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You might be on to something here. We should replace all trans-atlantic flights with ships again. It's so simple, the passengers can just think and that will pass the additional time, they won't even notice!
Walking to my office is a 1hr 25 min walk, or 28 minute bike. I would vastly prefer to not wake up a full hour earlier, and no amount of extra "thinking" time will make up for that...
Solved by bike rental/bike share programs in most major cities.
This is significantly easier and faster (or equivalent, if there is ample parking) than parking a car. This takes 30 seconds? How is this a barrier?
Clearly I hit a nerve here, people are getting very emotional about an objectively minor issue. Dumb strawmans like 'cancel air travel' don't make the point you think they're making. Air travel exists for a good reason, because people demand it, because there are proper use cases and so the infrastructure is built up. Bicycle infrastructure doesn't exist in the same way for much the same reason. It doesn't make sense. If it actually made sense people would do it en masse. Even in the Netherlands, car travel is twice as popular as bicycle travel.
I personally don't like cars and don't own one. But I'm capable of looking beyond my own personal interests and can accept that car travel's popularity has good reasons behind it.
I am not asking people to walk 90 minutes to work. Simply use public transport or drive for long distances like almost everyone else.
It wasn't a strawman, it was a humorous example to point out that "it's fine if your travel time increases 3x, you can just think about stuff and you won't even notice" is a profoundly silly thing to say. Obviously we're not going to replace air travel with ocean liners.
I'm not sure why you think there isn't demand for bike travel? Do you think there is a conspiracy to make bike lanes against the will of the electorate? In Toronto, where I live, pro-bike lane politicians are quite popular, and we just had an election where a very notable anti-bike lane incumbent lost their seat in an election where their party dominated.
Toronto bike share use has increased like 20% YoY for 5 years and counting.
Again you say "biking doesn't make sense" but I don't understand where you get that. From my apartment to my office the options are:
Drive: 20-30 minutes (longer with accidents or road closures), parking is $30+ a day in the area.
Transit: 45 minutes, longer with (frequent) delays
Walk: 1.5 hours
Bike: 28 minutes
Biking makes the most sense here by far, because it's tied for fastest, it's the cheapest, and most importantly imo, it's by far the most consistent
And this pattern plays out constantly. Driving is fast, unless it's rush hour. Parking is very expensive. Transit basically always takes 30+ minutes due to walking, waiting, and transfers. Biking is incredibly fast and always the same amount of time per distance.
Note, I live in the downtown core of a major city. I don't give a shit about biking in a suburban hellscape and I agree it's probably not a very good mode of transportation out there. Although I find it pretty funny that "the land of the free" totally falls apart for "preference of form of travel". Similarly, I also find it funny you feel comfortable dictating people's travel options to them.
Last I checked, shipping is not 3x slower than air travel, more like 200x slower. It's a totally different line of thought.
North America cannot run public transport properly, that's the fundamental problem. That's what I've been saying from the start. Cycling shouldn't be needed at all.
Wouldn't it be ridiculous to see people hand-threshing grain? In what world is that rational? If they say 'oh fuel is too expensive and we can't get a harvester because the warlords will steal it', then that's the real problem. It's not that it's superior to do agriculture like you're in the bronze age, it's that there's a deficiency elsewhere. For cycling: too many people being crammed into crowded cities. Cars being too big. Public transport full of crazies and drug fiends, unpunished fare-dodging. Artificially expensive construction costs crippling infrastructure development.
Civilization is supposed to go up the energy ladder, not down.
Cycling is not worth banning. But people should not be commuting with this method, it should not be a rational choice for people in a rich country.
We agree on a lot, basically all of that
I just really push back on the biking is not rational piece. Even when streetcars are running flawlessly I can out bike them because they have to stop at every stop to offload/pick up, I don't.
I also never have to wait for my bike to arrive, although I guess you could spam so many vehicles headways were always <2 min but that's not economical or practical.
I also enjoy the fresh air and exercise in the morning, it's a great way to wake up.
Also transit doesn't run on residential side streets, so the 5-10 minute walk to get to transit (or get from transit to your destination) is a significant portion of overall trip time, which is totally skipped on a bike.
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for all travels or for travels where bicycles make sense?
cars are clearly better at long distance travel, this does not make them better at commuting 2 km
at short distances cycling is typically faster, more pleasant, cheaper and healthier than public transport
From wikipedia: Around half of all trips in the Netherlands are made by car, 25% by bicycle, 20% walking, and 5% by public transport
2 km is easy walking distance anyway, I walked about that far getting to school as a child.
Contrary to all the people in this thread saying I have no experience of bikes, I have a friend used to be really keen on them and commuted by bike. However being out on the road with all the multi-tonne death machines and fumes was not his idea of a good time, so now he just takes public transport.
so for trips where cycling is actually a good idea (less than half of all) cycling is almost certainly more popular than cars
yes, cycling becomes better idea if there is infrastructure for it (the same as with driving, cycling, flying and public transport)
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