alt Hacker NewsThe bike meme is unrealistic, and you're dismissing all of my arguments.
You're ripping up infrastructure for yuppie pickleball.
How do you transmit tons of material on bikes? How do people move in the rain or when they're on their period? How do they move multiple small children or being home furniture? What do old and sick people do?
Every lane taken away is centuries of economic activity destroyed.
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Could you kindly explain to me how being on my period would in any way shape or form affect my ability to ride a bike? I'm all ears.
Have you ever been to China? They haul huge amounts of stuff with bicycle trailers.
But yeah, you got me. It's impossible to ride a bike in the rain, or on your period. Checkmate, I surrender.
I think you’re suffering from a false dichotomy. The average car capacity is 1.1 people per car, and 90%+ of the time, a normal individual is not hauling more than a backpack. Just imagine how much less traffic would be on the road if the people who could just biked. They get 1 protected lane (out of 6), and you get 50% less traffic? Hell yeah, that’s be awesome, right?
In terms of economics, consider how terrible car parking can be. A bike rack can park 20+ people in the space of 1 car parking spot (1-4 people). Do you really think a business would be better off with 1/10th the number of customers who can actually enter their building at once?
Bikes and rail should exist as options, not requirements. And when done well, like in Amsterdam, people will like using them. And driving will be even better, because of so much less traffic.
> How do people move in the rain
I mean Historically when I did that sort of thing I'd have a change of clothes if necessary, but otherwise I never really minded riding in the rain. Or light snow.
> or when they're on their period?
I'm sorry, what? (I actually do have anecdata based answers for this but I don't want to risk offending your sensibilities.)
> How do you transmit tons of material on bikes? > How do they move multiple small children or being home furniture? What do old and sick people do?
Cool! There's more room on the road for that to happen.
But in general you're implying a dichotomy where none exists.
I've heard from the same sources that woman on their period cannot drive a car or even ride in one so that's a wash... :)
> How do you transmit tons of material on bikes?
How do you transmit tons of materials with these crappy oversize pickup trucks? Their towing and payload capacity is pathetic.
Why does someone who is not literally a builder or joiner need to drive something as big as a full-size Ford Transit to take their child to school?
You'd be ok with restricting automobile traffic to delivery vans and trucks then? With regular checks to ensure they're actually delivering stuff.