those needed acute care. Even small things that would be otherwise seen as outpatient or phase 2 recovery post surgical procedure are suddenly inpatient because the patient was 200lbs overweight.
With less acute visits, insurance rates can go down because more people can opt into a federal health plan. Then more people are being seen for routine visits and preventative care. This would shift overall patient volume to outpatient freeing up EMS and acute services for more emergencies or when necessary.
Then there are the various links between homelessness, obesity, mental health, drug use, Etc. Then there are the links between these factors and capitalist society. Way more things are linked to this and it’s why staying healthy is SO important.
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
It also help to just feel better in general.
dangerously fat people
This isn’t a particularly nice phrasing - I think the same meaning could easily be conveyed with some slightly kinder choice of words.
Threateningly chubby?
Problematically plus-sized?
suspiciously reddit-worded?
Venomously rotund?
Expensively not dangerously
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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.
The (urban) issue is the space they require when not in use. Public transport and cycling require a lot less parking space. Shared (quick easy short term rental) electric vehicles are quite a good thing too.
But that’s neither better nor worse than ICEs, not really the point we’re discussing
Exactly part of OP’s point?
Yes, electric cars are just like trains
- They run on steel rails, just like trains
- They hold 50+ people per cabin, just like trains
- They have their own dedicated travel paths, only stopping at loading and unloading platforms, just like trains
- They have enormous, efficient engines and pull multiple passive trailers, just like trains
ngl you had me in the first half
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.
Sounds right when said like that, but I think very important factors are missing in that comparison. Maily: energy used per person & space used per person.
Most cars on the road are only transporting one person (the driver), which leaves a lot of wasted space. Trains on the other hand can carry way more people than cars can when using the space amount of space.
I don’t know energy used per passenger but it’s certainly less for train vs car (when both running on renewable energy).
Apparently (I think C02 emissions should give us the same idea if we assume both use clean energy): Eurostar: 6g CO2e per passenger km Electric Car: 53g (one passenger) CO2e per passenger km (or 13g with 4 passengers)
Don’t think a lot of trains are as clean as the eurostar worldwide but it’s possible to be that clean.
Theres many more benefits to trains too such as: You don’t have to drive (browse lemmy while travelling), cheaper, 20x safer, a good train system can save you time, less waste (when your car eventually is scrapped, I’m sure a lot if recycled, but must still be a lot of waste, including energy spent recycling). Probably a lot of other stuff too.
p.s. sorry if i am wrong about stuff im trying to be right ;()
Why do we care much at all about energy consumption if it’s all renewable?
Renewable energy also requires mining, processing, production, waste management… It’s still a waste to use energy as if it is free, it never is and never can be, all energy usage has a footprint on the planet.
Come on nobody is that dense. You have to be trolling
Because the grid is not 100% renewable, and even renewables have some carbon cost. That line of thought is what crypto bros and AI idiots often use to justify wasting energy. It’s always better to reduce our energy consumption.
Electric cars just replace a car with another car. I’m not even convinced we need lots more public transport, at least not long-range public transport.
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We can replace a lot of existing cars in single digit years it will take decades to build out transit everywhere
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.
And with decreased car use comes increased accesibility and speed for emergency vehicles and essential transport. And if we remove street parking, there will easily be enough space for cycling and walking space. Did you know all parking spaces in the US take up the same surface as the whole of connecticut?
Sure, but I was replying to a comment thread about replacing roads and highways with cycling infrastructure.
They were piggybacking off you, saying there’s even more space to be gained once the usage of cars goes down
I’m autistic and always grateful for comments like this, thanks! Sometimes I genuinely don’t get it.
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.
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.
Around here families of four probably have at least two cars. I didn’t realise what ‘car-dependency’ looked like until I moved out of London. People tell me, “You don’t have transport,” but I walk, I have a bike, I get the bus or the train.
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).
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.
he’s been on my list since that wind farm thing
Whoever rules Prague. I travel to a lot of European cities and that one is continuously throwing a middle finger at pedestrians, especially given the size and planning of the city center.
I was surprised to see even Berlin and Munich doing much better.
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
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.
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Do you have a source for that?? Because I would be very surprised if this is true from the amount of times I remember arriving at school soaking wet.
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Thanks! So it seems around 10% of commutes are wet for this guy, or around 31 rides per year.
Maybe
I get mild frostbite super fast though because my circulation to my fingers are nonexistent
I also unfortunately live in the lands of cars, in the part of the washington where theres no real bike lane and I have to share the road with cars
Please think of putting pressure on your local councils to improve bike infrastructure. GCN recently mentioned that more people are in favor of increasing bike paths (in uk and us studies) but carbrains complain louder, so let yourself be heard!
Where I live it’s either cold and burns my lungs to do any outside exertion or hot and saps all my energy, with a brief tolerable window between.
I found masks can help with the cold air if you don’t have a scarf
The Netherlands is also flat as fuck.
Hills are why bikes have gears and there are plenty of chilly hilly places with strong bike infrastructure and culture. Not Just Bikes goes off on this subject frequently. Check them out on nebula or youtube for a laugh and some good information.
Netherlands also has constant eleventy mph winds that try to blow you back to where you started, so there’s that.
I live in Denmark and despite wind and horrible weather still we manage to bike everywhere for most of our needs.
Summer was unbearably hot, and I decided to commute via a bus with AC instead of a bike, but in september I started using a bike and didn’t stop unless there was pouring or there was snow on the ground.
I even in mild rain I just took my bike. First winter season I used a bike at all, not to mention riding in a full face cover, leather or ski gloves with a ski jacket.
I also researched some motorbike rain pants but we’re in a decade long drought, so far didn’t need them.
One thing tho. If it’s raining you better have disk breaks, the clampy ones just slip on wet wheels. I had to re-learn how to stop safely.
Being waterproof is probably the biggest thing I miss from upgrading to an ebike from an old acoustic bike
I live in a similar climate and use rain pants.
I have the opposite problem. If I tried to bike home from work in the summer, I would literally die of a heat stroke. I biked to college and even when I had a 7am class, I would arrive drenched in sweat and have to do a paper towel bath in the restroom.
I can’t see this taking off in my city. It’s tropical here and during the colder months it’s in the 80s.
People are not going to cycle to work because they will be drenched in sweat by the time they arrive.
Thats why we need EVs…
Electric bikes are a big help on hilly or hot commutes
The problem with that is they are pretty expensive for people in third would countries.
Given how popular bikes used to be in Vietnam, which is positively scorching most of the time, I don’t think this narrative had any credibility.
Besides, with e-bikes being a thing, this take is even less valid
Just going to point out that it’s kind of an unreasonable expectation that people will not be sweaty when it’s that hot outside.
There’s probably a balance somewhere. When it’s that hot, you can sweat walking, but sweat only a little more when biking calmly because you get an extra breeze while doing so.
I’m not a smart person though, maybe theres a place on earth where you wouldn’t feel any breeze while biking.
People aren’t walking instead they are stepping out of their homes with AC and riding in cars and busses with AC to their jobs which have AC…
Biking is reasonably strenuous exercise. Breeze or no breeze if its hot outside you are going to be sweaty as fuck and after you marinade in that sweat you are going to stink.
That’s why you need it in combination with public transit. Even if it’s 90-100 degrees I can go for a bike ride for at least 10 minutes as long as I can keep moving and keep the air blowing on me. And I’m not even really in good shape. So as long as you can bike to a bus or train stop in a fairly short time, then hop on that where there’s air conditioning, then ride for a while, and eventually take another short bike ride to your work, then it should be fine. Of course during heat waves having a car as back up is definitely good or just to use during the hotter months also works and would go a long way to reducing green house gas emissions from either driving an ICE car or from the energy you use for your electric car.
If you are going to be on the bus you mostly need more busses not more bikes
But bikes solve the last mile problem that people tend to have with busses and trains. Plus they’re useful for shorter trips that wouldn’t really make sense for a bus or train. So giving better infrastructure to encourage that would definitely help even in a situation where you’re taking other forms of transit. As well as with how suburban America is it allows people to get out of the suburbs at a fairly good speed to get to public transit hubs or to stores.
I used to live in a county that solved that problem by having in effect a connecting bus for rural riders it operated a bit like a free taxi you had to schedule. Unlike an uber there was a longer wait as it had to serve many folks so you had to plan on leaving early and waiting but it did work out pretty well and it was anything but a rich county.
Yeah I think they have something similar where I live but I think you have to be an older person or have a disability to be able to use it. Which I think is great for those groups as they are the groups that would have more trouble with biking. But I feel like for a lot of other people if you’re not in super rural areas biking is probably a better solution both for the environment and for your own health.
when you cycle regularly, a commute doesn’t make you sweat.
It depends on whether you know how to pace yourself, which I seem to never be able to learn. I can only go full blast every time, and hence I always arrive sweaty.
Luckily, I only have 5.5 km to go to work, and with my current speeds, that doesn’t get me sweaty enough to be unable to air-dry out. Previously, when I had a longer commute of 14 km, I was luckily able to use the showers offered at work.
Lol no
This depends on ambient temp and humidity
Most places I worked at had showers available for those who cycled a long distance or enjoyed a lunch activity such as running.
Sadly that’s not very common in the country where I live.
