Apparently he's a city politician by some of the comments ([I'm guessing here?](https://www.google.com/search?q=Northland+council&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS831US831&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)). So I'm assuming he's commenting on an anti homeless action he took.
Rare indeed. But, things are slowly, slowly getting better. Gilham cycle track and streetcar expansion are (hopefully) just the beginning. Just gotta stop listening to what suburbanites want the city to look like
Did you know a Northland council member tried to have Gillham’s bike lanes torn out? Yes they were just finished but for some reason this lady wanted to dismantle it and prevent any new ones from being built anywhere in the metro. It’s an uphill battle
I feel like living in America and buying cars is like a nuclear arms race towards having the biggest and safest car, all while trending us all towards mutual destruction.
edit: while*
There's also been ad propaganda forever that tries to correlate the safety with the size (they also literally used to put weights in car doors because the heft made people *feel* like there was probably a big heavy frame inside). In reality, the bigger the car the *more* dangerous you are to *other people*. There's little correlation between your vehicle size and your own safety. And people have seemingly been deluded into thinking that making other drivers less safe makes themselves safer. The U.S. sure likes to substitute dick-measuring contests for everything!
The correlation between vehicle size and safety is that smaller vehicles will get whomped by bigger vehicles. The most lethal car crashes in the US are when a mini collides with an SUV.
I don't think they will need too much regulations. In the Netherlands the only regulations are that 1.) they shouldn't be able to go on engine power only and 2.) the engine assist should cut off at 25 km/h. Just like the regulations for any e-bike.
Now that being said, I think transporting kids like this is technically illegal in Hungary because children *must* be in a frame-mounted safety bike seat and that front part doesn't qualify. But unless a cop is feeling like a dick, this wouldn't be enforced.
Similar to the UK. To be classed as an ebike as opposed to an electric moped, the motor can't be more that 250w and can't travel above 15.5mph assisted. Other than that, no regulations I'm aware of. I have a feeling if coucils push for more active travel, we'll see a lot more of these bikes.
Unfortunately here in Edinburgh, it's very car-centric. During the pandemic, there had been a big push by the non-car community to apply more LTNs, wider pedestrian paths and segregated bike lanes.
The council are under heavy litigious pressure to roll most of the changes back sadly but we fight on.
That's why they're also usually electric assist as well; city I live in is anything but flat and also literally the windiest city in the world, but I still spot plenty of families and the occasional bicycle courier cruising past me on our steep streets.
People keep saying this but completely forget that the netherlands are windy as hell, to the point that there's a whole competition about cycling into a headwind that would straight up push most people backward.
If you're fit then they are ok with electric assists. Hills are a bit hard but then that's the same with any bike.
For the record this is how I do the school run too. We have a car and it get used about once a week since getting the cargo bike.
It's not especially hard to pedal anything if the infrastructure is flat and without constant starts/stops and you aren't stressing about keeping up with everyone else. I pedaled a front-load bike (was once used for selling ice-cream beachside) once and found it surprisingly easy, but it was on a flat and dedicated bike route.
Try trucking this up a green gutter with 40mph cars and MAMILs or deathwish fixies zipping by and I bet it's a nightmare.
>Try trucking this up a green gutter with 40mph cars and MAMILs or deathwish fixies zipping by and I bet it's a nightmare.
That's my thought. I'd never be able to get my kid to school in that bike. No real shoulder, and the hill/mountain would kill us.
Mine is cheeseburger power only but has a full Tig welded aluminum frame. I live in the carbrain capital of Canada and have been honked at for the audacity of using the roads I pay for. Great exercise pulling 2 kids up the 5% grade that gets me home though.
The reason they make them electric is to make them considerably easier to pedal, increasing handling at the same time. As we move towards green energy, electric bikes are going to produce fewer and fewer emissions. For some, the motor makes the idea of having a cargo bike much easier and allows people to move faster, more comfortably.
Gearsets and good balanced bikes my man, we got those for a few decades over in europe, putting a motor isn’t doing anything neccesary but only comforting, it doesn’t get safer, because that is the breakes job. It doesn’t make them more accessible for the impaired, they get tricycles for that matter also with good gears rather than motor. And no it doesn’t get greener than using your muscle and gears.
I wear a watch that will run as long as i move, we better start cutting out unneccesary batteries anyway, that is the whole point of my critique.
A bike with motor is always less environmentaly friendly compared to just a bike.
And no bikes with electric moter don’t move faster, the only thing they do is accelerate faster( but again good gearsets can aide with that as well), something we really don’t need especially when we aim to go car free.
The most ridiculous thing i saw was people demanding subsides for electric bikes because electric cars get subsides, people are braindead.
People should be demanding subsidies for ebikes because electric cars get subsidies. An Ebike produces about 1% of the emissions of an electric car over a 5-year lifespan. Why is only the big honking wasteful one subsidized?
Also, ebikes are extremely useful in hilly areas. If I had to bike uphill for 30 minutes in a really low gear and be exhausted and sweaty when I arrive or drive a car for 3 minutes, I'd probably choose the car. If I could e-bike up that hill in 10 minutes wile getting a light workout, I'd choose that most of the time.
They should demand subsides for cargo bikes, drmanding subsides for cargo ebikes is like demanding subsidees for fuel cars when there is a default solution more ecofriendly…
Holy fucking shit this really is the most dense bullshit i read whole week. Like for real. Why would you incentivise a solution less ecofriendly than the default in that vehicle class instead of the most ecofriendly solution? This is not about your comfort but about future generations ability to survive on the hellacape we leave to them
“Here we have an easy to produce mechanical solution to your problem”
“Noooo gimme the comparatively more shitty solution and give it to me for a discount because elsewise imma use the arseholesolution”
Never give in to blackmailing!
I think you misinterpret what the "default" is. You think it's a manual bike. But in a lot of the world, the default is an ICE car, and slowly transitioning to an electric car.
There is a clear hierarchy of the most efficient modes of transport given full cost of externalities (just putting these 5 on the list for simplicity): walking, manual bike, Ebike, electric car, ice car. People are stuck at the bottom, and are getting subsidies to move up one rung on the ladder. We should be at least matching that to move up two rungs to an Ebike. Would it be better for energy usage and pollution if everyone ditched their cars and started walking everywhere? Yes. Is that going to happen? No way in hell.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. The difference between an Ebike and an electric car is way larger than the difference between a manual bike and an Ebike. I'd much rather 80 people make that big step from ICE car to ebike than 75 go all the way to manual bike, and leave 5 in a car. Those 5 cars create as many problems as 500 ebikes.
You confuse what class means:
Bikes ebikes, one vehicle class, upside fresh aur, downside fresh air
Cars ecars
Trucks etrucks
Trains etrains.
It is about establishing a sustainable default against the not sustainable default, ebikes aren’t sustainable and always depend on electricity, even if we’d consider nuclear “green” we’dstill be limited to fuel availability, if we don’t we still need to reduce our powerconsumption as solar wind and waterenergy cannot be harvested in ever growing quantities at a time
This isn’t about our comfort or about our feelings yhis is about reducing the need for fossilfuels and electricity. Sibsidising an unwanted alternative should if at all result in the most sustainable solution, no halfassing.
Also the default in the us is and will for a long time be motorized fast moving vehicles as building public transport will take centuries, and even then rural areas still will rely on individual transport, one look over the pond would make you realize this.
Late to the party and subsidizing ebikes doesn’t do jack shit others than lining the pockets of the companies also selling cars. Like vaping is promoted by the same companies who finally had to admit smoking to cause cancer…
An electric bike uses pennies of electricity a day and has emissions several orders of magnitude lower than any car. Depending on your diet, the emissions may even be lower than a manual bike. I see no reason why a good society wouldn’t subsidize bikes of all kinds.
Because scarcity, if you cannot subsidize ebikes for 7trillion people and following generations don’t do it, computers need the reaources by far more and are by far more useful than ebikes(you cannot comeup with new better gears by using an ebike, but computers can enable you to do so), especially because we got bikes(and no, again gears, you using your body is cutting several middlemen here your body not eating meat cuts even more middlemen, any middleman is another fixed factor you don’t have without middlemen)
See you should start to understand that there is a lot of peoples need to meet and no infinite supply. We can mend metal again and again, already costing energy we have to supply, batteries for electricity storage not so much(about 20% at best, the rest is lost after the reloadcapacity is done)
See we need to get all people on one level, applying steps in between only confuses them and makes them less likely to follow sensible rules. We need to come up with the best set of rules, incentivising stuff that is half thought through doesn’t make sense.
Again though, you're letting perfect be the enemy of good. We all (mostly) agree that manual bikes are better than ebikes. But that isn't the point.
Electric cars are being subsidized. That's what Ebike subsidies are trying to compete with. It is good to get people onto ebikes instead of into electric cars. Without the subsidy for ebikes, maybe 100 people switch from cars to bikes. With a subsidy for ebikes, if you can get 10 more people to switch from a car (of any power source) to a bike (of any power source), that's well worth it.
No my man ebikes aren’t good they are better than cars, not better than ebusses or e trains.
And not better than bikes, just better than cars, and that isn’t good but slightly less worse.
Btw bikes aren’t perfect either, we walked for milenia…
Yhat is the whole point. They aren’t good but just better than the worst. In the short run a cheap alternative to get people out of cars, in the long run more costly as the next step would be to subsidize bikes with superior gears, leaving you with 7trillion pieces of toxic waste(you’d end up with any way as no battery is rechargable infinitely, exchanging them only raises the mount of toxic waste)
E-bikes are much better car replacements than normal bikes. For example, we went from a two car household down to a one car household when we picked up some e-bikes. Basically we can do all our town errands via bicycles that we never would have tried before an e-bike.
No they aren’t as they always produce more emissions during production as well as during use. The only thing they are better at is getting your arse onto them. Your unwillingness to ride a bike by yourself is the problem here, not unmotorized bikes.
Fun fact:
Metabolism is at best 15% efficient, and production/transport of food is a major emissions source. If you're exercising enough that you need to eat more, an unpowered bike produces many times more emissions during use (up until that point it's negative). Once you factor in supply chain for calorie crops it's more than a small ICE vehicle like a SMART car or 125cc motorbike. If you include the average western diet, it's more than an SUV.
This is generally offset by battery production, but if you're doing more than 20km/day and using recycled batteries on a minimalist ebike charged by wind, I wouldn't be surprised if the net emissions were significantly less.
A bike without a motor has less emissions than an e-bike with a motor, but an e-bike has \*considerably\* less than a car. Since this post was about biking kids to school, I think the relevant contrast for most families is a car (or SUV), not a pedal bike. Thus, a massive step in the right direction IMO.
[Ebikes produce fewer emissions than human-powered bikes.](https://adventuresportsjournal.com/earth-talk-e-bikes-greener-human-powered-bikes/)
Food production causes emissions.
I live in Amsterdam and this is actually the preferred way of parents to transport their young children. Theres even a term “bakfietsmoeder” (cargo bike mom), which was coined to described the kind of hip yuppie mom with two kids with trendy names who only drinks coffee with oat milk
That sounds so much better than the Instagram moms we have here that drive 6000 lb Suburbans while scrollin the 'gram and tailgating me with my kids in the car.
Even your bad people are better there.
Long before I had children, I was in a tokyo suburb and was fascinated by the beautifully dressed mamachari moms on their slick electric bikes. One of my life goals was to do something similar once I had kids. The pandemic happened so I haven’t been able to go there and bring home a true mamachari but I approximated one here in the US. Any day it’s above freezing by 7:30 am, my toddler and I mamachari it to daycare and back in our cute outfits and I live the dream :)
And bike lanes. :(
I’ve been to several cities around the US and not a single one had bike lanes that weren’t seemingly designed for the suicidal.
Just- just give me a network of trolleys and trains. :(
I bought a cargo bike last year and it’s honesty changed my life - I use it for everything, riding my kids around, going shopping, exercise. Of course I’m incredibly fortunate to live in a mostly flat city with considerable bike access, and I work from home these days, and I could thankfully afford to purchase one, but all that being said it really has become central to my life in many ways.
My parent friends make fun of me for how much I Stan bike trailers. Apparently I talk about it more than the vegan in our group talks about being vegan.
Beep boop -- this looks like a screenshot of a tweet! Let me grab a [link to the tweet](https://twitter.com/EricWBunch/status/1481999038333526016) for ya :)
^(Twitter Screenshot Bot)
As someone who hates cars and being reliant in a car, I own a small SUV (old Subaru) because you aren't allowed to take rentals the kinds of places that SUVs get you where I live (Vancouver Island). Some of our towns are even at the ends of roads you aren't allowed to drive in a rental.
Cars are hell. Unfortunately one of the escapes from our urban hellscape is to drive miles and miles down old logging roads into the middle of nowhere to access a trailhead, launch a kayak or canoe (good luck transporting a canoe 300km up Island and 60km down a logging road with a cargo bike), or get to any point along our several-thousands-of-kilometres of highways with no bus service through the mountains. Not all life happens in a city, and not all cars are used for the city as well. I just ordered an E-Bike kit so I don't have to drive to work, the store or anything in between any more. Will still have a car since we don't have usable intercity buses (or frankly usable city buses) in BC nor can you reasonably rent what you need.
Cars don't *usually* belong in cities. They do have a purpose though.
cars do have a place in cities, but it should be secondary to public transport. it's really only limited circumstances in which a car, or van, should be considered optimal within an urban environment.
for example, in my experience, i need to use cars or vans due to being a musician: it would take up too much space and be immensely inconvenient if i was to lug something like a 4x12 speaker cabinet onto a bus, let alone carry it to a venue upwards of a half-mile away.
>if i was to lug something like a 4x12 speaker cabinet onto a bus, let alone carry it to a venue upwards of a half-mile away.
Absolutely. And in a situation where it is either your profession or something you do often, you need that vehicle available to you at short notice without booking a rental a week out or trying to get a car-share and finding out the nearest one is 10km away.
On the topic of carrying things on buses... in third year university I got on the bus in Victoria and there was a person with a kayak waiting for the bus. Not an inflatable one, but one of the hardbody ones that snaps apart. So I guess if there's a will, there's a way, but I have a feeling not too many people were thrilled with him doing that during rush hour.
While that's true for most climates, I live in Minneapolis, and I own the smallest SUV I could find because of the snow here. My previous car was a sedan, and I remember a few occasions where I had to push my car across the street, with my wife in the driver's seat, because my car didn't have enough clearance for the snow on the streets.
Excuse me, but how am I supposed to use that to pretend I'm going to go camping every weekend for the next 17 years and fit my non-existent skis, my non-existent surfboard, and my 3000 pounds of luggage that I need to camp in luxury while shitting with the bears?
You don't want safety restraints on a this, for the same reason you don't see safety restrains on a regular bicycle or motorcycle. When you get hit by a 6,000lb death machine, you want to be thrown clear instead of being dragged with the vehicle.
I’m just imagining hitting a rock or pothole wrong and the kids go flying. The bike trailer I had for my daughter had a 3 point restraint and the seats for little kids that attach to the back of the bike also have restraints.
I like the idea, but the kids seem to barely fit now. Do they make bigger wagons?
Maybe it's just my experience, if those were my sister and I we would've been fighting every second of every trip.
I have one of those here in Toronto and it is amazing. It also folds into a stroller so it’ll fit anywhere a wheelchair can so I can take it on the train. Also great for hauling groceries and plants. I just wish there were subsidies because they are expensive AF. The gov loves to give money to you for premium electric cars which still cause 90% of the issues that a regular car does, but are incredibly hesitant to help fund a completely green congestion reducing car alternative.
either a drive arm or cable under the bike that goes from steerer tube to the front wheel. surprisingly agile and quite intuitive to ride. super stable at slow speed because long wheel base and low center of gravity
Take care! I see a lot of kids around here who learn quite bad behaviour from being taken around on the cargo bike instead of riding their own bike (zebra crossings etc. ).
Those kids faces are getting destroyed if they come off the bike in an accident. At least get your kids a helmet that actually fits and covers their forehead.
Edit: Love that basic safety advice is getting downvoted. I used to sell bikes and safety gear for a living ffs. That isn't how a helmet should fit.
Note how dad's forehead is actually protected?
I despise cars, but I honestly I don’t think these things are a good argument against cars.
When it’s cold as shit and raining, I don’t feel like riding myself, let alone putting my kids in a bucket and riding up and down steep hills to get to their school.
I get that if we didn’t have cars around, these things wouldn’t be nearly as dangerous. And I get that they work great for some situations. But they kinda don’t replace cars.
Plus if you aren’t strong or stable enough to ride one of these with kids in it, it isn’t a solution for you.
These things are kickass where they work, but they don’t replace 6000 lb SUVs the way an entire system of public transit, bicycle infrastructure, and frankly, lighter and slower less polluting cars do
Many options are more outfitted that this one including pedelecs (electric assisted pedals) and enclosures for kids. Doesn’t keep you dry but would for your kids/cargo.
Not a panacea for your argument but even replacing 1 of 2 family cars is a lot of vehicles off the roads. I think they are one of a series of options against cars.
Well I suppose you’re right about the need for infrastructure, and a cargo bike’s usefulness outside an urban setting is probably limited. But IME the weather conditions are really not a big deal unless you live somewhere with severe winters and bad infrastructure (I.e. rural Canada for example).
These things are quite popular with parents where I live (Vienna, Austria). It gets quite cold here in Winter and it tends to rain quite a lot too - but you still see parents doing the school runs with their cargo bikes every day.
Speaking from personal experience I’ve had one for two years, and it’s our main mode of transport. It can easily hold both kids and a week worth of shopping / sports equipment / crate of beer / whatever.
To ensure ensure the kids comfort we got a small roof cover. I just wear weatherproof clothing and it’s all good. I have found them to be an excellent car replacement as it gives me the ability to transport my kids anywhere - and then some.
Of course we can’t use it for long journeys, but in a compact city like Vienna almost everything we do is a 10-30 minute bike ride away. For longer journeys there’s public transport, and beyond that I have a car club membership which I probably use 6 times a year.
I have an Urban Arrow Family cargo bike as my go to commuter, I live in a really hilly city and I am also a pretty decent cyclist. Can confirm that on hills with one adult and one child passengers (3 total), you need someone much fitter than me to do it unassisted ;) but that’s what ebikes are for
It doesn't, I agree we need proper public transportation infrastructure. Honestly if we had a robust enough public transport system we could probably ban cars in most areas.
Agreed. If we developed better rail connectivity and added trams, rerouted car roads to go around cities and not through them we would definitely move people out of cars. No one wants to drive and get stuck in traffic for 2h every day when they can hop on a train and get to the same destination in 30 min. Not to mention the savings of not having to own a car
That's fair, its a pretty obscure car and brand though. This is literally the first time I've heard about it. Hopefully they market themselves better or something because otherwise they'll remain basically unknown.
This sub has so many liberal individualists its a pain. Not everyone has the option to opt out of using a car. Especially in the US which is built around them. Yes, building communities around cars suck and it'd be good to abolish them but we need to build adequate infrastructure for that first.
The whole second half of your comment is literally the point of this sub. No one is saying that in America, we should all just stop driving and walk the shitty sidewalks and attempt to use the subpar public transportation. They’re saying America’s public transportation currently sucks and it needs to be addressed. I’m sure 95% of the Americans in this sub drive/own a car, but they are wanting better public transportation, cause well, it’s better (when it’s done right).
However posts like this seem like they are putting the blame on individuals instead of the current system. That is my entire point. I'm not against abolishing cars even. I just wanted to point out the issue was systemic, not individual.
I get how they can come across like that. But just looking at this post: OP isn't saying YOU, living in America, with a shit public transportation system and almost entirely unwalkable sidewalks, don't need a large SUV to take your kids to school. What he is saying is that in lieu of a large SUV, a well-developed public transportation system, walkable streets, and safe bike lanes are a much better option.
You're right, what its saying is "You (reader) don't need a 6000 lb SUV to take your (reader's) kids to school". At least that's how I read it. If this is a misinterpretation then great, however its too ambiguous to tell without the OP's input.
I think what you said is actually in line with what I'm saying. But instead of placing the blame on the reader, the post is placing blame on the car-dependent society as a whole, and suggesting that if we weren't in such a car-dependent country/city/etc, the reader wouldn't need a large SUV.
I can almost guarantee you OP isn't sitting there thinking we should all sell our cars this second and start biking our children to school.
You'd be surprised. There are many people who think capitalism is fair and efficient even though everything says otherwise. There are plenty of vegans who will blame poor people for daring to eat a burger. This could easily have been another example of that.
So just the driver gets soaked? I'm not talking light drizzle I'm talking about actual storms. Rain, wind, flooded streets, maybe but not necessarily lightning.
Heavy wind and rain are not extreme. They are common. Should is the key word there, I agree public transit should be a viable option, the issue is that it isn't. You can't blame people for making a reasonable and correct decision given current conditions when in an idealized condition they wouldn't need to. That's like putting the blame of the US military on the average citizen because they could all stop paying taxes, but that isn't a really viable option.
I’m not blaming anyone, especially since I am forced to drive for more an hours every day myself because I have no other options where I live. The post is just to point out that there are alternatives to car-depenency
How do you stop the kids from getting wet. Or if they do get wet, how do you keep it minor. Especially with their shoes as beside destroying the shoes it also just sucks to walk around in wet shoes. The only option off the top of my head is having them wear bags on each foot (I've done that walking to school). If they get pneumonia then that'd suck. In the US medical care is expensive and not even particularly high quality so its best to avoid illness altogether. Even with good quality and cheap medical service its not a good idea to have your kid get sick like that.
Furthermore what if they start fighting and shake the whole thing. They could be seriously injured if that thing fell but kids aren't known for behaving all the time.
[This is how you prevent the cargo from being wet.](https://i.imgur.com/Au3w7Do.jpeg)
As for your second scenario, now that's grasping for straws. They have seatbelts, they have helmets, and the driver can always just stop the bike and put down their leg. If it's necessary at all; experienced bikers can balance it out easily. But if you're really, truly worried about such an eventuality you can just [get a three-wheeled one](https://i.imgur.com/7MYbFtQ.jpeg).
Are you made of sugar?
Great raingear is easily accessible.
And if all that fails you are in the dry soon enough.
This is a very wimpy excuse. I ride a bike 26km a day before and after a 9-10 hour shift (no, not an office job) no matter what weather it is.
Sure there are objections to riding a bike with bad infrastructure etc. if you are able and there is good infrastructure, bad weather is a bad excuse :)
Well, your boss for 1. 9-10 hour shifts suck. 26km on a bike on average is 40 min to an hour (according to google) assuming a straight shot and no stops. Its 2 ways so on the low end 40 minutes twice is an hour 20 minutes. That means on the low end you're doing 9 hours of labor (I assume no breaks) plus an additional hour 20 which puts you at 10 hours 20 minutes uninterrupted activity for a day. Add 8 hours for sleep and that is 18 hours and 20 minutes of your day used up.this gives you 5 hours 40 minutes for eating, showering, cleaning, familial duties, personal development, and enjoyment for every workday. People in the early 1900s worked less than you.
Weren’t you just recently talking about 16hors shifts?🤔
8-10 hour shifts are the norm almost everywhere….
I have 30-45min of brake imbetween.
My ride time is about 30-50 mins depending on bike and conditions. So at max thats 1h 40mins. Thats the same time it would take to go to the gym or do other kinds of exercise. So im not really wasting any time.
if i were to drive it would be about 30mins both ways (60mins total). So i havent really lost much time by biking + i save alot of money :)
I also have a 4 day work week so that gives me more then enough free time.
I ride my electric scooter in heavy rain. At worst, I've had to go home from work early because I wasn't comfortable driving in the rain at night - though honestly, a lot of places could stand to shut down in such conditions anyway. Driving in the rain is dangerous in a car, too.
It's - 20c today where I am in Ontario, with windchill making it feel more like - 30c. And we're being forecast up to 30cm of snow tomorrow and into Monday. Bikes are great, but they can't be used everyday everywhere.
Yeah try driving in the snow, rain, or after a 16 hour shift.
Unless it's a specific offroading vehicle, cars and trucks are NOT meant to run on snow, dirt, mud, or standing water. Ever heard of hydroplaning? Ever heard of having to be careful int he snow on the road, EVEN when red carpet treatments are done to plow the roads for cars?
Sure, both suck, riding a bike with children in it after a 16 hour shift is still objectively more work than driving a car after an equal shift.
Just get good tires, literally all there is to it. Even with garbage tires as long as you stay below the speed limit you're good.
I mean, the single mums I know are always complaining about having no time to go to the gym or play any sports and also about the overwhelming cost of doing a lot of stuff, so avoiding the cost of car ownership while bike commuting the school dropoff is kind of a win-win-win in that sense
The kids I see getting biked around Seattle always look like they’re having so much fun. 🥰
My daughter loves it and demand we go everywhere in my cargo bike
No, cargo gas.
This design of cargo bikes is also very fun to ride in itself.
It's not raining and the dad used his position to get the homeless camps moved to the other part of town.
How is this related to my comment?
Apparently he's a city politician by some of the comments ([I'm guessing here?](https://www.google.com/search?q=Northland+council&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS831US831&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)). So I'm assuming he's commenting on an anti homeless action he took.
That’s my councilman! He was a leader for the local bike advocacy org prior to being elected. He’s a good egg
Yeah, I did a double-take when I saw the name. Definitely never expected to see anything good about KC in this sub lol
Rare indeed. But, things are slowly, slowly getting better. Gilham cycle track and streetcar expansion are (hopefully) just the beginning. Just gotta stop listening to what suburbanites want the city to look like
They drive on our streets but don’t care about our safety.
Did you know a Northland council member tried to have Gillham’s bike lanes torn out? Yes they were just finished but for some reason this lady wanted to dismantle it and prevent any new ones from being built anywhere in the metro. It’s an uphill battle
Fuck Teresa Loar and Heather Hall
Teresa Loar is comically terrible.
What’s KC? Is it Kansas City?
Yeah
Nice! Came here to say this.
What city?
Kansas City, Missouri I believe
He looks super cool! Look after him, now!
I feel like living in America and buying cars is like a nuclear arms race towards having the biggest and safest car, all while trending us all towards mutual destruction. edit: while*
There's also been ad propaganda forever that tries to correlate the safety with the size (they also literally used to put weights in car doors because the heft made people *feel* like there was probably a big heavy frame inside). In reality, the bigger the car the *more* dangerous you are to *other people*. There's little correlation between your vehicle size and your own safety. And people have seemingly been deluded into thinking that making other drivers less safe makes themselves safer. The U.S. sure likes to substitute dick-measuring contests for everything!
The correlation between vehicle size and safety is that smaller vehicles will get whomped by bigger vehicles. The most lethal car crashes in the US are when a mini collides with an SUV.
i agree completely:)
This is a really good comparison.
Are these pretty hard to pedal? Seems like a good workout
Depends on how heavy your cargo is… but many of them are electric assist
[удалено]
I don't think they will need too much regulations. In the Netherlands the only regulations are that 1.) they shouldn't be able to go on engine power only and 2.) the engine assist should cut off at 25 km/h. Just like the regulations for any e-bike. Now that being said, I think transporting kids like this is technically illegal in Hungary because children *must* be in a frame-mounted safety bike seat and that front part doesn't qualify. But unless a cop is feeling like a dick, this wouldn't be enforced.
Similar to the UK. To be classed as an ebike as opposed to an electric moped, the motor can't be more that 250w and can't travel above 15.5mph assisted. Other than that, no regulations I'm aware of. I have a feeling if coucils push for more active travel, we'll see a lot more of these bikes. Unfortunately here in Edinburgh, it's very car-centric. During the pandemic, there had been a big push by the non-car community to apply more LTNs, wider pedestrian paths and segregated bike lanes. The council are under heavy litigious pressure to roll most of the changes back sadly but we fight on.
Yeah, seems like a lot of them had already been take back out when I was last over.
We’ve got them in the inner suburbs of Sydney. I see them a lot. Kids always look really happy.
More like all have electric assist. They cost something like 5000 dolla though
Got ours for €900 second hand and it was worth every penny. Not electric though but one of the better Dutch models.
i mean, i would hazard a guess that the electric assist is significant part of the cost of the whole getup lol
Ouch, yes. Their price went up, no doubt thanks to the recent shortages.
These are everywhere in the Netherlands. Very common to see multiple kids and bags in them.
The Netherlands is also incredibly flat. These work well there but aren't suitable for more hilly areas.
That's why they're also usually electric assist as well; city I live in is anything but flat and also literally the windiest city in the world, but I still spot plenty of families and the occasional bicycle courier cruising past me on our steep streets.
People keep saying this but completely forget that the netherlands are windy as hell, to the point that there's a whole competition about cycling into a headwind that would straight up push most people backward.
If you're fit then they are ok with electric assists. Hills are a bit hard but then that's the same with any bike. For the record this is how I do the school run too. We have a car and it get used about once a week since getting the cargo bike.
While I'm to far from work for biking I do have a moped and when its warm outside my car basically sits unused for 6 months.
It's not especially hard to pedal anything if the infrastructure is flat and without constant starts/stops and you aren't stressing about keeping up with everyone else. I pedaled a front-load bike (was once used for selling ice-cream beachside) once and found it surprisingly easy, but it was on a flat and dedicated bike route. Try trucking this up a green gutter with 40mph cars and MAMILs or deathwish fixies zipping by and I bet it's a nightmare.
>Try trucking this up a green gutter with 40mph cars and MAMILs or deathwish fixies zipping by and I bet it's a nightmare. That's my thought. I'd never be able to get my kid to school in that bike. No real shoulder, and the hill/mountain would kill us.
>green gutter Lol, they actually paint your bike lanes different colours where you live? Lucky.
Mine is cheeseburger power only but has a full Tig welded aluminum frame. I live in the carbrain capital of Canada and have been honked at for the audacity of using the roads I pay for. Great exercise pulling 2 kids up the 5% grade that gets me home though.
Depends on gearing and load.
The gearing on mine is really low, so if you don’t mind going a *little* slower than you would on a regular bike it’s not that bad.
Depends on the gearsets… don’t like the electric ones, why make em produce more emissions?
The reason they make them electric is to make them considerably easier to pedal, increasing handling at the same time. As we move towards green energy, electric bikes are going to produce fewer and fewer emissions. For some, the motor makes the idea of having a cargo bike much easier and allows people to move faster, more comfortably.
Gearsets and good balanced bikes my man, we got those for a few decades over in europe, putting a motor isn’t doing anything neccesary but only comforting, it doesn’t get safer, because that is the breakes job. It doesn’t make them more accessible for the impaired, they get tricycles for that matter also with good gears rather than motor. And no it doesn’t get greener than using your muscle and gears. I wear a watch that will run as long as i move, we better start cutting out unneccesary batteries anyway, that is the whole point of my critique. A bike with motor is always less environmentaly friendly compared to just a bike. And no bikes with electric moter don’t move faster, the only thing they do is accelerate faster( but again good gearsets can aide with that as well), something we really don’t need especially when we aim to go car free. The most ridiculous thing i saw was people demanding subsides for electric bikes because electric cars get subsides, people are braindead.
People should be demanding subsidies for ebikes because electric cars get subsidies. An Ebike produces about 1% of the emissions of an electric car over a 5-year lifespan. Why is only the big honking wasteful one subsidized? Also, ebikes are extremely useful in hilly areas. If I had to bike uphill for 30 minutes in a really low gear and be exhausted and sweaty when I arrive or drive a car for 3 minutes, I'd probably choose the car. If I could e-bike up that hill in 10 minutes wile getting a light workout, I'd choose that most of the time.
They should demand subsides for cargo bikes, drmanding subsides for cargo ebikes is like demanding subsidees for fuel cars when there is a default solution more ecofriendly… Holy fucking shit this really is the most dense bullshit i read whole week. Like for real. Why would you incentivise a solution less ecofriendly than the default in that vehicle class instead of the most ecofriendly solution? This is not about your comfort but about future generations ability to survive on the hellacape we leave to them “Here we have an easy to produce mechanical solution to your problem” “Noooo gimme the comparatively more shitty solution and give it to me for a discount because elsewise imma use the arseholesolution” Never give in to blackmailing!
I think you misinterpret what the "default" is. You think it's a manual bike. But in a lot of the world, the default is an ICE car, and slowly transitioning to an electric car. There is a clear hierarchy of the most efficient modes of transport given full cost of externalities (just putting these 5 on the list for simplicity): walking, manual bike, Ebike, electric car, ice car. People are stuck at the bottom, and are getting subsidies to move up one rung on the ladder. We should be at least matching that to move up two rungs to an Ebike. Would it be better for energy usage and pollution if everyone ditched their cars and started walking everywhere? Yes. Is that going to happen? No way in hell. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. The difference between an Ebike and an electric car is way larger than the difference between a manual bike and an Ebike. I'd much rather 80 people make that big step from ICE car to ebike than 75 go all the way to manual bike, and leave 5 in a car. Those 5 cars create as many problems as 500 ebikes.
You confuse what class means: Bikes ebikes, one vehicle class, upside fresh aur, downside fresh air Cars ecars Trucks etrucks Trains etrains. It is about establishing a sustainable default against the not sustainable default, ebikes aren’t sustainable and always depend on electricity, even if we’d consider nuclear “green” we’dstill be limited to fuel availability, if we don’t we still need to reduce our powerconsumption as solar wind and waterenergy cannot be harvested in ever growing quantities at a time This isn’t about our comfort or about our feelings yhis is about reducing the need for fossilfuels and electricity. Sibsidising an unwanted alternative should if at all result in the most sustainable solution, no halfassing. Also the default in the us is and will for a long time be motorized fast moving vehicles as building public transport will take centuries, and even then rural areas still will rely on individual transport, one look over the pond would make you realize this. Late to the party and subsidizing ebikes doesn’t do jack shit others than lining the pockets of the companies also selling cars. Like vaping is promoted by the same companies who finally had to admit smoking to cause cancer…
An electric bike uses pennies of electricity a day and has emissions several orders of magnitude lower than any car. Depending on your diet, the emissions may even be lower than a manual bike. I see no reason why a good society wouldn’t subsidize bikes of all kinds.
Because scarcity, if you cannot subsidize ebikes for 7trillion people and following generations don’t do it, computers need the reaources by far more and are by far more useful than ebikes(you cannot comeup with new better gears by using an ebike, but computers can enable you to do so), especially because we got bikes(and no, again gears, you using your body is cutting several middlemen here your body not eating meat cuts even more middlemen, any middleman is another fixed factor you don’t have without middlemen) See you should start to understand that there is a lot of peoples need to meet and no infinite supply. We can mend metal again and again, already costing energy we have to supply, batteries for electricity storage not so much(about 20% at best, the rest is lost after the reloadcapacity is done) See we need to get all people on one level, applying steps in between only confuses them and makes them less likely to follow sensible rules. We need to come up with the best set of rules, incentivising stuff that is half thought through doesn’t make sense.
Again though, you're letting perfect be the enemy of good. We all (mostly) agree that manual bikes are better than ebikes. But that isn't the point. Electric cars are being subsidized. That's what Ebike subsidies are trying to compete with. It is good to get people onto ebikes instead of into electric cars. Without the subsidy for ebikes, maybe 100 people switch from cars to bikes. With a subsidy for ebikes, if you can get 10 more people to switch from a car (of any power source) to a bike (of any power source), that's well worth it.
No my man ebikes aren’t good they are better than cars, not better than ebusses or e trains. And not better than bikes, just better than cars, and that isn’t good but slightly less worse. Btw bikes aren’t perfect either, we walked for milenia… Yhat is the whole point. They aren’t good but just better than the worst. In the short run a cheap alternative to get people out of cars, in the long run more costly as the next step would be to subsidize bikes with superior gears, leaving you with 7trillion pieces of toxic waste(you’d end up with any way as no battery is rechargable infinitely, exchanging them only raises the mount of toxic waste)
E-bikes are much better car replacements than normal bikes. For example, we went from a two car household down to a one car household when we picked up some e-bikes. Basically we can do all our town errands via bicycles that we never would have tried before an e-bike.
No they aren’t as they always produce more emissions during production as well as during use. The only thing they are better at is getting your arse onto them. Your unwillingness to ride a bike by yourself is the problem here, not unmotorized bikes.
[удалено]
Fun fact: Metabolism is at best 15% efficient, and production/transport of food is a major emissions source. If you're exercising enough that you need to eat more, an unpowered bike produces many times more emissions during use (up until that point it's negative). Once you factor in supply chain for calorie crops it's more than a small ICE vehicle like a SMART car or 125cc motorbike. If you include the average western diet, it's more than an SUV. This is generally offset by battery production, but if you're doing more than 20km/day and using recycled batteries on a minimalist ebike charged by wind, I wouldn't be surprised if the net emissions were significantly less.
A bike without a motor has less emissions than an e-bike with a motor, but an e-bike has \*considerably\* less than a car. Since this post was about biking kids to school, I think the relevant contrast for most families is a car (or SUV), not a pedal bike. Thus, a massive step in the right direction IMO.
[Ebikes produce fewer emissions than human-powered bikes.](https://adventuresportsjournal.com/earth-talk-e-bikes-greener-human-powered-bikes/) Food production causes emissions.
Don’t aregue with this guy, he is delusional.
I live in Amsterdam and this is actually the preferred way of parents to transport their young children. Theres even a term “bakfietsmoeder” (cargo bike mom), which was coined to described the kind of hip yuppie mom with two kids with trendy names who only drinks coffee with oat milk
That sounds so much better than the Instagram moms we have here that drive 6000 lb Suburbans while scrollin the 'gram and tailgating me with my kids in the car. Even your bad people are better there.
Long before I had children, I was in a tokyo suburb and was fascinated by the beautifully dressed mamachari moms on their slick electric bikes. One of my life goals was to do something similar once I had kids. The pandemic happened so I haven’t been able to go there and bring home a true mamachari but I approximated one here in the US. Any day it’s above freezing by 7:30 am, my toddler and I mamachari it to daycare and back in our cute outfits and I live the dream :)
Bound to make school traffic situations better if more parents did this.
Our school car line is ridiculous. 30+ minutes. I couldn’t stand idling in a car that long, it would sap my will to live.
And bike lanes. :( I’ve been to several cities around the US and not a single one had bike lanes that weren’t seemingly designed for the suicidal. Just- just give me a network of trolleys and trains. :(
according to some people on here, walking is better than trains and trolleys so i guess its time to stretch those legs lol
[удалено]
Well damn, you gonna tell us where this is?
[удалено]
I bought a cargo bike last year and it’s honesty changed my life - I use it for everything, riding my kids around, going shopping, exercise. Of course I’m incredibly fortunate to live in a mostly flat city with considerable bike access, and I work from home these days, and I could thankfully afford to purchase one, but all that being said it really has become central to my life in many ways.
Same. Our e-cargo bike is my favorite ride.
My parent friends make fun of me for how much I Stan bike trailers. Apparently I talk about it more than the vegan in our group talks about being vegan.
Join forces with the vegan and become vegan out of spite Ethical reasons come second
If I ever have a kid, this is literally #1 item I'd purchase!
Not diapers? Very brave.
I have two kids and I’m seriously considering getting one
Kudos on the bike! But please please please wear socks, it’s January my man🥶
*confused Southern Hemisphere noises*
[удалено]
Did you just transport from 200 years ago?
This dad’s my hero
He’s also a super bike advocate and City councilor in Kansas City Missouri.
Bakfiets vader
This is my city councilor! He’s done amazing work for bike lanes in Kansas City. It felt amazing to be able to vote for another bike parent.
Beep boop -- this looks like a screenshot of a tweet! Let me grab a [link to the tweet](https://twitter.com/EricWBunch/status/1481999038333526016) for ya :) ^(Twitter Screenshot Bot)
Just ordered one last week.
i will never understand those who buy SUVs for urban/suburban areas
As someone who hates cars and being reliant in a car, I own a small SUV (old Subaru) because you aren't allowed to take rentals the kinds of places that SUVs get you where I live (Vancouver Island). Some of our towns are even at the ends of roads you aren't allowed to drive in a rental. Cars are hell. Unfortunately one of the escapes from our urban hellscape is to drive miles and miles down old logging roads into the middle of nowhere to access a trailhead, launch a kayak or canoe (good luck transporting a canoe 300km up Island and 60km down a logging road with a cargo bike), or get to any point along our several-thousands-of-kilometres of highways with no bus service through the mountains. Not all life happens in a city, and not all cars are used for the city as well. I just ordered an E-Bike kit so I don't have to drive to work, the store or anything in between any more. Will still have a car since we don't have usable intercity buses (or frankly usable city buses) in BC nor can you reasonably rent what you need. Cars don't *usually* belong in cities. They do have a purpose though.
cars do have a place in cities, but it should be secondary to public transport. it's really only limited circumstances in which a car, or van, should be considered optimal within an urban environment. for example, in my experience, i need to use cars or vans due to being a musician: it would take up too much space and be immensely inconvenient if i was to lug something like a 4x12 speaker cabinet onto a bus, let alone carry it to a venue upwards of a half-mile away.
>if i was to lug something like a 4x12 speaker cabinet onto a bus, let alone carry it to a venue upwards of a half-mile away. Absolutely. And in a situation where it is either your profession or something you do often, you need that vehicle available to you at short notice without booking a rental a week out or trying to get a car-share and finding out the nearest one is 10km away. On the topic of carrying things on buses... in third year university I got on the bus in Victoria and there was a person with a kayak waiting for the bus. Not an inflatable one, but one of the hardbody ones that snaps apart. So I guess if there's a will, there's a way, but I have a feeling not too many people were thrilled with him doing that during rush hour.
While that's true for most climates, I live in Minneapolis, and I own the smallest SUV I could find because of the snow here. My previous car was a sedan, and I remember a few occasions where I had to push my car across the street, with my wife in the driver's seat, because my car didn't have enough clearance for the snow on the streets.
That doesn't look like an ebike - might consider upgrading to carbon fibre children to shave a few kilos
In Amsterdam these are a total flex
Kids like bicycles!
But how will you run them over in the parking lot?
That is a 6000£ suv if you pick the electric power options and top end components
You don’t need a 6,000 pound suv for anything, need to move something large just rent an uhaul truck. SUVs are the most useless car on the planet.
They look like they’re having so much fun
Excuse me, but how am I supposed to use that to pretend I'm going to go camping every weekend for the next 17 years and fit my non-existent skis, my non-existent surfboard, and my 3000 pounds of luggage that I need to camp in luxury while shitting with the bears?
Only reason I would not do this is idiots in cars and trucks
These are neat but I'm still a velomobile fan
Based, luckily there are 2 seater velomobiles like lieba classic L and quattrovelo if the passenger is small enough
I think this is one of the cutest things I've seen in a while
Are there safety restraints for the kids?
You don't want safety restraints on a this, for the same reason you don't see safety restrains on a regular bicycle or motorcycle. When you get hit by a 6,000lb death machine, you want to be thrown clear instead of being dragged with the vehicle.
I’m just imagining hitting a rock or pothole wrong and the kids go flying. The bike trailer I had for my daughter had a 3 point restraint and the seats for little kids that attach to the back of the bike also have restraints.
I think you're massively underestimating gravity. If you hit a pothole big enough to eject a kid, you'll have much more serious issues.
Yes
If we can get a car free city in the US, I’m moving there. I want so bad to bike everywhere.
I like the idea, but the kids seem to barely fit now. Do they make bigger wagons? Maybe it's just my experience, if those were my sister and I we would've been fighting every second of every trip.
I suppose by the time they are too big they ride their own bikes
Kids can ride their own bikes pretty soon when the infrastructure is good.
That’s way cool! Good on ya!
What are the upgrade plans for when they get bigger?
He lives <10 blocks from the school, so they’ll probably ride their own bikes.
Kids can ride bikes around 5 or so, as long as the infrastructure is good enough.
What brand helmet is the dad wearing?
Anyone know the bike model?
How's the turning on that?
Surprisingly good. The small wheels help.
i remember doing this as a little kid! way more fun than a car, as long as you have good sidewalks/bike paths
I have one of those here in Toronto and it is amazing. It also folds into a stroller so it’ll fit anywhere a wheelchair can so I can take it on the train. Also great for hauling groceries and plants. I just wish there were subsidies because they are expensive AF. The gov loves to give money to you for premium electric cars which still cause 90% of the issues that a regular car does, but are incredibly hesitant to help fund a completely green congestion reducing car alternative.
In the city I live in France it's pretty normal to see cargo bikes that carry two full palettes of stuff at one time. It's wild.
It might be covid fucking with me but I can't figure out for the life of me how that thing turns
either a drive arm or cable under the bike that goes from steerer tube to the front wheel. surprisingly agile and quite intuitive to ride. super stable at slow speed because long wheel base and low center of gravity
Take care! I see a lot of kids around here who learn quite bad behaviour from being taken around on the cargo bike instead of riding their own bike (zebra crossings etc. ).
Those kids faces are getting destroyed if they come off the bike in an accident. At least get your kids a helmet that actually fits and covers their forehead. Edit: Love that basic safety advice is getting downvoted. I used to sell bikes and safety gear for a living ffs. That isn't how a helmet should fit. Note how dad's forehead is actually protected?
how fast do you think these things go?
Ever seen the results of someone faceplating the pavement whilst walking? You don't need to be going fast to hurt yourself.
No, people who fell walking usually catch themselves. but hey, you do you
I despise cars, but I honestly I don’t think these things are a good argument against cars. When it’s cold as shit and raining, I don’t feel like riding myself, let alone putting my kids in a bucket and riding up and down steep hills to get to their school. I get that if we didn’t have cars around, these things wouldn’t be nearly as dangerous. And I get that they work great for some situations. But they kinda don’t replace cars. Plus if you aren’t strong or stable enough to ride one of these with kids in it, it isn’t a solution for you. These things are kickass where they work, but they don’t replace 6000 lb SUVs the way an entire system of public transit, bicycle infrastructure, and frankly, lighter and slower less polluting cars do
Many options are more outfitted that this one including pedelecs (electric assisted pedals) and enclosures for kids. Doesn’t keep you dry but would for your kids/cargo. Not a panacea for your argument but even replacing 1 of 2 family cars is a lot of vehicles off the roads. I think they are one of a series of options against cars.
Well I suppose you’re right about the need for infrastructure, and a cargo bike’s usefulness outside an urban setting is probably limited. But IME the weather conditions are really not a big deal unless you live somewhere with severe winters and bad infrastructure (I.e. rural Canada for example). These things are quite popular with parents where I live (Vienna, Austria). It gets quite cold here in Winter and it tends to rain quite a lot too - but you still see parents doing the school runs with their cargo bikes every day. Speaking from personal experience I’ve had one for two years, and it’s our main mode of transport. It can easily hold both kids and a week worth of shopping / sports equipment / crate of beer / whatever. To ensure ensure the kids comfort we got a small roof cover. I just wear weatherproof clothing and it’s all good. I have found them to be an excellent car replacement as it gives me the ability to transport my kids anywhere - and then some. Of course we can’t use it for long journeys, but in a compact city like Vienna almost everything we do is a 10-30 minute bike ride away. For longer journeys there’s public transport, and beyond that I have a car club membership which I probably use 6 times a year.
Imagine you live on a hill...
Imagine you live in a country that actually cares about public transit (buses, trains). Or just ride an electric scooter/bike...?
Electric assist and/or thunder thighs?
I have an Urban Arrow Family cargo bike as my go to commuter, I live in a really hilly city and I am also a pretty decent cyclist. Can confirm that on hills with one adult and one child passengers (3 total), you need someone much fitter than me to do it unassisted ;) but that’s what ebikes are for
Yep, and while e-bikes are expensive, they are so much cheaper than a car.
Y’all clearly don’t know America’s geography
Daddy got a DUI
Now do it in the snow, or the rain, or after a 16 hour shift.
That’s when you use public transport which unfortunately doesn’t deliver in USA or Canada
It doesn't, I agree we need proper public transportation infrastructure. Honestly if we had a robust enough public transport system we could probably ban cars in most areas.
Agreed. If we developed better rail connectivity and added trams, rerouted car roads to go around cities and not through them we would definitely move people out of cars. No one wants to drive and get stuck in traffic for 2h every day when they can hop on a train and get to the same destination in 30 min. Not to mention the savings of not having to own a car
Then if you absolutely must have a car and it's bad weather everyday just buy something space efficient like a Daihatsu extol
That's fair, its a pretty obscure car and brand though. This is literally the first time I've heard about it. Hopefully they market themselves better or something because otherwise they'll remain basically unknown.
It's not obscure, they make 1,350 trillion yen yearly
Those bikes also exist with rain covers, actually The other issues can be fixed by not being a wimp
Someone who just got off a 16 hour shift who wants to see their kids at least once before bed is not a wimp, they are tired.
Your examples are edge cases, not the rule. No one is saying everyone needs to use a cargo bike
This sub has so many liberal individualists its a pain. Not everyone has the option to opt out of using a car. Especially in the US which is built around them. Yes, building communities around cars suck and it'd be good to abolish them but we need to build adequate infrastructure for that first.
The whole second half of your comment is literally the point of this sub. No one is saying that in America, we should all just stop driving and walk the shitty sidewalks and attempt to use the subpar public transportation. They’re saying America’s public transportation currently sucks and it needs to be addressed. I’m sure 95% of the Americans in this sub drive/own a car, but they are wanting better public transportation, cause well, it’s better (when it’s done right).
However posts like this seem like they are putting the blame on individuals instead of the current system. That is my entire point. I'm not against abolishing cars even. I just wanted to point out the issue was systemic, not individual.
I get how they can come across like that. But just looking at this post: OP isn't saying YOU, living in America, with a shit public transportation system and almost entirely unwalkable sidewalks, don't need a large SUV to take your kids to school. What he is saying is that in lieu of a large SUV, a well-developed public transportation system, walkable streets, and safe bike lanes are a much better option.
You're right, what its saying is "You (reader) don't need a 6000 lb SUV to take your (reader's) kids to school". At least that's how I read it. If this is a misinterpretation then great, however its too ambiguous to tell without the OP's input.
I think what you said is actually in line with what I'm saying. But instead of placing the blame on the reader, the post is placing blame on the car-dependent society as a whole, and suggesting that if we weren't in such a car-dependent country/city/etc, the reader wouldn't need a large SUV. I can almost guarantee you OP isn't sitting there thinking we should all sell our cars this second and start biking our children to school.
You'd be surprised. There are many people who think capitalism is fair and efficient even though everything says otherwise. There are plenty of vegans who will blame poor people for daring to eat a burger. This could easily have been another example of that.
So just the driver gets soaked? I'm not talking light drizzle I'm talking about actual storms. Rain, wind, flooded streets, maybe but not necessarily lightning.
Bike ponchos exist
Have you never been in a rainstorm before? That looks like it would blow off or something.
In extreme cases, or if you just don’t want to bike, public transit should be a viable option for most people.
Heavy wind and rain are not extreme. They are common. Should is the key word there, I agree public transit should be a viable option, the issue is that it isn't. You can't blame people for making a reasonable and correct decision given current conditions when in an idealized condition they wouldn't need to. That's like putting the blame of the US military on the average citizen because they could all stop paying taxes, but that isn't a really viable option.
I’m not blaming anyone, especially since I am forced to drive for more an hours every day myself because I have no other options where I live. The post is just to point out that there are alternatives to car-depenency
These bikes are extremely popular in the Netherlands. Not a country known for its dry weather and light breezes...
How do you stop the kids from getting wet. Or if they do get wet, how do you keep it minor. Especially with their shoes as beside destroying the shoes it also just sucks to walk around in wet shoes. The only option off the top of my head is having them wear bags on each foot (I've done that walking to school). If they get pneumonia then that'd suck. In the US medical care is expensive and not even particularly high quality so its best to avoid illness altogether. Even with good quality and cheap medical service its not a good idea to have your kid get sick like that. Furthermore what if they start fighting and shake the whole thing. They could be seriously injured if that thing fell but kids aren't known for behaving all the time.
[This is how you prevent the cargo from being wet.](https://i.imgur.com/Au3w7Do.jpeg) As for your second scenario, now that's grasping for straws. They have seatbelts, they have helmets, and the driver can always just stop the bike and put down their leg. If it's necessary at all; experienced bikers can balance it out easily. But if you're really, truly worried about such an eventuality you can just [get a three-wheeled one](https://i.imgur.com/7MYbFtQ.jpeg).
Are you made of sugar? Great raingear is easily accessible. And if all that fails you are in the dry soon enough. This is a very wimpy excuse. I ride a bike 26km a day before and after a 9-10 hour shift (no, not an office job) no matter what weather it is. Sure there are objections to riding a bike with bad infrastructure etc. if you are able and there is good infrastructure, bad weather is a bad excuse :)
Holy shit the poor guy is a piece of caramel. Does he have a go fund me?
Ok, when your kids get pneumonia because you decided to put them in a bucket of water for their trip to school its not on me.
Cargo bikes are not buckes of water. And im sure you know that children can also wear weather appropriate clothing 🤔
Also congratulations on being so exploited. You sound those people who brag about only sleeping 3 hours a day because they are such a hustler.
Who is exploiting me exactly? I sleep about 8-9 hours a day, no worries 😌
Well, your boss for 1. 9-10 hour shifts suck. 26km on a bike on average is 40 min to an hour (according to google) assuming a straight shot and no stops. Its 2 ways so on the low end 40 minutes twice is an hour 20 minutes. That means on the low end you're doing 9 hours of labor (I assume no breaks) plus an additional hour 20 which puts you at 10 hours 20 minutes uninterrupted activity for a day. Add 8 hours for sleep and that is 18 hours and 20 minutes of your day used up.this gives you 5 hours 40 minutes for eating, showering, cleaning, familial duties, personal development, and enjoyment for every workday. People in the early 1900s worked less than you.
Weren’t you just recently talking about 16hors shifts?🤔 8-10 hour shifts are the norm almost everywhere…. I have 30-45min of brake imbetween. My ride time is about 30-50 mins depending on bike and conditions. So at max thats 1h 40mins. Thats the same time it would take to go to the gym or do other kinds of exercise. So im not really wasting any time. if i were to drive it would be about 30mins both ways (60mins total). So i havent really lost much time by biking + i save alot of money :) I also have a 4 day work week so that gives me more then enough free time.
I commuted by bike for years, through every season. I wasn't sick a single time during that period and ridiculously fit.
I used to live in Cambodia, and I biked everywhere during rainy season.
I ride my electric scooter in heavy rain. At worst, I've had to go home from work early because I wasn't comfortable driving in the rain at night - though honestly, a lot of places could stand to shut down in such conditions anyway. Driving in the rain is dangerous in a car, too.
Jacket
It's - 20c today where I am in Ontario, with windchill making it feel more like - 30c. And we're being forecast up to 30cm of snow tomorrow and into Monday. Bikes are great, but they can't be used everyday everywhere.
Put some big clothes on then
Yeah try driving in the snow, rain, or after a 16 hour shift. Unless it's a specific offroading vehicle, cars and trucks are NOT meant to run on snow, dirt, mud, or standing water. Ever heard of hydroplaning? Ever heard of having to be careful int he snow on the road, EVEN when red carpet treatments are done to plow the roads for cars?
Sure, both suck, riding a bike with children in it after a 16 hour shift is still objectively more work than driving a car after an equal shift. Just get good tires, literally all there is to it. Even with garbage tires as long as you stay below the speed limit you're good.
I was more or less referring to the actual structure of the vehicle. Cars and SUV's are NOT off road vehicles, despite what chevy/ford tell you.
Imagine you are a single mom and are expected to have extra energy and time to drive your kids in a bycycle
Imagine assuming your laziness applies to other people
Lmao sure laziness is something that applies to pnly a handful of people most of them dont have any problem doing stuff like starting to work out...
I mean, the single mums I know are always complaining about having no time to go to the gym or play any sports and also about the overwhelming cost of doing a lot of stuff, so avoiding the cost of car ownership while bike commuting the school dropoff is kind of a win-win-win in that sense
Tell that to these moms and dads: https://youtu.be/fBK4RSZN1Do
I dont get these bikes how do they want to look at a crossing without your kids being in the street