A good observation from previous threads: “Whenever utility cycling is discussed on the internet, suddenly everyone has to move their fridge 100 miles in the rain”
Suddenly, all the north Canadians who live with snow storms 24/7 appear to comment how all the world infrastructure has to adapt to their specific needs.
What’s ironic is my city, Montreal, is arguably the biggest cycling city in North America. Even in winter the bike lanes are filled with cyclists. Why? Turns out that all you need is good-quality bike infrastructure that you actually maintain in the winter and people will happily bike year-round.
Apparently all Canadians live in remote cabins several hours away from the nearest town, based on the “how can I live without a car” replies I’ve gotten over the years.
50 percent of canadians live below the 49th parallel.
90 percent live within 160 kms (iirc) 20kms of the border between canada and the usa
Canada has roughly 40 million people.
*Longest undefended border in the world
*Canada has more fresh water than any other country and almost 9% of Canadian territory is water; Canada has at least 2 million and possibly over 3 million lakes - that is more than all other countries combined
Just some contextual information for anyone who isnt familiar with canada reading your comment. Not directed at the comment i replied to, just thought it might be useful
Yes cottaging is an activity that most Canadians participate in. One of the benefits of having the most lakes of anywhere in the world.
It’s amazing how people think skiing is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, yet think biking in the cold is somehow impossible.
Skis are optimized to move efficiently on top of snow, while bicycle wheels are not.
This is one of the big reasons why good plowing is a key feature required for winter cycling in snowy climates. My city has been doing alright in this regard, and I’ve been able to continue cycling for some of my trips. Transit is so good here though that I use that over cycling while the weather is really bad.
Its fucking ALL of non metro Canada dude, not just the North, and thanks for implying that we dont matter/dont exist. Transit infrastructure is NOT cost effective outside the Cities here, and we arent a country shy on taxes
As someone who doesn’t have a license or a car, but does bike a lot - there will be solutions.
I order my groceries delivered. When I needed to get my old bed recycled, I asked the second hand store and they came and picked it up. They weren’t interested in the broken mattress for it (obviously), so I contacted a moving company and they had it recycled for $40.
Now I get that that cost might be hard to swallow for some, but keep in mind that I don’t pay for my car, its insurance, the fuel, or maintenance, and it took less than five minutes for me to be done with the entire thing. All I had to do was open my front door and two burly men came and picked it up for me. I didn’t even have to wait at the recycling station.
Those $40 paid for themselves.
It’s also worth noting that I do live in the frozen north (not Canada, further north), where we don’t see the sun for half the year. I see people biking year round.
Where I live it costs $40 to drop a mattress off for recycling, and almost anyone who will sell you a mattress will take the old one away for about $40
I actually asked IKEA if they would recycle the old bed, but sadly they stopped that during corona and there hasn’t been much demand for the service since so they just don’t offer that anymore.
Segue: I’d bought my previous bed from MIO. It was a continental, bought right at the start of corona because at the time companies had massive discounts since they were scared that people would stop spending during the pandemic. At the time it replaced my 15 year old bed that was really worn, and at 50% off (7k instead of 14, currency is SEK) I was like “wow, what a steal!”
Then the middle mattress broke after less than three years. Couldn’t figure out why I had such a big divot in the middle of the bed, but as it turns out the side had broken and as such the springs had all gotten misaligned.
Called them in September, three years and six months or so after purchase. Turns out that the bed had a 10 year warranty but the mattress only had 3.
So I had to buy a new bed, much cheaper (like 6K with the mattress), from IKEA, and their mattress has a TEN year warranty. It’s also much firmer and more supportive so I regret not just going with them in the first case.
Never buying shit from MIO again.
The psychology behind prices surrounding cars is outright evil. You don’t even notice how much you spend on them because everything is auto-deducted from your accounts (insurance, registration, etc.), gas is death by a thousand cuts, and repairs are seen as a necessity because it’s your transportation.
I’m well aware I’m saving money by not having a car. However, spending $40 on bike maintenance every few months feels so much more expensive than $400 on a car, even though the bike is my transportation.
Yeah, it depends on the context. Is the thread saying “we need to build out far more cycling infrastructure”? If so, no argument.
Or is the thread one of the naiive ones trying to argue about how we can completely eliminate cars? Then people start bringing up the edge cases that still require cars.
Or is the thread one of the naiive ones trying to argue about how we can completely eliminate cars?
You say that as if those threads are actually a common thing, and not just a strawman accusation from the fevered dreams of car-brains.
Go into a thread on autonomous cars and all you’ll hear is about how they’re useless and we don’t need them because we’ll just eliminate all cars before they’re ready.
I mean, y’all literally call the place “fuck cars.” You call anyone that disagrees with you a “car-brain.” Not a lot of nuance.
As someone scrolling by from all, I’m actually surprised to see any acknowledgement that some people may need to rely on private automobiles.
Maybe y’all need to work on your messaging.
You’d typically hear this in the context of Dutch-style city planning, where direct routes through cities are only available to cycles and buses, and only indirect routes are available to cars.
So cars and other vehicles such as ambulances, furniture-removal vans etc. can still drive to every house from the ring-road, but it is no longer convenient to get from one place to another within the same city by car (which is obviously the design, as it promotes cycling and bus use)
People who drive within the city and would be inconvenienced then suddenly discover a newfound interest in the rights of, for example, disabled people, as they search for counter-arguments.
Can’t agree more.
Fact is that we can’t get rid of cars completely in our current society without billions in infrastructure changes, displacement and forced developments and regulations. Which unfortunately also means most roads are here to stay.
Can the number of trips and lanes come down- absolutely. New developments take mass transit and alternative travel into consideration- I hope so. Eliminate- no.
Those who depend on cars would benefit too when they are the only ones in cars
See, this is why I’m convinced that Americans secretly love traffic congestion. Why else would they do vehemently oppose anything that takes cars off of the streets and highways, and out of their way?
I’m not even sure that I’m joking, anymore. It’s important for humans to have rituals that symbolically bind us to a larger community, like eating a big meal (usually turkey) on Thanksgiving Day, right? It feels like drivers want everybody stuck in traffic jams, so that they can feel that their own frustrating commute has some greater meaning, like this is how it is, and we’re all in it together. (Like the weather.) Those of us who escape the matrix just enrage them by proving that their effort is meaningless and dumb.
Anyway, just a random musing.
They don’t understand the issue. Americans have been brainwashed for 80 years by the oil companies that car ownership is the epitome of freedom. Any policy that seeks to remove cars from the road is a policy that seeks to remove personal freedoms from their idiotic perspective.
Very astute observation! It makes a lot of sense to explain the rage at government policy changes, but I’m not sure that it entirely explains the rage at individuals just trying to exist on a bike on a street, even when we’re not in anybody’s way. There’s definitely a feeling that drivers want everybody else to drive, and not driving is a personal affront.
Our local newspaper is a write in section. Each week about 30-40% of the space is dedicated to complaining about cars, roads, traffic, idiot drivers, parking, car theft, cost of fuel, or injuries/danger to pedestrians. Yet, when anyone suggests maybe building a bike lane or tram in this city there’s a massive groundswell against it (funded by realtors and trucking companies).
Fuck cars.
Say this to anybody who will listen, please! I’ve been using it on my car guy friends, and they’re receiving it loud and clear. They love the idea of having the roads all to themselves, many of the actual enthusiast types do anyways.
This right here is a big part of why I wholeheartedly support the message of this community. There are way too many people behind the wheel who have no business there, are frightfully inept as drivers, but they’ll tell you that they need a car. And they’re probably right. But with more walkable and bikeable cities and better transit, that excuse evaporates, and a drivers licence can be a privilege, and not a necessity.
For what it’s worth, I like my car. I like driving my car. I also drive a truck for a living. But god damn, I’d drive my car a whole lot less if I had better alternatives. My commute is 15 minutes by car or 1.5 hours by bus. The bridge I have to cross on my way to work is car only, no bikes or pedestrians. Working days that can push 14 hours, another three hours of commute by transit is a no go, and I literally can’t bike to work. I like driving, but I don’t want to have to drive.
Yes please, I love cars, I do orientation rallies, I don’t like to have to drive anywhere. Motorways are boring.
I drive trains. I need to use a car, I don’t like to sit in traffic after my shift, I want to get to the hotel/home asap.
I could survive without a car for my short commute but insanely enough having a shit econobox makes more sense financially than a cargo bike until it finally dies, I deduct loads from taxable income, can’t with a bike. I get to sit in a warm box and all my shit is behind me. A hefty cargo bike (enough for two pieces of cabin luggage, I leave for two days and take food with me) would be more than I paid for the car. Oh and I’m not scared of much but Friday/Saturday 3 AM on a bike on dark roads? Bleh.
(I live in France, not like the US but some of the urban planning bullshit is similar)
My sister can’t move her feet at the ankle. She’ll never drive unless we can afford a custom 50k car. She has a 3,000 dollar mobility scooter. We had to spend about a month mapping the city to figure out WHERE THE FUCK SHE COULD GET ON AND OFF THE SIDEWALK.
Edit: Let me elaborate further:
It was so bad, that if we didn’t think ahead, we would have to go back a half a mile. I’m not joking. You ever seen those roads between neighborhoods with no turn offs? Better make sure that side walk ends with a ramp, otherwise, you have to go ALL the way back. You also can’t lift the scooter, it’s over 100lb. If you’re reading this, please petition your town to add more ramps to the sidewalk.
My sister has to have every bone from her pelvis to her ankle broken, REGULARLY. They have to cut all of her muscles, stretch them, reconnect them, and then inject them with botox. They then set them in a cast. This is just so she can properly grow, due to cerebral paulsy. And then, just to rub dirt in the wound, we can’t even use the sidewalk properly. We’re surrounded by beautiful nature and trails. She doesn’t get to experience that. Please petition your towns to add more ramps to the sidewalk. I’ll get off my soap box.
We had to spend about a month mapping the city to figure out WHERE THE FUCK SHE COULD GET ON AND OFF THE SIDEWALK.
Wow. It even worse than my shithole.
Dude it gets worse. They installed decorative boulders on our sidewalk instead of adding ramps. The stones were SANDSTONE AND IMMEDIATELY ERODED.
It was pointless, got in the way, and cost tax payer money.
The boulders used to take up 1/3 of the walk way, so I’m happy they’re being weatherd.
Just make it national law to follow an industry standard that includes ramps everywhere a intentional transition between roads or entrances to properties are.
Germany has DIN 18317 and DIN 18318 for that. DIN = Deutsche Industrie Norm (German industry standard)
Same with GOSTs here.
GOST = ГОСТ = (Меж)государственный Стандарт = (Inter)national Standard
Was just National Standard during USSR.
Sidewalks with ramps on them are a technology that has existed for a very long time. The only reason they aren’t there, is because somebody didn’t want to pay for them. I’m not blaming cars. I’m blaming politicians that are lazy as fuck about actually helping their people. And to an extent, many of those people, for not recognizing this as an obvious issue and pushing for it to be fixed.
It never ceases to amaze me, as a child and care giver of a parent with physical disabilities, how much this world is designed with no regard for people. It’s incredible. Fuck city planners.
My mom had a similar issue in our town, though no where near as bad. Her wheelchair is quite a bit heavier, but we got a small folding ramp that we bungee to the back of her chair and take with us everywhere. Whenever we find somewhere that she can’t go because of a step of less than 12 inches/30cm we can use that. It it’s more than that, we just have to figure something else out or not go there. It’s not okay the way everything is designed. And it doesn’t make sense. Everyone, regardless of mobility, can use a ramp, not everyone can use a step. Why is it so hard to get the fucking ramp?
I am a healthy adult and I’m also continually enraged at the state of sidewalks in my area. When I walk my dog there are some routes I simply cannot take because the sidewalk just… ends. I think some lots extend all of the way to the street and it’s up to the property owner to put in sidewalks and many simply don’t. If I walk across their lawn to get to the next private sidewalk I get yelled at for messing up the grass that they spend “so much time and money” maintaining; fine, it’s your property and I’ll stay off, but what a waste of resources. Unless it’s a particularly quiet road, I shouldn’t have to walk in the street. The city-maintained sidewalks that do exist are a travesty: no curb cuts as you noted, tree roots that create huge steps, holes, and some have no curbs so people just drive on the sidewalk. The city doesn’t want to do anything about it because these are either privately “maintained” and they can’t, or it costs money and they don’t want to.
I do think that mobility scooters should come in off-road versions because I’ve never seen one. I don’t see why $3000 can’t buy something closer to an electric ATV with knobbly tires, full suspension, and a torquey motor that can mount curbs like a boss, but it’s a chair format and is limited to fast-walking speeds so that it isn’t a car. It’s probably a low-volume issue.
damn lisa really needs to shorten those slides for her presentation and start doing the talking herself
A walkable city means everything is closer for everyone, so if you have mobility issues you can just use a slower, safer, more efficient vehicle like a scooter or a cart that still suits your needs since you don’t have to go as far as to need a car.
I think the part that is often lost on people who don’t live in large cities but have to visit them for doctors appointments and specialized shopping and whatnot is that in such a walkable city would involve parking once in a municipal lot then walking a shorter distance to what they’d currently have to walk when parking in every business’s private lot and move between parking lots
That’s why I always have a cart in my pocket for my handicapped wife. Just in case we have to go to the city to access resources not available elsewhere. /s
I am all for walkable, bikeable cities with good public transport. The next city, though, is just gutting accessability by car without doing the necessary changes to make it more accessible by other means.
Sounds easier to fit in your pocket than a 2 ton vehicle. Cars are only seen as convenient due to their ubiquity.
Yes, but with a car I could actually reach the city and get somewhere there. Using a golf cart or similar vehicle would require that those were available in the city, so I could get to the city by e.g. public transport, and continue the way in such a cart. Sadly, the public transport there is f-ed up, and there is no golf cart rental there, anyway.
I do support bike- and pedestrian friendly cities, but they have to actually work, and that’s were things simply fail.
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