Fuck Cars
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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Of course. You can't just paint a bike lane and expect people to ditch the car. The car has huge advantages: you can drive it in any weather, you don't need to follow a bus schedule, you can carry your whole family safely. You only convince people to replace the car with public transport or bike if those options become overwhelmingly convenient and safe. If the bus only comes twice an hour, only people who can't afford a car will use it.
As long as the car is the most convenient way to access cities, habits will not change. We need more streets restricted to bus and bike only, and more parking converted to bike lanes.
Or people whose transit patterns would overlap.
The car also has huge disadvantages, though. It depends heavily on petrol and a shitton of energy, costing you a lot. It costs more and can break down easier than a good bicycle (cos there are more points of failure). And you also need to find parking spots and keep focusing on the traffic around you (unlike with public transit).
Also, tandem and longtail bicycles exist - those can carry multiple people. The bicycle can be driven in any weather as well, you just need appropriate clothing.
Just as roads are salted for cars, so too can they be for bicycles -- and bicycle pathes are thinner and need less salt, thus making it more energy efficent.
If you think you can bike in any weather, you haven't biked enough 😅. There's absolutely limits. Regardless, you don't need to carry a change of clothes when you use your car.
Fuel costs are only that significant in ICE cars. And unless cities stop supporting cars, parking is not a problem.
I now live in a city where lots of people bike even throughout winter. It's simply the most convenient way to move around short distances.
Shrug. I've bicycled in snowy weather, heavy rain, heat waves, days without light, and so on. I think there's absolutely something like a "skill issue" there. I bicycle everyday.
I don't change clothes either when I bicycle.
And no, fuel costs are pretty much significant in every car. I paid €200 on bicycle maintenance over ... 10 years.
If you drive by car you'll easily pay quadruple that within a year.
And yes, car parking is a problem. It takes up a lot of space. Look at Houston's 44% space being used by parking spaces and tell me that that's not a problem. It absolutely is. The parking IS part of the urban sprawl problem.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it isn't a lack of "supporting cars" that creates a problem of parking -- it's the opposite, in fact: it's the nigh-weaponised dangerous support for cars that creates the problem for people.
Frankly, I think it's weak if one only ever can drive by car. Walk, bicycle, and use public transit - now that's real independence.
Then you’re probably not working in a job that has decent dress standards, or your coworkers hate that you smell.
Yes, but conditions outside the limits for a bike are also generally unsafe to drive in. It's lovely to ride on studded tyres past a line of cars that have slid into a snowbank.
You don't need to carry a change of clothes on a bike often, but if you do, clothes are usually light and we have suit carriers, shirt shuttles and so on. Some of which are also used to carry a change of clothes in cars.
Some people, mostly anglophone, like to play spandex dress-up for cycling or sprint lots, but that's a choice, not a necessity.
My change of clothes is because during winter I get all sweaty by the time I get to work, nit because I like to cosplay Tour De France.
Wear less, wear better, or ride gentler, unless you're one of the (unknown size) minority that can't ride on a cold day without sweating.
Hah, or seen enough weather. Even 40kph winds can be enough to make me think twice.
Or enough rain and snow that you can't see more than a meter ahead.
Ski goggles exist. Again, literal skill issue.
Absolutely. I remember being seriously delayed by weather that made even me to seek cover. Biking through open fields during a thunderstorm is something which I leave to idiots claiming they can bike in every weather. I prefer staying under a bridge or other dry and safe place until the storm passes.