The headline also leaves out this specific caveat of the study (emphasis mine):
While such measures can yield significant other benefits, and may also reduce traffic volumes locally
So it does have impact on car use. It just hasn’t reduced overall car use because we’re doing too little. Got it.
Of course. You can’t just paint a bike lane and expect people to ditch the car. The car has huge advantages: you can drive it in any weather, you don’t need to follow a bus schedule, you can carry your whole family safely. You only convince people to replace the car with public transport or bike if those options become overwhelmingly convenient and safe. If the bus only comes twice an hour, only people who can’t afford a car will use it.
As long as the car is the most convenient way to access cities, habits will not change. We need more streets restricted to bus and bike only, and more parking converted to bike lanes.
Exactly. The study basically confirmed these, even if the public transport is great and you have cycling lane, if the government keep giving car more advantage people will just continue to drive. You can’t expect people to ride a bike if bike have to circle a big round to get to their destination(because of highway), or take public transport if people have to drive there or walk 2km to the station(because of highway) or not allow bike on train and not providing proper parking, while car have a straightforward path to the destination, giant parking, and access to every road available.
Tbh, there needs to be a more structured plan in shifting public infrastructure/zoning in a whmay that reshapes a city into the desired form of cycleable/walkable/public transportable city.
Absolutely. I’ve live in a city before where they deployed bike lanes as if all the counter was the number of kilometers. No plan whatsoever.
In environmental conservation, there’s an old saw about how we’re really good at preserving rocks and ice, i.e. places we can’t make productive use of anyway. I’ve noticed exactly the same effect in urban planning: We’re pretty good about prioritizing bike and pedestrian access where it doesn’t affect drivers, i.e. places hardly anybody wants to go.
Yes.
If people feel like walking to the nearby shopping place is more convenient, then they will do it.If a handheld trolley becomes socially trendy, then people will have less excuses to take a car to a nearby grocery store.
I cycling on roads at ~30km/h speeds becomes common, then most reasons for using motor vehicles get greatly reduced for most inter-city transit (specially the daily commute to work, kind).Whenever I go cycling on the road, I feel high amounts of danger in all directions, but I still do so because I am used to it. To make more people desire using a bicycle on the roads, there needs to be a change, not only in the laws, but also the social perception towards cyclists on the road.
Rules of the road need to be made for cyclists too (there are none in my area), because the rules have an additional benefit of making traffic behaviour more predictable. This will mean that a car looking at a cyclist will know better, what action they might do next and hence, can act accordingly, instead of being as predictable as a stay cat.
Some of the things can be directly fixed by better application of technology. Right/Left indicator light with aero design easy to use controls aren’t hard to make, but for some reason, are not available. I have tried cycle headlights and backlights from 3 different brands and all of them made it harder to turn it off[1]. This makes it much harder to turn off the light in time when you realise you are flashing someone in the eye and should honestly not be road-legal.
Once these problems are solved, you can then consider encouraging the children to cycle around in safer areas, letting them learn cycling in a way that will be useful for running on all roads later on. This means, keeping some amount of motor-traffic in the area, but not enough to overwhelm beginners. This part is going to be a chore for the authorities.
Rules saying “always yield to cyclists” are not much more than a stopgap measure. Rules need to take into account, traffic flow and cost of braking on both sides, such that it is easier for both sides to decide optimal reactions. Stop signs that require coming to a complete stop, need to only be in places where it would be hard to see past the corner and in these cases, it should be the same for cyclists, because at higher speeds, they too are exerting, which makes it harder to notice things. For such cases, it is better to have another sign at a distance before the actual stopping point, which will also make it favourable for cars with regenerative braking. Even better, would be the use of on-road markers for both, stop signs and speed restrictions.
While there are numerical speed limits for motor vehicles, in case of cyclists there can be 3 coloured on-road markers. The lane-divider lines can have a colour code addition of white/yellow/red:- white suggesting that the road has minimum obstacles and the cyclist can exert as much as they feel like (that is expecting that they are going under the speed limit, which would be in most cases)
- yellow suggesting that there might be some 90° merges without a traffic light, which would require vigilance, and hence the cyclist go at comfortable speeds, enabling manoeuvring
- red suggesting that the cyclist may need to stop without much leeway, in the area and hence, go slow enough depending upon their brake reaction distance. The same can be used as a prelude to a mandatory stop sign.
- It is important to make sure that at least 70% of the road be white, while only 5-10% of it be red, to make sure people will actually want to follow the guideline.
2 of them required clicking and holding for over 2 seconds (which means, you can’t use any of the other controls, like breaks and gear-shifts when turning off the light) and 1 required cycling through all the modes to reach the off state ↩︎
Oddly enough (or maybe not odd) the traffic here is one of the things that makes taking the bike more convenient than the car. I do drive, but more often take the bike than the car, partly because of traffic. Bike lanes magnify this advantage absolutely.
Or people whose transit patterns would overlap.
The car also has huge disadvantages, though. It depends heavily on petrol and a shitton of energy, costing you a lot. It costs more and can break down easier than a good bicycle (cos there are more points of failure). And you also need to find parking spots and keep focusing on the traffic around you (unlike with public transit).
Also, tandem and longtail bicycles exist - those can carry multiple people. The bicycle can be driven in any weather as well, you just need appropriate clothing.
Just as roads are salted for cars, so too can they be for bicycles – and bicycle pathes are thinner and need less salt, thus making it more energy efficent.
The big issue here is up-front costs vs distance-dependant costs.
A car costs a boatload of money up-front, while very little of that cost is distance-dependent. Depreciation, tax, maintenance, all that isn’t paid when you take a trip to the city centre. You pay all that up-front or on a fixed schedule, and the only thing you pay semi-frequently is fuel, and even that isn’t paid on every trip. So while it’s super expensive, it doesn’t feel super expensive.
Public transit on the other hand is often paid per trip, and then you see the total cost of that trip and it feels super expensive.
If you want to get people off cars, you need to provide a solution where they don’t need to own a car. Because if you own a car, using it isn’t all that expensive any more.
That’s why all forms of alternatives need to work together nicely:
- You need good, safe bike infrastructure for on-demand comparatively short trips. If it’s <10km, a bike is most often faster than public transport, but after that it gets slower, it gets exhausting and that becomes a hurdle for most people.
- You need good, safe public transport with a cheap year pass. Public transport needs to be on a level where you can just walk to the bus/tram/metro stop without looking up departure times beforehand. For that, public transport needs to come every 5 minutes or better. Year passes allow you to take public transport without worrying about cost.
- You need good and fast high-speed trains for regional travel. Even moderate high-speed train projects easily exceed 200 or 250km/h and are thus far faster than cars. The last mile is still a disadvantage for cars, but if the train can make an 8h car trip in 4h, then it’s still worth taking the train, even if you have to make your way to the train station first.
If one or more of these parts isn’t working, then people will still own cars, because not all of their use cases are covered. And if people own cars, then they will use them.
And you focus solely on the inner city to inner city traffic. Which only makes up a certain segment of the overall traffic. As long as your start or destination is outside the city, bikes and public transport (in it’s current form) won’t cut it.
The bicycle can be driven in any weather as well, you just need appropriate clothing.
I have done quite a lot of kilometers by bike (For some time I did 350km commute per week on the bike!), and I can tell you with certainty that there is weather for which you won’t find appropriate clothing, at least not for such distances.
Do you really expect me to somehow put my handicapped wife on a tandem and drive 20+km (one direction) to a medical appointment in the city this afternoon, just to appease some peoples car hate?
As long as your start or destination is outside the city, bikes and public transport (in it’s current form) won’t cut it.
This is a very american thinking. Public transport do and often reach out to destination outside the city in other country, you just really need to solve the last miles. Having frequent train that goes from city to a few station in the suburb, and then have feeder bus to serve as a last mile solution is often done in places with okay to good public transport. The station often have parking space for car, motorcycle, and in place with good bicycle infrastructure, a bicycle parking.
This not only help people who prefer not to drive and face the traffic in the city, it also help people whose car and motorcycle needed a repair that can take a long time to do*, and also people who can’t afford car or motorcycle, or those have their license temporarily revoked. It’s called park and ride, and iirc some american city have this at one point.
Do you really expect me to somehow put my handicapped wife on a tandem and drive 20+km (one direction) to a medical appointment in the city this afternoon, just to appease some peoples car hate?
No we don’t expect you to do that, but we do expect you to allow it to happen so it can help other. It’s really not about you or your wife.
If you want to have your mind change, do check out some of the Not Just Bikes video, particularly this one, it did change my perspective.
*note: i know this because i’m a mechanic in a city with horrible public transport. Often time, when someone’s car broke down, they’re basically stranded with no transport to go to work or do literally everything, so more often than not, the repair have to be delayed. I also often visit the capital city of my country with somewhat good public transport, multiple train line that serve millions per day, and people tend to have easier time moving around, even between city and small town within that state. Not owning a car there is also a thing.
I am European. Public transport that sucks is not a US exclusive.
Your pro arguments solely apply to the inner city transport, where I already agreed that this is absolutely OK.
Leave the inner city, where bus services drop to once an hour during the rush hours and less outside, and a car quickly gets unavoidable, despite all the car-free world fantasies of some.
I am European. Public transport that sucks is not a US exclusive.
I said american thinking, not american problem.
Your pro arguments solely apply to the inner city transport, where I already agreed that this is absolutely OK.
Leave the inner city, where bus services drop to once an hour during the rush hours and less outside, and a car quickly gets unavoidable, despite all the car-free world fantasies of some.
Not really, that’s why i provide solution, and i never demand it to be car free, because it’s unavoidable. Do give my comment another read, i mentioned car parking at the station, bus and bicycle as an alternative last mile solution for people who prefer that. Also your perspective really just based on now, not how it can be.
I too live in a country with horrible public transport, and i have to drive 24km to work, yet i can imagine a world where this is possible. It’s really just about perspective.
Except that I frequently use bicycles and public transit outside the city.
I think that’s a pathetic excuse to justify a carcel mentality.
I have done quite a lot of kilometers by bike (For some time I did 350km commute per week on the bike!), and I can tell you with certainty that there is weather for which you won’t find appropriate clothing, at least not for such distances.
Eh, I did similar commutes and that’s not a problem. Even if the distance is an issue, there’s always an electric bicycle.
Do you really expect me to somehow put my handicapped wife on a tandem and drive 20+km (one direction) to a medical appointment in the city this afternoon, just to appease some peoples car hate?
I expect people to bend their regional lack of good public transit and bicycle pathes, into a fostering of it, rather than turning into a criticless, soulless cynical praise of a vehicle of pollution and danger. When we face situations as yours, should the answer not be to deflect criticism of the car, but to support bicycle paths and public transit being common and affordable, even in sparse areas?
There are disability-friendly bicycles, ranging from wheelchair bicycles to riksha-like ones, and laying bicycles, and so on. Electric as well, if needed. Did you assume I wouldn’t be aware of these options?
Removed by mod
Nice strawman, assuming I’m young when you don’t know how old I am. Maybe you could try ceasing to invent excuses for not bicycling and using public transit, and instead foster support of both?
It is perfectly reasonable for anyone who does not waste ones live stuck in public transport or on a bike.
be me, carcel
HONK HONK HONK
VROOM, oops kid driven over. oh well it’s no biggie since my car didnt get a scratch!
oh no!!! I need to find a parking spot for my Mega Tiny Dick Hummer Dodge Ram Maxx 1000.
HONK HONK
get speeding ticket because they changed speed limits a few days ago and you didn’t notice
tons of parking spaces get added
why is the city so unwalkable?
can’t work or stream on a laptop while travelling
oh yessss baby SLURP me up that money whoring it to the petrol companiesAnd you expect me to buy or rent one for the up to four times a the year I would need it? Just to please a “oh my glorious bike” minority?
Don’t you care for your wife? Oh, now you say you need it… but some of these bicycles I mentioned are of the types that your wife could use yourself. Also, yes, it’s cheaper. A car might cost €10k per year (petrol, maintenance, paying off loan, etc…) while the handicapped bicycle cost you €3k in total, if not free if you can get it subsidised. Maybe you are part of the problem thinking you’re part of the “oh my glorious car” minority? It is hard, but you must face it: that your mindset IS part of the problem.
Frankly, it’s more and more clear that you actually haven’t gotten the faintest of how cars ruin lives, and are trying to cope inventing excuses to not improve your own life and that of others. Either you support good and affordable public transit + bicycle paths everywhere, or go commit some actual research and actually trying it, instead of lamenting and doing nothing.
If you think you can bike in any weather, you haven’t biked enough 😅. There’s absolutely limits. Regardless, you don’t need to carry a change of clothes when you use your car.
Fuel costs are only that significant in ICE cars. And unless cities stop supporting cars, parking is not a problem.
I now live in a city where lots of people bike even throughout winter. It’s simply the most convenient way to move around short distances.
Shrug. I’ve bicycled in snowy weather, heavy rain, heat waves, days without light, and so on. I think there’s absolutely something like a “skill issue” there. I bicycle everyday.
I don’t change clothes either when I bicycle.
And no, fuel costs are pretty much significant in every car. I paid €200 on bicycle maintenance over … 10 years.
If you drive by car you’ll easily pay quadruple that within a year.
And yes, car parking is a problem. It takes up a lot of space. Look at Houston’s 44% space being used by parking spaces and tell me that that’s not a problem. It absolutely is. The parking IS part of the urban sprawl problem.
In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it isn’t a lack of “supporting cars” that creates a problem of parking – it’s the opposite, in fact: it’s the nigh-weaponised dangerous support for cars that creates the problem for people.
Frankly, I think it’s weak if one only ever can drive by car. Walk, bicycle, and use public transit - now that’s real independence.
I don’t change clothes either when I bicycle.
Then you’re probably not working in a job that has decent dress standards, or your coworkers hate that you smell.
If you think you can bike in any weather, you haven’t biked enough 😅. There’s absolutely limits. Regardless, you don’t need to carry a change of clothes when you use your car.
Yes, but conditions outside the limits for a bike are also generally unsafe to drive in. It’s lovely to ride on studded tyres past a line of cars that have slid into a snowbank.
You don’t need to carry a change of clothes on a bike often, but if you do, clothes are usually light and we have suit carriers, shirt shuttles and so on. Some of which are also used to carry a change of clothes in cars.
Some people, mostly anglophone, like to play spandex dress-up for cycling or sprint lots, but that’s a choice, not a necessity.
My change of clothes is because during winter I get all sweaty by the time I get to work, nit because I like to cosplay Tour De France.
Wear less, wear better, or ride gentler, unless you’re one of the (unknown size) minority that can’t ride on a cold day without sweating.
Hah, or seen enough weather. Even 40kph winds can be enough to make me think twice.
Or enough rain and snow that you can’t see more than a meter ahead.
Ski goggles exist.
If you think you can bike in any weather, you haven’t biked enough
Absolutely. I remember being seriously delayed by weather that made even me to seek cover. Biking through open fields during a thunderstorm is something which I leave to idiots claiming they can bike in every weather. I prefer staying under a bridge or other dry and safe place until the storm passes.
I struggled with the paper because the graphs are bad. Either the authors or the journal need a golden-pie award, maybe silver, at least they’re not “3d”.
From what i read it is a bit of a rambling mess of scale, scope and measures- and i couldn’t really figure out if they did anything novel or just summarized a random load off other stuff in terrible graphs. It’s not that new to say that induced demand works both ways, and that improving transit reduces congestion and makes cars more effective too.
Their headline measure in conclusion - reducing total VKT is not usually what i’d expect transit policy to be about. It’s normally about adding capacity, i.e. more potential trips per amount of land used. and yes we’d expect HSR creating a new fastest route to induce demand? so what, if some shifted from car or plane, did that not impact GHG emissions? I didn’t see them directly compare Frances policies to limit internal flights and swap to HSR.
If they were supposed to be writing about climate change you’d have thought they’d have tried to estimate or comment on GHG per VKT over time or in different scenarios.
This is a very strange paper. I cant say i read it it enough detail. But what i have read made me think i was wasting my time and hurting my eyes from all the bad graphs. I’ll also judge any paper that uses the term ‘carbon emissions’ to refer to ‘greenhouse gas emissions’ - but I think that’s because I’m a dick.
Might be useful to read the underlying studies though, if they are a good representative sample . . . who knows.
That is an extremely loaded sentence. It is missing “in the specific example that is current earth”
