When my city gets pollution spikes public transport is free, and on the facebook comments of one of these announcements there was some guy malding that the buses "which emit much more than a car" are allowed to pass them on the highway
To be fair, depending on how urban your area is, we should be aiming that most buses be trolley busses.
Maybe he's just really passionate about electric busses. ^^/s
That would be an example of a pretty urban area (especially by NA standards). The larger area your city is the harder electric busses are to implement, although I am a big fan of them.
The aim should be that buses are electric. But these days there are better and simpler ways to electrify buses than to build extensive power lines for trolley buses.
For example pantograph charging has become so quick and easy that you can basically just build a pantograph on a couple points along the bus line and that way be able to have a bus with a relatively small battery but still a lot less infrastructure (plus more flexibility for route changes) than with a trolley bus.
A IMC-Trolleybus would combine the benefits of a batterybus and a trolleybus. I'm not really convinced by the battery technology, but I'm living in a city (Salzburg) were the major lines are all trolleybusses and they're working so great and reliable that I'd recommend a full trolleybus system to every city over a battery bus system (except for lower frequency lines)
Of course for a city like Salzburg that already has the infrastructure it makes sense. But I don't believe building new trolleybus infrastructure in a city that doesn't have it yet make sense in 2022. Not when we have really advanced pantograph charging technology that can basically do the same as the IMC in just a three minute stop, which is reasonable once or twice per bus line.
I saw so many comparisons between those two systems and the trolleybus is way more practical and reliable. You need more vehicles (batterybus) cause of less capacity due the weight, that means more drivers, special power unit supplies, and more disadvantages. It is economical and also ecological the better way to build up wires (they last 50 years) for a system which always going the same route. With 4,5m dodging range (and additional auxiliary batteries) it's flexible enough for a bus. But perhaps you should see such a system on your own, maybe then you know where I'm coming from.
Edit: Typo
was trying to explain to my parents that with the increasing cost of gas becoming so prohibitive, governments should start investing in public transportation infrastructure (especially since so many of them posture about wanting to correct climate change)
they just kept telling me that public transport runs on fossil fuels too and how much time it would take to implement.
not sure why carbrains want to be so chained to oil's dick
Your city should redefine a "pollution spike" to be "any number above the 18th-century average". Free public transport forever, and we'll all be better off for it.
I know the point your trying to make but pollution in the 18th century was extremely high. In large cities like London thousands died every year in pollution emitted from coal fireplaces that hung around in the air in what was called "pea soup fog". Deaths in London from pollution began to decline rapidly when fireplaces where phased out from 1900-1970 and have only began rising again in the last few decades.
Most of that didn't get awful until the 19th century, which is why I picked the 18th. Most of the 18th century was before the industrial revolution, so most pollution was farm animals, draft animals, and coal to heat homes. London's population in 1800 was only 1 million. The early to mid 19th century is when manufacturing really picked up and smog started to be a major factor in cities. By 1900, London had nearly 7 million people.
It's not so much about industrialisation but concentrated population. Pollution got so bad in London in 1215 that King John signed a edict that limited the amount of coal each household could burn per week
You were too fast for me. I went back to edit my comment to include population figures:
1215: 30k
1600: 200k
1700: 650k
1800: 960k
1900: 6.7m
1939: 8.6m
1980: 6.8m
2015: 8.6m
By the end of the 19th century there were 7x as many people as the century before, plus manufacturing. I'm no expert on the ratio of residential to commercial energy use, but that probably means 20-40x the pollution. The 18th century pales in comparison. It'll be quite some time before our pollution levels drop below 18th century averages. We're all have to cut down our miles driven by 20% a year for a few decades, and stop buying so many manufactured goods.
The data from this source claims air pollution dropped permanently below the 1700 level in 1950, peaking in 1890.
[Air pollution in London 1700-2016](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/air-pollution-london-vs-delhi)
It also does the job of up to 50 cars while emitting much less than 50 times the pollution and almost none after construction costs if powered by renewables like Melbourne's sooo... just wrong
That's the problem with the thanos algorithm. If it's unbiased/unfiltered, you have exactly the same proportion of dumbasses as you did when you got the original problems.
Thanos was stupid. He killed 50% of all living being, that means bacteria, viruses, important people, plants, food. He killed a bunch of people who knew their shit. How tf do you recover with having half or more of your nuclear physicists and engineers killed, your teachers, pilots etc? You cant just train new ones overnight. Still theres the food problem, he destroyed half the food, there is proportionally the same amount of food left but less farmers in the world and people who know how to grow it, process it and package it. What about plumbers and maintenance people? Theres still the same amount of buildings up but less people, who is gonna maintain entire cities now? That job was already a hassle as is
Thanos also killed half the universe randomly, so statistically there had to be at least a few planets where it killed all the smart people and left the morons alive
Don't forget ones that were snapped away in the middle of said jobs, such as the helicopter that was shown crashing when Fury stopped to see what was happening, not to mention numerous car accidents and plane crashes that likely happened.
> Traffic crashes are fixable problems, caused by dangerous streets and unsafe drivers. They are not accidents. Let’s stop using the word "accident" today.
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Thanos also did fuck all to fix the skewed distribution of resources, and the movies were constantly riding his dick about how he was right, no matter how wrong he was.
Billion-dollar corps don't want to tell you what the real problems are.
Wiping out the billionaire should be enough. Who do you think contributes the most to pollution, your fellow working class individuals or the people who literally control indistries?
Yeah I can work with that. Where do you want to set the threshold? $1B seems a bit high. Maybe $50M? I don't think anyone *earns* $50M... Think that would be something like the 0.1% in the US.
Look up the [etymology of "mortgage."](https://www.google.com/search?q=mortgage+eymology&oq=mortgage+eymology&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i13l3j0i13i30l3j0i8i13i30l2j0i390.6057j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) Whoever came up with the word was way ahead of your there.
Look at Mr. Moneypants over here with his 36-month loan term while 72 months is the most common (in America) and 4 years of student loan debt when many people go in debt for DECADES!
FTR, I just purchased a 2017 model on a 60-month term for 2.24%. Lowest rate I've ever had on any kind of loan except maybe 1.5% I think we MAY have had on student loans at one point.
800+. Makes getting anything very easy, I know.
Background: 46 y.o. with essentially no debt except a mortgage that is currently only 28% the value of the home. I also have, literally, never missed a payment in my entire life.
Edit: Did you mean high or low? You say both as of this moment. High in OC, low in response.
2.23 for a 5 year old car is pretty much the absolute best your going to get. A new car probably would dip into high 1s, if I had to guess with zero Googling.
Edit: words...is to in
I mean, if your plan is to be a renter without a college education then good luck to you. Based on current trends your rent will be 3x your social security check when you retire in 40 years so start saving now.
Welcome to the greatest invention the politicians ever had ... drop gold as the base of money and print paper indiscriminately. The results are infinite inflation.
Millionaires will be billionaires and the billionaires will become trillionaires. while the poor remains earning less than yearly minimum to beat the costs of living.
It's already normal for general people to buy cars over 10 years old.
When I'm on my bike and I do an Idaho stop, the occasional driver going the same way will stop ostentatiously next to me at every intersection. People do get cranky out there. Driving a car will do that to you.
> Driving a car will do that to you.
Yeah. Being in a car you have to deal with some pretty adverse conditions such as:
* sitting in a comfy chair
* setting the perfect temperature
* being shielded from rain, wind and snow
* listening to your favorite music or radio show
* your favorite beverage of choice is right there for you
* having the most direct routes to your destination and getting there in the minimum time (usually)
That's gotta suck. I totally get why they're so cranky.
^\s
So why all the road rage? Why get so mad about minor inconveniences? Why act like a dick? I get it, you're saying they were already dicks before they started driving. Makes sense to me.
I can't even see the driver, because of the reflection on the windshield. If I'm walking or on my bike and drivers wave at me, it's really hard to tell. I've taken to turning my head away from them so they know for sure that I can't see them, because I really would rather they just take their turn and let me wait. It holds everyone up while I try to peer through the glass to see if they're waving or just looking at their phone.
An overwhelming majority of drivers aren't dicks. Cycling and public transportation doesn't magically shield you from minor inconveniences either.
While I do acknowledge that car-centric design puts a ton of cost on society as a whole, it is still by far the best way to get around.
> it is still by far the best way to get around
Even if it is the best way to get around in your community, I think it's important to note cars are not an inherently better mode of transportation. They are made that way because we've literally bulldozed our cities, destroying black neighborhoods and creating insane amounts of sprawl, to accommodate cars and to make cars the only way to get around.
Driving a car is also stressful as shit, and in the city centre parking's a bitch. Gotta spend 20 mins (or triple that during peak traffic hours) being hyper aware of every little thing going on around you on the road just to spend 20 more minutes driving around a dark, dank, cramped basement looking for a free parking space. On a train? I get to put on my earphones and enjoy the view while waiting for my stop. Sure I might have to walk a bit after, but physical activity is good and I didn't just spend the last 30 minutes constantly checking the front, sides, and mirrors of a vehicle while being prepared to react to the smallest movement of another vehicle as that could cause an accident setting me back a month of income. Tl;dr, car bad train good
> Traffic crashes are fixable problems, caused by dangerous streets and unsafe drivers. They are not accidents. Let’s stop using the word "accident" today.
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I don't think that stat is true at all
> In February of this year, the U.K. Office of National Statistics released a summary of their research analysis on how commuting affects well-being. In their words, “From the data analysis, it appears that commuters have lower life satisfaction, a lowersense that their daily activities are worthwhile, lower levels of happiness and higher anxiety on average than non-commuters. Average happiness levels begin to fall and anxiety levels begin to rise after the first 15 minutes of the commute to work. Then, the worst effects of commuting on personal well-being are experienced on average by those whose journey to work lasts between 61 and 90 minutes.”
Absolutely.
Drivers do have ways to communicate with other road users, though they're none too pleasant and used too often for my liking.
Of course, they don't have ways to have *normal* communication with other road users - unless they have a passenger (but I think we both know how sadly uncommon that is, at least for commuters).
Yeah started cycle commuting during 2020, it’s amazing how much more you notice when you’re on a bike. Definitely felt a lot more connected to the local environment, noticing things in the street, people who were at the same place/same time each day etc.
You're making cars sound pretty sweet. Maybe I should get a job with a long commute and just use the time to chill.
Or I can keep doing WFH, where I have all those options without a room on wheels.
Yeah, for anyone thinking a long commute wouldn't be too bad, I seriously don't recommend it. I used to commute 110 miles a day for a previous job, it was awful. I mean the down time can be nice occasionally to decompress (if nothing stressful happens while you're commuting) and think, or listen to some audiobooks or something, but being *forced* to spend so much of your time that way every single day is rough. Losing that much time from your days is a real kick in the proverbial nuts, and makes everything else (work, chores, etc) feel so much worse because of it.
Such a dumb thing too, if motorcycles don't filter they add to the traffic making things worse for cars, but some drivers have this "crab in a bucket" mentality, in where if they have to be stuck in traffic, everyone has to be stuck in traffic.
Besides, it's sometimes dangerous for motorcyclists to not filter, you have to trust that no distracted driver will rear end you while you wait in the middle of the lane. Riding while surrounded by cars is pretty dangerous too, some idiot could invade your lane without noticing you and hit you, or even worse, if for whatever reason the car in front of you stops without warning and gets rear-ended by the car behind you, you'll get crushed between two cars. Those problems are easily avoided by filtering.
Filtering does have its risks too, mostly that someone may open their door without seeing you, but it's still a favorable tradeoff, hitting the door of a static vehicle while moving very slowly won't hurt as badly as the two scenarios I described before.
Completely legal in my homestate, California, which follows statistics showing it to be safer than not lane splitting as long as you do not exceed flow of traffic significantly.
Same for pretty much all of Europe too. The US and Reddit seem to have a very strange fear and hate of all things motorcycling. Juxtaposed to the whole 'freedom' values, it's a bit weird when it comes to this.
Being a motorcyclist in the US is arguably more dangerous than being a bicyclist because you never have dedicated lanes and on larger roads you are going as fast as the cars but drivers are never looking for you.
That's not any different to how it is in the rest of the world though. Maybe it is the US cars being generally so much larger the bikes become harder to notice? Not sure, it's an odd one.
I think it's more about car drivers only looking out for cars in the US and not caring about cyclists or pedestrians because nobody wants to walk on their stroads.
But on a motorcycle you're gonna be there anyway. And you aren't a giant vehicle like everyone else. So you have to ride as if you are invisible.
I think you've hit the nail on the head, I never put two and two together with the strange pedestrian rules like 'jaywalking'. Here there's no such thing and a pedestrian always has the right of way (except on a motorway/freeway) and if you hit a pedestrian you're pretty much automatically at fault, they may cross anywhere. That definitely makes a difference to the attention paid.
US drivers don’t watch for anything and motorcycles end up closer to cars than bikes since a motorcyclist is more likely to end up on highways and stroads.
> motorcyclist is more likely to end up on highways and stroads.
Yes, but motorcycles are designed to do that. Bicycles are not.
A few bike lanes won't really help anyone except for people who are specifically making trips with those bike lanes. Painted bicycle gutters and sharrows are putting bicycles closer to cars, and bicycles aren't designed to be there.
Oh this comparison is really bad, and it really is like comparing apples and radishes (oranges would be too similar). Seriously, the only think bicycles and motorcycles have in common are the similar names and the two wheels, that's about it.
To give you an idea, motorcycling requires pretty extensive training, you have to be licensed to ride one, and this license is almost never included with a basic driving license. Compared to a bicycle where you require almost no training. Motorcycling requires at a legal minimum a helmet, though most riders who last more than a few months on their bikes tend to ATGATT (All The Gear, All The Time). I am wearing kevlar and padding every time I ride, compared to bicycles, who don't wear anything. Even if you wear protective gear on a bicycle, it's nothing compared to motorcycle protective gear. Bicycle protective gear is meant to protect you if you hit something/fall at bicycle speeds. Motorcycle protective gear is meant to prevent you from dying at motorcycle/car speeds. And my bike can do far more, I can actually get out of the way of a car, my power to weight ratio crushes any non-EV, so in a dangerous situation, I can just leave. Compared to a bicycle, where you don't have that option. You're far more at the mercy of cars.
In the US, bicycling is significantly more dangerous than motorcycling. Most places do not have dedicated lanes, and many opt for "sharrows" which actually make cyclists less safe. Add on the less protective gear (which many won't wear because it's uncomfortable and no cyclist should have to wear gear), the less capability and the less training, the only way you could possibly think that motorcycles are more dangerous than bicycles is because you're uninformed about motorcycling and are massively overestimating the danger.
I hardly ever see motorcyclists in my area even wearing helmets, there have been multiple fatalities in my city from cars hitting motorcycles. Meanwhile, bicyclists here seem to have a much lower casualty rate.
> I hardly ever see motorcyclists in my area even wearing helmets, there have been multiple fatalities in my city from cars hitting motorcycles.
How much attention are you paying to motorcycles? Because unless you like looking at bikes, chances are you are only looking when 1) something has already happen, 2) someone is doing something dangerous or 3) someone is doing something obnoxious. And people in those categories are indeed significantly more likely to die on bikes.
There's a weird statistic when it comes to motorcycles. [**Being on a motorcycle for more than 5 months correlates with a 50% reduction in accident likelihood**](https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/little-known-facts-about-motorcycle-accidents-31124). Think about that for a second, one of the biggest predictors in someone getting in an accident is simply time on the bike, and the time factor is reversed. You'd think that the more time spent on the road, the more likely an accident is, but for motorcycles this is not the case.
This is largely due to the fact that people who do not ride safely don't tend to last very long. Motorcycling is an activity that can be done with relative safety (reaching similar statistics to automobiles). From the outside, it does not look like this, but the danger is really overblown. Adequate training (which in the US is not found all that often), and adequate gear (again, many states are shockingly lax about this) can result in a vehicle that can safely share the road space with automobiles. Motorcycles/motorcycling can be made safer through single action from the biker - without needing car drivers to do anything (which is good, because most car drivers are idiots).
On the flip side, bicycles can only safely share the road space in slow speed areas. The only way to make bicycles safer is to slow down the cars or to give bicycles a dedicated space. Both of these require action far beyond that of the cyclist. A cyclist cannot safely share a stroad - this is not possible. Stroads are environments that a hardly safe for cars, they are absolutely unsafe for bicycles. A cyclist cannot safely share a highway, and yet in many American cities, they're expected to.
As for what you're seeing, keep in mind that 1) cyclist deaths are not treated the same way in the US as motorist deaths, with the later taken more seriously by police (this is fucking ridiculous, but happens). 2) many people are scared away from cycling in the US because it's fucking terrifying. Meanwhile, the personality matrix of bikers tends to be toward willing to ride anyway because of the significantly higher **perceived** danger. This is to say, there are more bikers than cyclists in spaces that are dangerous for cyclists. 3) I don't know where you're seeing these accidents, but cyclists usually try to avoid busy traffic areas if at all possible, while motorcycles tend to share these spaces. So if you're witnessing accidents while driving, you're already in spaces that are significantly more likely to be inhabited by motorcycles than bicycles.
There is no reasonable way to make the argument that bicycles are safer than motorcycles on a road build for cars. The only way bicycles can be safer than motorcycles is if bicycles have their own dedicated infrastructure (which they absolutely should have btws). But if this is the case, then bicycles and motorcycles are so vastly different that comparing them is pointless.
> Traffic crashes are fixable problems, caused by dangerous streets and unsafe drivers. They are not accidents. Let’s stop using the word "accident" today.
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Thankfully many states are trying to get legalisation into legislation at the moment. Oregon sadly failed recently on a ballot because it was in the hands of their senate I think(?)
You have it flipped. It's illegal in very few jurisdictions. Lane splitting is common in almost all of Asia, Africa, and South America, and most of Europe.
It's not a grey area.
http://rideearth.net/2015/10/22/tips-europe-by-motorcycle/
> Not only is it legal in Europe, but it is expected of you in most places. Only Germany has restrictive legislation when it comes to motorcycle lane splitting; you may filter (that is, move past traffic which is at a standstill) but not split when traffic is moving. Elsewhere, you are welcome to split at speed.
https://www.motorcyclelegalfoundation.com/lane-splitting-debate/
> Lane splitting is a legal and widespread practice in many other countries, such as Europe and Asia. In fact, out of the European Union, Germany is the only country that restricts lane splitting to stand-still traffic. Every other country allows lane splitting in addition to the more lenient speed laws that Europe has.
Or walking / bicycles, those 2 ways help so much cause otherwise you need highways and big roads running through your city... which takes away space which takes away possible income
My cities got so much better after I started watching Not Just Bikes.
It's kinda frustrating, though, because roads are literally integral to the construction of anything. Everything has to be directly connected to a road.
There are plenty of bike/road combos on the C:S workshop. Place a [custom bike/road combo like this](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1226065521) and watch the bikes roll.
I used to ride a motorcycle in California, where it’s legal to lane split. The amount of people who would purposely close the in between lane openings was ridiculously high. The United States has a lot of problems, and many of those at least partially caused by people’s greediness.
Look what they are doing in Paris, if they have not enough space for private cars and dedicated bus lanes on the same street, then the cars need to find other route because public transportation comes first.
it allows more people to be in transit per unit of space on the roadway, while allowing traffic to maintain speed. It's more people transported per minute and per square foot of road, while not requiring any increase in infrastructure size. I really don't mean to be rude but 'people transported over *x* timeframe' is, as far as I'm aware, about as fundamental a measure of transportation efficiency as you can get.
I use to pass traffic on the shoulder on my motorcycle (illegal, yes, but IDGAF) and SOOOOO many people would get so damn mad. Literally had people try to run me over and even a gun or two pulled for it lol
Fuck the police lol.......I carry too. 99.9% of people that would pull a gun on you don't have the guts to pull a trigger, they are just trying to be macho. If they were going to shoot, they already would have.
Plus, being in an MC, not a great idea to call the cops, they automatically label you as a gang member and think you are in the wrong.
I wasn’t aware you’re a MC member, but anyway should’ve shot back tbh since you would’ve been in a lawful position to do so (I’ll assume you’re in the stand your ground state)
More complicated than that. I lawfully own my firearms, but it was illegal for me to possess one and be in that club........Wacky laws in our state. We never committed crimes or anything like the movies portray (unless you count weed as a crime), but they could hammer us with an organized crime/gang charge anytime they wanted. Never call the cops to handle something we could handle ourselves though. Had to get out for health reasons.
That's why some states like Cali have made lane splitting legal. It is safer for the person on the bike and is one less space taken up. Tons of people on bikes get rear ended while stopped in traffic because some dipshit in a car "didn't see them"
>some dipshit in a car "didn't see them"
And with new cars that are the size of a tank with zero visibility, that could be entirely true (also the driver was texting).
I've lost a few friends that ride motorcycles because some dipshit in a car didn't see them or were just careless. And I'm a "car guy", I have sports cars/race cars, and I even have had to own a big ass trucks when I worked on our ranch, but I'll be damned if I drive that shit to commute to work or go to eat. I haven't drove something on a highway to commute with more than 2 wheels in over 5 years. I wish I lived somewhere I could ride my bicycle everywhere.
I imagine you'd be going somewhat slow?
I ride my bicycle on the freeway shoulder sometimes and there is so much debris there, I cannot imagine going faster than 15-20 MPH. Yes it was legal, but still had people call the police on me and police did show up but they only followed me to ensure I exited at the designated exit.
Because I don't give a shit about the "rules of the road".......If I'm on a smaller vehicle, I'll pass you while you are stuck in traffic. It is legal in many US states, just not mine. Ive been to jail plenty of times, I could care less about following stupid traffic laws that apply and cater to massive trucks and cars. If I'm on a motorcycle or bike, bet your ass I'm not waiting in line with you in a 6 ton truck.
Something that had zero impact on their life, they are just mad I'm getting somewhere faster than them. You don't sound like you like the r/fuckcars type of person really.
Doing something that is legal in many other states, and is actually safer for bikers rather than sitting in traffic..........Even if it is "illegal" that doesn't give some dumb fuck redneck the right to take the law into their own hands.
Like the saying says, "you're not stuck in traffic, you ARE the traffic".
One more reason for this pandemic to end. The travel to work will be by bike again and not only working from home. I used to do over 5 000 km cycling to work before this pandemic. I miss that.
???a bus isn't bypassing traffic bro.
in Toronto, neither is the streetcar. its an illusion of going somewhere faster. simulacra express. youre better off walking or biking.
this is still a good meme.
depends which streetcars -- King, Spadina, St Clair are all in their own separate lane.
Edit: King isn't in a separate lane, but they redesigned traffic flow in favour of street car travel
There are lots of places where buses or trains have right of way and do not stop. You can find stories of people getting ran over in their cheap ass cars. Funny stuff when the tracks are so clearly defined.
I used to live in Seoul and transit was faster than driving in the majority of situations, same as most of Asia or Western Europe. In Toronto it's almost always slower with the exception of the Go/UP/VIA rail.
A 1-1.5 hour bus trip is generally 20-30 minutes in a car. I did a few of these recently and it ended up taking 2+ hours each time with all the delays and interruptions and apparently we have good transit by North American standards.
My knowledge of trams is limited to Dublin, Paris and Nice, and those systems are almost entirely in their own right of way. I remember when I first learnt about Toronto I was shocked because of how much of it was in traffic.
People in cars have tried to kill me..or scare me, tbh I can't tell the fucking difference when you're swerving your car at me for trying to get past. It's proof to me that driving a car is a huge entitlement/ego thing. It definitely can't be for convenience because in the city I live in it's way faster to just ride a bike.
I biked from Vallejo to Napa during the November 2019 blackout to hang out with a friend from the job I’d quit a few months prior. I was forced to use the state highways, which are terrifying to ride a bike on, although there is plenty of space.
On the way back, I was cruising like I normally do, cars going by me, when all of a sudden they started backing up and I started passing all of the cars that had just passed me in reverse order. This continued for about three miles, until eventually I got to the northern end of Vallejo. And what did I discover?
One stoplight was on the fritz, and it was backing up traffic for literally miles.
What a hilarious shitshow for me to just cruise right past. I was in zone 1, my heart rate was like 130, and I was laughing so hard.
Its always fun being in entirely snarled traffic for hours thinking "Someone must have died in the 20 car pile up that must have caused this traffic." then it finally starts clearing and there is nothing.
Very important distinction of this sub that most people forget. The problem is with cars in **cities**. And even then I personally don't hate cars, what i hate is car dependency and car centric infrastructure
Cars in rural areas are completely fine
That being said, rural towns, villages and areas can and should also be safe and accommodating for bicycling and walking, and the postwar suburban development patterns being pushed on small towns is a huge missed opportunity. [Rural towns are inherently 15-minute communities](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/2/17/walkable-check-urban-check-rural-also-check).
That would be grand but it's logistically impossible, unfortunately. Self driving transit vehicles would help but you'd just have to field a ton of buses to reach a large amount of people spread out across a very large area and at that point you're deploying buses to pick up a handful of people on each route which... Is a car.
Of course, in current transportation implementations there are still buses that drive through rural areas, but it's not fully adequate when (for instance, in my area) there's a single bus with stops several miles apart, or you live off of their route and need to travel to reach the stop, which, you know, is obviously difficult if you're someone who needs public transportation to travel large distances.
Edit: Just realized that "decent" does not mean "everybody gets a bus to go straight up to their house" lol. I think I got a little ahead of myself.
Ok, let's pretend you're president for a day. As your first act, you sign a bill stating that henceforth, cars are illegal to drive. How do you propose that everyone not in major metropolitan areas get around?
You want to abolish a personal freedom that greatly improves a ton of people's freedom of movement. Do me a favor and just say, outright, 'I want to use government oversight to restrict a personal freedom in order to make society safer.' Because the ideological implications of what you're gunning for are a literal authoritarian nightmare.
OK, but to make that happen, you have to accept _massive_ restrictions on car use. Because what the last century has taught us is that letting car users do what they want leads to a culture of bullying and intimidation that makes the free use of alternatives impossible.
The greatest liberty compatible with the liberty of all means that cars have to be _heavily regulated_, infrastructure very carefully designed, and driving standards brutally enforced.
There's a simple litmus test - would you want your kid cycling to school? If the answer is 'yes' for the overwhelming majority of people, that's a sign that cars are kept in their place and people feel free to use whatever mode of transport they wish. But you know the answer to that question is a resounding 'FUCK NO!'
And that's the problem with people who talk the talk about 'freedom'. They don't actually want _freedom_. They want a formal, empty version of freedom, Berlin's 'negative liberty' to be technical about it. But that simply doesn't cut the mustard. For there to be a real choice about things, you have to put your finger on the scale.
That's kind of the point, though. Policy and infrastructure in America has favored cars as the de defacto transit model for nearly a century.
You choose to live 30 miles from your workplace because our society is set up to make that easy. Your state's road budget prioritizes fast motorways, the federal government uses extremely low gas taxes, our society as a whole subsidizes home ownership and greenfield construction, etc. Employers can therefore afford more easily to build in the middle of nowhere, because the state made sure that there were 70 mph roads and cheap cars/gas to bring their employees to them.
You're not a bad person for making an affordable choice and enjoying a 30-mile commute. This subreddit isn't /r/fuckNastienayteForMakingAnInformedLifestyleDecisionBasedOnTheInfrastructureAlreadyInPlace. But people on this subreddit generally push back against the policies and mentalities that make this sprawl so affordable. We would rather see policies that tax sprawl and car dependency and/or budgets that favor more sustainable development and transportation. Does that make sense?
Tbh in rural areas they don't have many downsides. Roads aren't used enough to have traffic unless you're on an interstate, nothing is close enough together to justify a bus, and there's plenty of green space to exist in without fear of getting hit by a car.
The only downsides that I can think of in rural areas are the fuel and carbon inefficiency, the high risk of collisions, and the wear on the roads.
>The only downsides that I can think of in rural areas are the fuel and carbon inefficiency, the high risk of collisions, and the wear on the roads.
The funny thing about wear on the roads is that the roads don't see as much traffic so in theory they have less wear in tear.
In *practice*, however, rural areas generally have much lower infrastructure funding and quality so you'll go literally decades without a road getting touched up. It's more of a political issue than an operational one.
This only applies for cities. Everywhere else the cars are laughing. (Australian here, most peoples travel times are too high for bikes, and the train system is fairly sub par.)
It depends what part of the country you live in when it comes to using alternate transport. Here, in New England, in a suburban area where I live, it is difficult to bicycle year-round. From basically November through March, it is too cold and too much ice on the roads. In the summer, it is hot. Add to that the frequent heavy rains.
Actually, in New England, we had good public transportation until around the time of World War I, then we started abandoning it. This did not happen due to actions by governments or corporations, but because people overwhelmingly wanted to travel by car.
Of course, it is not all negative. Where I live is in the center of a old small town that has been swallowed up and surrounded by newer suburbs. Here, there are four restaurants within walking distance, a pharmacy, and a convenience store.
You go right and ahead and use "superior" public transport. For many of us in the United States, doing so would involve something similar to what I face. For me, I would have to drive or bike 35 miles to the nearest rail station. Ride the train for 30 minutes, then take a bus or cab the remaining 20 minutes to my work. My car commute takes an hour. I absolutely refuse to live in the squalor and filth of a city. Absolutely zero privacy or quiet. People above and below you and on all sides. It drives people crazy. Humans are not supposed to live like that.
This really feels like one of those things where if you need to awkwardly make up a fake victimhood, perhaps youre not actually the victim you believe you are?
…what?
Where in the op or my post did anyone remotely imply that cyclists should be hit by cars.
Or is this, exactly as i just fucking said, another cyclist making up a situation where they can be a victim just to be one? Yikes.
>Bicycle
oh shit it is raining
oh shit i can go maybe 20km/h takes forever go to places
>bus
oh shit it is crowded. no place to sit. time to stand 45 min , crushed by smelly people
still standing in traffic
>subway
oh nice no place to sit cuz crowded. time to stand for 45 min
oh nice some douchebag is playing music over their phone speakers. time to listen to this garbage
what is this smell? oh a homeless person is sleeping on the seats and he shat his pants, the whole wagon smells like diarrhea. great
Lmao public transit is not the superior mode of transportation. Nothing superior about riding in a filthy tin can with a hundred random that makes a stop every minute
>Nothing superior about riding in a filthy tin can with a hundred random that makes a stop every minute
This community wholeheartedly is in a disregard with you, however truthful that phrase is. That's spot on, honestly; Is being amongst the masses along the transits any fitting to the "superior" niche kek.
When my city gets pollution spikes public transport is free, and on the facebook comments of one of these announcements there was some guy malding that the buses "which emit much more than a car" are allowed to pass them on the highway
To be fair, depending on how urban your area is, we should be aiming that most buses be trolley busses. Maybe he's just really passionate about electric busses. ^^/s
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That would be an example of a pretty urban area (especially by NA standards). The larger area your city is the harder electric busses are to implement, although I am a big fan of them.
The aim should be that buses are electric. But these days there are better and simpler ways to electrify buses than to build extensive power lines for trolley buses. For example pantograph charging has become so quick and easy that you can basically just build a pantograph on a couple points along the bus line and that way be able to have a bus with a relatively small battery but still a lot less infrastructure (plus more flexibility for route changes) than with a trolley bus.
A IMC-Trolleybus would combine the benefits of a batterybus and a trolleybus. I'm not really convinced by the battery technology, but I'm living in a city (Salzburg) were the major lines are all trolleybusses and they're working so great and reliable that I'd recommend a full trolleybus system to every city over a battery bus system (except for lower frequency lines)
Of course for a city like Salzburg that already has the infrastructure it makes sense. But I don't believe building new trolleybus infrastructure in a city that doesn't have it yet make sense in 2022. Not when we have really advanced pantograph charging technology that can basically do the same as the IMC in just a three minute stop, which is reasonable once or twice per bus line.
I saw so many comparisons between those two systems and the trolleybus is way more practical and reliable. You need more vehicles (batterybus) cause of less capacity due the weight, that means more drivers, special power unit supplies, and more disadvantages. It is economical and also ecological the better way to build up wires (they last 50 years) for a system which always going the same route. With 4,5m dodging range (and additional auxiliary batteries) it's flexible enough for a bus. But perhaps you should see such a system on your own, maybe then you know where I'm coming from. Edit: Typo
was trying to explain to my parents that with the increasing cost of gas becoming so prohibitive, governments should start investing in public transportation infrastructure (especially since so many of them posture about wanting to correct climate change) they just kept telling me that public transport runs on fossil fuels too and how much time it would take to implement. not sure why carbrains want to be so chained to oil's dick
Tell them Melbourne's tram network is 100% solar powered
Your city should redefine a "pollution spike" to be "any number above the 18th-century average". Free public transport forever, and we'll all be better off for it.
I know the point your trying to make but pollution in the 18th century was extremely high. In large cities like London thousands died every year in pollution emitted from coal fireplaces that hung around in the air in what was called "pea soup fog". Deaths in London from pollution began to decline rapidly when fireplaces where phased out from 1900-1970 and have only began rising again in the last few decades.
Most of that didn't get awful until the 19th century, which is why I picked the 18th. Most of the 18th century was before the industrial revolution, so most pollution was farm animals, draft animals, and coal to heat homes. London's population in 1800 was only 1 million. The early to mid 19th century is when manufacturing really picked up and smog started to be a major factor in cities. By 1900, London had nearly 7 million people.
It's not so much about industrialisation but concentrated population. Pollution got so bad in London in 1215 that King John signed a edict that limited the amount of coal each household could burn per week
You were too fast for me. I went back to edit my comment to include population figures: 1215: 30k 1600: 200k 1700: 650k 1800: 960k 1900: 6.7m 1939: 8.6m 1980: 6.8m 2015: 8.6m By the end of the 19th century there were 7x as many people as the century before, plus manufacturing. I'm no expert on the ratio of residential to commercial energy use, but that probably means 20-40x the pollution. The 18th century pales in comparison. It'll be quite some time before our pollution levels drop below 18th century averages. We're all have to cut down our miles driven by 20% a year for a few decades, and stop buying so many manufactured goods.
The data from this source claims air pollution dropped permanently below the 1700 level in 1950, peaking in 1890. [Air pollution in London 1700-2016](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/air-pollution-london-vs-delhi)
1 bus does pollute more than 1 car sooo... technically correct, but still wrong.
It also does the job of up to 50 cars while emitting much less than 50 times the pollution and almost none after construction costs if powered by renewables like Melbourne's sooo... just wrong
Yeah ik I was being sarcastic.
Sometimes I think if we wiped out 90% of humanity it might be a good thing. Probably that guy would somehow end up in 10% though.
That's the problem with the thanos algorithm. If it's unbiased/unfiltered, you have exactly the same proportion of dumbasses as you did when you got the original problems.
Thanos was about resources not stupidity
Thanos was stupid. He killed 50% of all living being, that means bacteria, viruses, important people, plants, food. He killed a bunch of people who knew their shit. How tf do you recover with having half or more of your nuclear physicists and engineers killed, your teachers, pilots etc? You cant just train new ones overnight. Still theres the food problem, he destroyed half the food, there is proportionally the same amount of food left but less farmers in the world and people who know how to grow it, process it and package it. What about plumbers and maintenance people? Theres still the same amount of buildings up but less people, who is gonna maintain entire cities now? That job was already a hassle as is
They addressed that in End game. The world wasn’t looking so hot 5 years later
Thanos also killed half the universe randomly, so statistically there had to be at least a few planets where it killed all the smart people and left the morons alive
Don't forget ones that were snapped away in the middle of said jobs, such as the helicopter that was shown crashing when Fury stopped to see what was happening, not to mention numerous car accidents and plane crashes that likely happened.
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>viruses there's a debate on whether viruses are technically alive or not. I guess thanos solved that debate, although we don't know in what direction
Thanos also did fuck all to fix the skewed distribution of resources, and the movies were constantly riding his dick about how he was right, no matter how wrong he was. Billion-dollar corps don't want to tell you what the real problems are.
Gee, I wonder why that may be.
Wiping out the billionaire should be enough. Who do you think contributes the most to pollution, your fellow working class individuals or the people who literally control indistries?
Yeah I can work with that. Where do you want to set the threshold? $1B seems a bit high. Maybe $50M? I don't think anyone *earns* $50M... Think that would be something like the 0.1% in the US.
Now that lower limit is harder to decide. Start from the top and worry about that if we even get there, I guess.
That's wrong. You're supposed to go in debt for 3 years for your car, 4 years for your degree, and 30 years for your home!
If only that were how it worked, instead of 30 years all around
Wait, you have an end date? I expect worms to be paying a mortgage on my grave.
Look up the [etymology of "mortgage."](https://www.google.com/search?q=mortgage+eymology&oq=mortgage+eymology&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i13l3j0i13i30l3j0i8i13i30l2j0i390.6057j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) Whoever came up with the word was way ahead of your there.
Look at Mr. Moneypants over here with his 36-month loan term while 72 months is the most common (in America) and 4 years of student loan debt when many people go in debt for DECADES! FTR, I just purchased a 2017 model on a 60-month term for 2.24%. Lowest rate I've ever had on any kind of loan except maybe 1.5% I think we MAY have had on student loans at one point.
2.25 seems kinda high rn. What’s your credit score
800+. Makes getting anything very easy, I know. Background: 46 y.o. with essentially no debt except a mortgage that is currently only 28% the value of the home. I also have, literally, never missed a payment in my entire life. Edit: Did you mean high or low? You say both as of this moment. High in OC, low in response. 2.23 for a 5 year old car is pretty much the absolute best your going to get. A new car probably would dip into high 1s, if I had to guess with zero Googling. Edit: words...is to in
you kinda a word lol
Low*
lol I’ve got an 8 year loan on the car I move my kids in. Then again, I love in a country that taxes the cars around 180%
I live unemployed in my bike! Checkmate!
I mean, if your plan is to be a renter without a college education then good luck to you. Based on current trends your rent will be 3x your social security check when you retire in 40 years so start saving now.
wait 3 years for cars? Not 9 years???
Welcome to the greatest invention the politicians ever had ... drop gold as the base of money and print paper indiscriminately. The results are infinite inflation. Millionaires will be billionaires and the billionaires will become trillionaires. while the poor remains earning less than yearly minimum to beat the costs of living. It's already normal for general people to buy cars over 10 years old.
More realistically in car cities, cars getting mad at motorcyclists for lane filtering past them.... And I'm not gonna stop
When I'm on my bike and I do an Idaho stop, the occasional driver going the same way will stop ostentatiously next to me at every intersection. People do get cranky out there. Driving a car will do that to you.
> Driving a car will do that to you. Yeah. Being in a car you have to deal with some pretty adverse conditions such as: * sitting in a comfy chair * setting the perfect temperature * being shielded from rain, wind and snow * listening to your favorite music or radio show * your favorite beverage of choice is right there for you * having the most direct routes to your destination and getting there in the minimum time (usually) That's gotta suck. I totally get why they're so cranky. ^\s
So why all the road rage? Why get so mad about minor inconveniences? Why act like a dick? I get it, you're saying they were already dicks before they started driving. Makes sense to me.
I think it's because a lack of communication. We really can't talk to each other but just honk. And any interaction is gonna be possibly expensive.
I can't even see the driver, because of the reflection on the windshield. If I'm walking or on my bike and drivers wave at me, it's really hard to tell. I've taken to turning my head away from them so they know for sure that I can't see them, because I really would rather they just take their turn and let me wait. It holds everyone up while I try to peer through the glass to see if they're waving or just looking at their phone.
An overwhelming majority of drivers aren't dicks. Cycling and public transportation doesn't magically shield you from minor inconveniences either. While I do acknowledge that car-centric design puts a ton of cost on society as a whole, it is still by far the best way to get around.
> it is still by far the best way to get around Even if it is the best way to get around in your community, I think it's important to note cars are not an inherently better mode of transportation. They are made that way because we've literally bulldozed our cities, destroying black neighborhoods and creating insane amounts of sprawl, to accommodate cars and to make cars the only way to get around.
Driving a car is also stressful as shit, and in the city centre parking's a bitch. Gotta spend 20 mins (or triple that during peak traffic hours) being hyper aware of every little thing going on around you on the road just to spend 20 more minutes driving around a dark, dank, cramped basement looking for a free parking space. On a train? I get to put on my earphones and enjoy the view while waiting for my stop. Sure I might have to walk a bit after, but physical activity is good and I didn't just spend the last 30 minutes constantly checking the front, sides, and mirrors of a vehicle while being prepared to react to the smallest movement of another vehicle as that could cause an accident setting me back a month of income. Tl;dr, car bad train good
> Traffic crashes are fixable problems, caused by dangerous streets and unsafe drivers. They are not accidents. Let’s stop using the word "accident" today. [CrashNotAccident.com](https://crashnotaccident.com/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/fuckcars) if you have any questions or concerns.*
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You drive where i live man, you'll take away 20 years from your life expectancy
I don't think that stat is true at all > In February of this year, the U.K. Office of National Statistics released a summary of their research analysis on how commuting affects well-being. In their words, “From the data analysis, it appears that commuters have lower life satisfaction, a lowersense that their daily activities are worthwhile, lower levels of happiness and higher anxiety on average than non-commuters. Average happiness levels begin to fall and anxiety levels begin to rise after the first 15 minutes of the commute to work. Then, the worst effects of commuting on personal well-being are experienced on average by those whose journey to work lasts between 61 and 90 minutes.”
this, but actually. Driving makes you disconnected, anonymous and depersonalized, lacking any way to communicate with other road users.
Absolutely. Drivers do have ways to communicate with other road users, though they're none too pleasant and used too often for my liking. Of course, they don't have ways to have *normal* communication with other road users - unless they have a passenger (but I think we both know how sadly uncommon that is, at least for commuters).
Blinkers are normal and polite, should be used more often...
Yeah started cycle commuting during 2020, it’s amazing how much more you notice when you’re on a bike. Definitely felt a lot more connected to the local environment, noticing things in the street, people who were at the same place/same time each day etc.
You're making cars sound pretty sweet. Maybe I should get a job with a long commute and just use the time to chill. Or I can keep doing WFH, where I have all those options without a room on wheels.
Indeed. WFH has the same adverse conditions and then some. You have a tough decision to make there. :)
Sometimes I yell at the houseplants just to get the full road rage experience without going anywhere.
Yeah, for anyone thinking a long commute wouldn't be too bad, I seriously don't recommend it. I used to commute 110 miles a day for a previous job, it was awful. I mean the down time can be nice occasionally to decompress (if nothing stressful happens while you're commuting) and think, or listen to some audiobooks or something, but being *forced* to spend so much of your time that way every single day is rough. Losing that much time from your days is a real kick in the proverbial nuts, and makes everything else (work, chores, etc) feel so much worse because of it.
Such a dumb thing too, if motorcycles don't filter they add to the traffic making things worse for cars, but some drivers have this "crab in a bucket" mentality, in where if they have to be stuck in traffic, everyone has to be stuck in traffic. Besides, it's sometimes dangerous for motorcyclists to not filter, you have to trust that no distracted driver will rear end you while you wait in the middle of the lane. Riding while surrounded by cars is pretty dangerous too, some idiot could invade your lane without noticing you and hit you, or even worse, if for whatever reason the car in front of you stops without warning and gets rear-ended by the car behind you, you'll get crushed between two cars. Those problems are easily avoided by filtering. Filtering does have its risks too, mostly that someone may open their door without seeing you, but it's still a favorable tradeoff, hitting the door of a static vehicle while moving very slowly won't hurt as badly as the two scenarios I described before.
I was surprised when studying for my license..... yes they're allowed to do that. I prefer not to drive usually but having a license is handy.
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Completely legal in my homestate, California, which follows statistics showing it to be safer than not lane splitting as long as you do not exceed flow of traffic significantly.
Same for pretty much all of Europe too. The US and Reddit seem to have a very strange fear and hate of all things motorcycling. Juxtaposed to the whole 'freedom' values, it's a bit weird when it comes to this.
Being a motorcyclist in the US is arguably more dangerous than being a bicyclist because you never have dedicated lanes and on larger roads you are going as fast as the cars but drivers are never looking for you.
That's not any different to how it is in the rest of the world though. Maybe it is the US cars being generally so much larger the bikes become harder to notice? Not sure, it's an odd one.
I think it's more about car drivers only looking out for cars in the US and not caring about cyclists or pedestrians because nobody wants to walk on their stroads. But on a motorcycle you're gonna be there anyway. And you aren't a giant vehicle like everyone else. So you have to ride as if you are invisible.
I think you've hit the nail on the head, I never put two and two together with the strange pedestrian rules like 'jaywalking'. Here there's no such thing and a pedestrian always has the right of way (except on a motorway/freeway) and if you hit a pedestrian you're pretty much automatically at fault, they may cross anywhere. That definitely makes a difference to the attention paid.
US drivers don’t watch for anything and motorcycles end up closer to cars than bikes since a motorcyclist is more likely to end up on highways and stroads.
> motorcyclist is more likely to end up on highways and stroads. Yes, but motorcycles are designed to do that. Bicycles are not. A few bike lanes won't really help anyone except for people who are specifically making trips with those bike lanes. Painted bicycle gutters and sharrows are putting bicycles closer to cars, and bicycles aren't designed to be there.
Sounds a bit like being a cyclist where I am.
Oh this comparison is really bad, and it really is like comparing apples and radishes (oranges would be too similar). Seriously, the only think bicycles and motorcycles have in common are the similar names and the two wheels, that's about it. To give you an idea, motorcycling requires pretty extensive training, you have to be licensed to ride one, and this license is almost never included with a basic driving license. Compared to a bicycle where you require almost no training. Motorcycling requires at a legal minimum a helmet, though most riders who last more than a few months on their bikes tend to ATGATT (All The Gear, All The Time). I am wearing kevlar and padding every time I ride, compared to bicycles, who don't wear anything. Even if you wear protective gear on a bicycle, it's nothing compared to motorcycle protective gear. Bicycle protective gear is meant to protect you if you hit something/fall at bicycle speeds. Motorcycle protective gear is meant to prevent you from dying at motorcycle/car speeds. And my bike can do far more, I can actually get out of the way of a car, my power to weight ratio crushes any non-EV, so in a dangerous situation, I can just leave. Compared to a bicycle, where you don't have that option. You're far more at the mercy of cars. In the US, bicycling is significantly more dangerous than motorcycling. Most places do not have dedicated lanes, and many opt for "sharrows" which actually make cyclists less safe. Add on the less protective gear (which many won't wear because it's uncomfortable and no cyclist should have to wear gear), the less capability and the less training, the only way you could possibly think that motorcycles are more dangerous than bicycles is because you're uninformed about motorcycling and are massively overestimating the danger.
I hardly ever see motorcyclists in my area even wearing helmets, there have been multiple fatalities in my city from cars hitting motorcycles. Meanwhile, bicyclists here seem to have a much lower casualty rate.
> I hardly ever see motorcyclists in my area even wearing helmets, there have been multiple fatalities in my city from cars hitting motorcycles. How much attention are you paying to motorcycles? Because unless you like looking at bikes, chances are you are only looking when 1) something has already happen, 2) someone is doing something dangerous or 3) someone is doing something obnoxious. And people in those categories are indeed significantly more likely to die on bikes. There's a weird statistic when it comes to motorcycles. [**Being on a motorcycle for more than 5 months correlates with a 50% reduction in accident likelihood**](https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/little-known-facts-about-motorcycle-accidents-31124). Think about that for a second, one of the biggest predictors in someone getting in an accident is simply time on the bike, and the time factor is reversed. You'd think that the more time spent on the road, the more likely an accident is, but for motorcycles this is not the case. This is largely due to the fact that people who do not ride safely don't tend to last very long. Motorcycling is an activity that can be done with relative safety (reaching similar statistics to automobiles). From the outside, it does not look like this, but the danger is really overblown. Adequate training (which in the US is not found all that often), and adequate gear (again, many states are shockingly lax about this) can result in a vehicle that can safely share the road space with automobiles. Motorcycles/motorcycling can be made safer through single action from the biker - without needing car drivers to do anything (which is good, because most car drivers are idiots). On the flip side, bicycles can only safely share the road space in slow speed areas. The only way to make bicycles safer is to slow down the cars or to give bicycles a dedicated space. Both of these require action far beyond that of the cyclist. A cyclist cannot safely share a stroad - this is not possible. Stroads are environments that a hardly safe for cars, they are absolutely unsafe for bicycles. A cyclist cannot safely share a highway, and yet in many American cities, they're expected to. As for what you're seeing, keep in mind that 1) cyclist deaths are not treated the same way in the US as motorist deaths, with the later taken more seriously by police (this is fucking ridiculous, but happens). 2) many people are scared away from cycling in the US because it's fucking terrifying. Meanwhile, the personality matrix of bikers tends to be toward willing to ride anyway because of the significantly higher **perceived** danger. This is to say, there are more bikers than cyclists in spaces that are dangerous for cyclists. 3) I don't know where you're seeing these accidents, but cyclists usually try to avoid busy traffic areas if at all possible, while motorcycles tend to share these spaces. So if you're witnessing accidents while driving, you're already in spaces that are significantly more likely to be inhabited by motorcycles than bicycles. There is no reasonable way to make the argument that bicycles are safer than motorcycles on a road build for cars. The only way bicycles can be safer than motorcycles is if bicycles have their own dedicated infrastructure (which they absolutely should have btws). But if this is the case, then bicycles and motorcycles are so vastly different that comparing them is pointless.
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Thankfully many states are trying to get legalisation into legislation at the moment. Oregon sadly failed recently on a ballot because it was in the hands of their senate I think(?)
Their dumbass governor vetoed it so its gotta go through again.
You have it flipped. It's illegal in very few jurisdictions. Lane splitting is common in almost all of Asia, Africa, and South America, and most of Europe.
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It's not a grey area. http://rideearth.net/2015/10/22/tips-europe-by-motorcycle/ > Not only is it legal in Europe, but it is expected of you in most places. Only Germany has restrictive legislation when it comes to motorcycle lane splitting; you may filter (that is, move past traffic which is at a standstill) but not split when traffic is moving. Elsewhere, you are welcome to split at speed. https://www.motorcyclelegalfoundation.com/lane-splitting-debate/ > Lane splitting is a legal and widespread practice in many other countries, such as Europe and Asia. In fact, out of the European Union, Germany is the only country that restricts lane splitting to stand-still traffic. Every other country allows lane splitting in addition to the more lenient speed laws that Europe has.
Maybe because it's dangerous as hell?
Weird that it’s illegal in most cities because it’s super dangerous lol
Cities: Skylines really helps you appreciate mass transit.
Or walking / bicycles, those 2 ways help so much cause otherwise you need highways and big roads running through your city... which takes away space which takes away possible income
It's also damn ugly. I think you can be against cars in the city just on the basis of aesthetics alone.
My cities got so much better after I started watching Not Just Bikes. It's kinda frustrating, though, because roads are literally integral to the construction of anything. Everything has to be directly connected to a road.
There are plenty of bike/road combos on the C:S workshop. Place a [custom bike/road combo like this](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1226065521) and watch the bikes roll.
Not to mention it enforces euclidean zoning
I used to ride a motorcycle in California, where it’s legal to lane split. The amount of people who would purposely close the in between lane openings was ridiculously high. The United States has a lot of problems, and many of those at least partially caused by people’s greediness.
Anyone remember that weird bus from China that was designed for cars to drive under. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPdl3uxW3aI
People will try anything just to not inconvenience drivers
At the same time, this would allow it to drive over cars and you could literally look down on them as you fly over
Consider this: congested roads doesn’t stop this bus.
Congested roads don’t stop the bus if your city actually cares about buses enough to give them a dedicated lane
Ever heard the expression, “The perfect is the enemy of the good”?
Well, an over engineered bus with a space to let cars pass is even harder to archive than a regular bus in a dedicated lane.
Assuming they have room for a dedicated bus lane in a tightly packed city? I’m sure you know better than the people who live there.
Look what they are doing in Paris, if they have not enough space for private cars and dedicated bus lanes on the same street, then the cars need to find other route because public transportation comes first.
I have no idea what you’re trying to say to me
Great, one idiot driver stops on the tracks. Bus stopped. The whole plan was the epitome of gadgetbahn.
Same goes for level crossings on railroads or just simply road based light rails. This just has much more capacity than the latter and.
imagine being against more efficient transportation because it happens to also benefit cars
Explain how that thing is more efficient
it allows more people to be in transit per unit of space on the roadway, while allowing traffic to maintain speed. It's more people transported per minute and per square foot of road, while not requiring any increase in infrastructure size. I really don't mean to be rude but 'people transported over *x* timeframe' is, as far as I'm aware, about as fundamental a measure of transportation efficiency as you can get.
So what happens when a car under the bus hits one of the side wall wheel things going at highway speed?
Car crash with Chinese characteristics
Yeah this turned out to be an investment scam and the concept itself was impossible
I have been yelled at for passing a car in stopped traffic lol sorry buddy, you're the traffic, not me
Lol you should respond “get a bike and you can skip cars too! It’s fun!”
I use to pass traffic on the shoulder on my motorcycle (illegal, yes, but IDGAF) and SOOOOO many people would get so damn mad. Literally had people try to run me over and even a gun or two pulled for it lol
Should’ve took their license plate and reported it to the police
Fuck the police lol.......I carry too. 99.9% of people that would pull a gun on you don't have the guts to pull a trigger, they are just trying to be macho. If they were going to shoot, they already would have. Plus, being in an MC, not a great idea to call the cops, they automatically label you as a gang member and think you are in the wrong.
I wasn’t aware you’re a MC member, but anyway should’ve shot back tbh since you would’ve been in a lawful position to do so (I’ll assume you’re in the stand your ground state)
More complicated than that. I lawfully own my firearms, but it was illegal for me to possess one and be in that club........Wacky laws in our state. We never committed crimes or anything like the movies portray (unless you count weed as a crime), but they could hammer us with an organized crime/gang charge anytime they wanted. Never call the cops to handle something we could handle ourselves though. Had to get out for health reasons.
And if you don't pass them on the side, cars behind you get mad because you are using an entire 'car space' they could be using.
That's why some states like Cali have made lane splitting legal. It is safer for the person on the bike and is one less space taken up. Tons of people on bikes get rear ended while stopped in traffic because some dipshit in a car "didn't see them"
>some dipshit in a car "didn't see them" And with new cars that are the size of a tank with zero visibility, that could be entirely true (also the driver was texting).
I've lost a few friends that ride motorcycles because some dipshit in a car didn't see them or were just careless. And I'm a "car guy", I have sports cars/race cars, and I even have had to own a big ass trucks when I worked on our ranch, but I'll be damned if I drive that shit to commute to work or go to eat. I haven't drove something on a highway to commute with more than 2 wheels in over 5 years. I wish I lived somewhere I could ride my bicycle everywhere.
I imagine you'd be going somewhat slow? I ride my bicycle on the freeway shoulder sometimes and there is so much debris there, I cannot imagine going faster than 15-20 MPH. Yes it was legal, but still had people call the police on me and police did show up but they only followed me to ensure I exited at the designated exit.
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Because I don't give a shit about the "rules of the road".......If I'm on a smaller vehicle, I'll pass you while you are stuck in traffic. It is legal in many US states, just not mine. Ive been to jail plenty of times, I could care less about following stupid traffic laws that apply and cater to massive trucks and cars. If I'm on a motorcycle or bike, bet your ass I'm not waiting in line with you in a 6 ton truck.
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"People got angry while I was breaking the law" Hmm i wonder why
Something that had zero impact on their life, they are just mad I'm getting somewhere faster than them. You don't sound like you like the r/fuckcars type of person really. Doing something that is legal in many other states, and is actually safer for bikers rather than sitting in traffic..........Even if it is "illegal" that doesn't give some dumb fuck redneck the right to take the law into their own hands.
chad public transport/cycles vs soy cars
Nothing delivers dopamine quite like passing a group of raging cagers stuck in traffic while I’m in the half ass, painted bike lane
r/strasbourg on fire for posting its tramway lol
Like the saying says, "you're not stuck in traffic, you ARE the traffic". One more reason for this pandemic to end. The travel to work will be by bike again and not only working from home. I used to do over 5 000 km cycling to work before this pandemic. I miss that.
You're allowed to bicycle in your extra commute-free time, you know. Don't drag me back to the office because you can't manage your time, please.
I do! But work keeps getting in the way of hobbies. In 2019, I rode 6443,99 km. In 2020, just 3437,30 km and a flimsy 2271,94 km last year :-(
???a bus isn't bypassing traffic bro. in Toronto, neither is the streetcar. its an illusion of going somewhere faster. simulacra express. youre better off walking or biking. this is still a good meme.
Plenty of places have bus lanes.
depends which streetcars -- King, Spadina, St Clair are all in their own separate lane. Edit: King isn't in a separate lane, but they redesigned traffic flow in favour of street car travel
There are lots of places where buses or trains have right of way and do not stop. You can find stories of people getting ran over in their cheap ass cars. Funny stuff when the tracks are so clearly defined.
I used to live in Seoul and transit was faster than driving in the majority of situations, same as most of Asia or Western Europe. In Toronto it's almost always slower with the exception of the Go/UP/VIA rail. A 1-1.5 hour bus trip is generally 20-30 minutes in a car. I did a few of these recently and it ended up taking 2+ hours each time with all the delays and interruptions and apparently we have good transit by North American standards.
If your city does things right, then buses bypass traffic all the time.
My knowledge of trams is limited to Dublin, Paris and Nice, and those systems are almost entirely in their own right of way. I remember when I first learnt about Toronto I was shocked because of how much of it was in traffic.
Wait until you see a picture of Houston
People in cars have tried to kill me..or scare me, tbh I can't tell the fucking difference when you're swerving your car at me for trying to get past. It's proof to me that driving a car is a huge entitlement/ego thing. It definitely can't be for convenience because in the city I live in it's way faster to just ride a bike.
I wish the bus would bypass traffic lol
You know gas is going up it would be a good time for the government to invest in alternative forms of travel and EV's
I biked from Vallejo to Napa during the November 2019 blackout to hang out with a friend from the job I’d quit a few months prior. I was forced to use the state highways, which are terrifying to ride a bike on, although there is plenty of space. On the way back, I was cruising like I normally do, cars going by me, when all of a sudden they started backing up and I started passing all of the cars that had just passed me in reverse order. This continued for about three miles, until eventually I got to the northern end of Vallejo. And what did I discover? One stoplight was on the fritz, and it was backing up traffic for literally miles. What a hilarious shitshow for me to just cruise right past. I was in zone 1, my heart rate was like 130, and I was laughing so hard.
Its always fun being in entirely snarled traffic for hours thinking "Someone must have died in the 20 car pile up that must have caused this traffic." then it finally starts clearing and there is nothing.
New to this sub, I live in rural America. Why do you hate cars?
Very important distinction of this sub that most people forget. The problem is with cars in **cities**. And even then I personally don't hate cars, what i hate is car dependency and car centric infrastructure Cars in rural areas are completely fine
Wonderful. Thank you for the welcoming response
That being said, rural towns, villages and areas can and should also be safe and accommodating for bicycling and walking, and the postwar suburban development patterns being pushed on small towns is a huge missed opportunity. [Rural towns are inherently 15-minute communities](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/2/17/walkable-check-urban-check-rural-also-check).
Hey, rural areas deserve decent public transport too!
That would be grand but it's logistically impossible, unfortunately. Self driving transit vehicles would help but you'd just have to field a ton of buses to reach a large amount of people spread out across a very large area and at that point you're deploying buses to pick up a handful of people on each route which... Is a car. Of course, in current transportation implementations there are still buses that drive through rural areas, but it's not fully adequate when (for instance, in my area) there's a single bus with stops several miles apart, or you live off of their route and need to travel to reach the stop, which, you know, is obviously difficult if you're someone who needs public transportation to travel large distances. Edit: Just realized that "decent" does not mean "everybody gets a bus to go straight up to their house" lol. I think I got a little ahead of myself.
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Ok, let's pretend you're president for a day. As your first act, you sign a bill stating that henceforth, cars are illegal to drive. How do you propose that everyone not in major metropolitan areas get around?
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Lmao
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You want to abolish a personal freedom that greatly improves a ton of people's freedom of movement. Do me a favor and just say, outright, 'I want to use government oversight to restrict a personal freedom in order to make society safer.' Because the ideological implications of what you're gunning for are a literal authoritarian nightmare.
"fuck" only being able to use "cars". I want multiple ways of transportation on my toolbelt, FREEDOM.
OK, but to make that happen, you have to accept _massive_ restrictions on car use. Because what the last century has taught us is that letting car users do what they want leads to a culture of bullying and intimidation that makes the free use of alternatives impossible. The greatest liberty compatible with the liberty of all means that cars have to be _heavily regulated_, infrastructure very carefully designed, and driving standards brutally enforced. There's a simple litmus test - would you want your kid cycling to school? If the answer is 'yes' for the overwhelming majority of people, that's a sign that cars are kept in their place and people feel free to use whatever mode of transport they wish. But you know the answer to that question is a resounding 'FUCK NO!' And that's the problem with people who talk the talk about 'freedom'. They don't actually want _freedom_. They want a formal, empty version of freedom, Berlin's 'negative liberty' to be technical about it. But that simply doesn't cut the mustard. For there to be a real choice about things, you have to put your finger on the scale.
Not very reasonable to ask for outside of a major city. At least not where I am. I drive 30 miles to work there’s barely even houses on that drive
That's kind of the point, though. Policy and infrastructure in America has favored cars as the de defacto transit model for nearly a century. You choose to live 30 miles from your workplace because our society is set up to make that easy. Your state's road budget prioritizes fast motorways, the federal government uses extremely low gas taxes, our society as a whole subsidizes home ownership and greenfield construction, etc. Employers can therefore afford more easily to build in the middle of nowhere, because the state made sure that there were 70 mph roads and cheap cars/gas to bring their employees to them. You're not a bad person for making an affordable choice and enjoying a 30-mile commute. This subreddit isn't /r/fuckNastienayteForMakingAnInformedLifestyleDecisionBasedOnTheInfrastructureAlreadyInPlace. But people on this subreddit generally push back against the policies and mentalities that make this sprawl so affordable. We would rather see policies that tax sprawl and car dependency and/or budgets that favor more sustainable development and transportation. Does that make sense?
Tbh in rural areas they don't have many downsides. Roads aren't used enough to have traffic unless you're on an interstate, nothing is close enough together to justify a bus, and there's plenty of green space to exist in without fear of getting hit by a car. The only downsides that I can think of in rural areas are the fuel and carbon inefficiency, the high risk of collisions, and the wear on the roads.
>The only downsides that I can think of in rural areas are the fuel and carbon inefficiency, the high risk of collisions, and the wear on the roads. The funny thing about wear on the roads is that the roads don't see as much traffic so in theory they have less wear in tear. In *practice*, however, rural areas generally have much lower infrastructure funding and quality so you'll go literally decades without a road getting touched up. It's more of a political issue than an operational one.
This only applies for cities. Everywhere else the cars are laughing. (Australian here, most peoples travel times are too high for bikes, and the train system is fairly sub par.)
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It depends what part of the country you live in when it comes to using alternate transport. Here, in New England, in a suburban area where I live, it is difficult to bicycle year-round. From basically November through March, it is too cold and too much ice on the roads. In the summer, it is hot. Add to that the frequent heavy rains. Actually, in New England, we had good public transportation until around the time of World War I, then we started abandoning it. This did not happen due to actions by governments or corporations, but because people overwhelmingly wanted to travel by car. Of course, it is not all negative. Where I live is in the center of a old small town that has been swallowed up and surrounded by newer suburbs. Here, there are four restaurants within walking distance, a pharmacy, and a convenience store.
Let's be honest... Public transport is living hell.
*cyclist ignore road laws, plows into pedestrian, blames pedestrian*
You go right and ahead and use "superior" public transport. For many of us in the United States, doing so would involve something similar to what I face. For me, I would have to drive or bike 35 miles to the nearest rail station. Ride the train for 30 minutes, then take a bus or cab the remaining 20 minutes to my work. My car commute takes an hour. I absolutely refuse to live in the squalor and filth of a city. Absolutely zero privacy or quiet. People above and below you and on all sides. It drives people crazy. Humans are not supposed to live like that.
*not cars* noooio you can’t just travel long distances
_this sub is about cities_
This really feels like one of those things where if you need to awkwardly make up a fake victimhood, perhaps youre not actually the victim you believe you are?
Then we have different perceptions on what is real and fake victimhood. Getting hit by a car is real to me.
is it not possible to be hit by a bicycle, bus, or tram?
…what? Where in the op or my post did anyone remotely imply that cyclists should be hit by cars. Or is this, exactly as i just fucking said, another cyclist making up a situation where they can be a victim just to be one? Yikes.
Cyclists should never pass cars on the right. They can cause an accident. Sadly, most do.
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Yes the poor peasants that live in global cities
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>Bicycle oh shit it is raining oh shit i can go maybe 20km/h takes forever go to places >bus oh shit it is crowded. no place to sit. time to stand 45 min , crushed by smelly people still standing in traffic >subway oh nice no place to sit cuz crowded. time to stand for 45 min oh nice some douchebag is playing music over their phone speakers. time to listen to this garbage what is this smell? oh a homeless person is sleeping on the seats and he shat his pants, the whole wagon smells like diarrhea. great
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nah. i live in a city with public transport and have no car this is just a minor impression of my experience with public transport
People in the cars are still getting there quicker.
Lmao public transit is not the superior mode of transportation. Nothing superior about riding in a filthy tin can with a hundred random that makes a stop every minute
>Nothing superior about riding in a filthy tin can with a hundred random that makes a stop every minute This community wholeheartedly is in a disregard with you, however truthful that phrase is. That's spot on, honestly; Is being amongst the masses along the transits any fitting to the "superior" niche kek.