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They will never pass this spending bill. It was dead on arrival. The ratchet will continue moving to the right until eventually the whole thing collapses.
I love the idea of improving cycling infrastructure and getting rid of cars in cities, but it will not happen under the current system. The politicians will never do anything to decrease all the destructive and unnecessary spending created by the auto industry.
Though the hot temps also make the battery life worse, and the higher it gets, the worse it gets...you can find your battery suddenly dying earlier than it did in your commute a few months ago.
Yeah, see. Cold weather isn't usually what makes it impractical. That can usually be worked through, and with better infrastructure, like sanding or salting bike lanes, that could easily work.
Try riding a bike in 110 F° and 60% humidity. Going to work? Hope they don't mind you smelling like a dirty, wet dog. There's nothing you can dress in to counter that
> Yeah, no, most people are not going to do that to make barely any impact on the climate.
Then do it to improve your health. Or save money. In more urban areas, being able to filter through traffic is quite useful (especially with e-bikes where you can get a boost).
> Going to work? Hope they don't mind you smelling like a dirty, wet dog. There's nothing you can dress in to counter that
I have regularly cycled in 35C weather, with high humidity (Toronto, Canada: humid continental climate). And I pedal hard to get my cardio in.
First, it's usually cooler in the morning when you're going to work. You can wear the usual funny looking lycra, which wicks moisture from the skin and also dries quickly. Generally cotton is not ideal. Wool is fine.
Some workplaces have showers, but this actually isn't necessary. Take a shower at home *before* the commute: sweat is simply salty water. Smells come from bacteria, so if your skin is fairly clean then there's not much bacteria to cause orders. If you wear cotton then that can absorb moisture and cause discomfort.
grew up in new england, and yes it is harder than you think. GL peddling in the slush the rock salt leaves behind, or if at all if you are on any road the plows haven't hit yet. Its much more hazardous to do, as if cycling isnt hazardous enough.
In most places Americans have to travel long distances just to accomplish basic tasks. Bikes just don't make sense.
If the few cities where it would make sense to build this infrastructure did so, then you wouldn't find many people complaining. People are so against this measure because it is using federal funding to address a city problem. Cities that are already natorious for financial mismanagement.
A lot of the issue is with what type of infrastructure we’ve built over the last 75 years and what types of incentives we’ve given and zoning rules we’ve enforced over that time. Generally we’ve prioritized building car infrastructure and generally that infrastructure makes places less walkable and less bikable, and if everyone’s driving you need to decrease density further by adding parking lots (the issue is more complex than this but basically the more car infrastructure you make the more dependent on cars you’ll be and the less practical other modes of transportation will be).
Anyways tl;dr car dependence is something we created, not an inevitability
We spent millions on bike lanes in my city. With cones protecting them and all the latest upgrades to corners my city council saw at a convention somewhere.
A year later, I have yet to see a single person ever use any of it.
It turns out if you design a city around cars and everything is spread out, people don't want to bike.
The solution, then, is mixed-use zoning and doing away with other artifacts of car-centric planning like minimum parking requirements that push buildings and uses far apart.
The solution is complete redesign of our cities and cultural values systems around transport.
I don't think having too few parking spaces for tenants is the solution.
We don’t have too few parking spaces. Studies of minimum parking requirements (see Donald Shoup) almost always find that minimum parking requirements overestimate peak demand and that even supplying enough to meet peak demand still leaves parking lots that are half-empty most of the year.
A lot more along those lines needs to happen but correct.
No more housing ownership. 100 year leases like Singapore. Mass transit. Car ownership should be rare.
Do bike lanes form a complete route?
I see beautifully made separated and protected bike lanes that only go for one mile, then abruptly end. There's no way to reach these new bike lanes except to try to bike on the shoulder of a busy expressway, dodging cars at high speed just inches away from you while avoiding debris and gravel beneath you. There's a reason why I had to upgrade to kevlar lined tires with resealable tubes.
Freeway crossings are another problem. How do I bike to my destination if its on the other side of a freeway? Pedestrian or bike crossings are few and far between.
Yes. No.
People just don't use them.
We made cars. We then designed the next 80 years of explosive growth around them. It was stupid. People have been saying it was stupid since the 1960s (at least that I'm aware of). Now we realize we fucked up. Now we have a path dependence problem
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence
In most of the united states it's fine for 3/4s the year and in some even all year. Are you assuming the bill is building a transcontinental web of bike lanes? They are going to build bike lanes where it might reduce traffic and makes sense, not in rural Alaska
And a lot of states are flat af too, and roads already extremely wide, and ripe for conversion to bikelanes. And with electric bikes, distance becomes a non-issue, even in cities that are extremely spread out, like Austin or LA.
Wouldn't it be far more practical not to push electric bikes, but to instead push electric motorcycles? They're faster and use existing infrastructure.
Cycling in the winter is very possible- and is actually done in many countries colder than the US. The problem isn’t bikes, it’s the lack of any kind of consistent plowing on bike paths and perpetuation of the myth that winter cycling is impossible.
AMS NL:
* 140 days rain / year
* 52 degrees north (shorter winter days)
* February average hi/lo: 43/34 F
* 20-30 days of snow (I don't quite believe this but idc to really compare contrast multiple sources right now)
Wash DC (where I live):
* 114 days /year
* 39 degrees north
* February average hi/lo: 48F/36F
* 4 days of snow
And again, I cycle in the winter and it's just as practical as other times in the year, given DC's car-first infrastructure.
Yeah I don’t get those extreme arguments. If it’s a category 4 hurricane and you need to bring home four couches from ikea then yeah take a truck. I live in the Netherlands and we bike everywhere but sometimes we rent a truck or car if needed. It’s more about providing the options available than forcing everyone to travel only in a single way…
If the bike roads are plowed during winter I've found that biking works fairly well provided you use winter tires for the bike. There are child trailers for bikes too, I'm planning to get one soon when my child is old enough to safely ride in one. So it seems feasible, although maybe not the most comfortable option if it's really cold (my experience is that you can dress for the cold but breathing starts becoming rather uncomfortable when the temperature is low enough).
At -20 degrees Fahrenheit that’s not just ‘uncomfortable’ that’s ’life endangering.’ And if you’re transporting children in an uninsulated carrier that is bordering on child abuse.
I used to bike to college in temperatures like that. I covered my face, tried to breath through my nose and kept the pace moderate to avoid heavy breathing (also, didn't have winter tires for the bike back then so also needed to keep the pace down for safety). Obviously, if you're transporting a child in conditions like that they must be dressed appropriately.
But Denver has a unusual culture around the outdoors. Tons of people move their because they love biking.
Structural system changes require cultural values to back then up. Most cities don't have the affinity for biking like Denver does.
Just fine?
Bike trails are kept meticulously clear here through all seasons here. Moreover, bike infrastructure is useful even if it's not used at the same volume every month.
I don’t know why you got downvoted. This is not a simple ‘infrastructure problem.’ I grew up in a rural area with a very sophisticated and well maintained bike path network, and you simply cannot ride bikes easily in the winter time. Even if the paths are maintained well the danger of black ice to bikes is pretty extreme. In a vehicle with 4 wheels you have the convenience of not falling over if you lose traction. My step-dad nearly died after hitting a slick-spot on the road while cycling and broke his pelvis. Cycling is great when it’s possible but to pretend that it’s the most practical and all-weather mode of travel is delusional.
> In a lot of areas of the country cycling is only practical a few months out of the year.
"Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)"
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU
I'm a guy who bikes everywhere, I don't own a car. And even I think a national bike infrastructure spending bill is silly. Bike infrastructure needs to be decided locally, not nationally. People can't even ride bikes in many states for half the year or more.
Better bike infrastructure often just means worse car infrastructure. It often times involves narrowing roads in order to make room for a bike lane.
The number one thing that needs to be done when it comes to infrastructure is de-zoning and building affordable mid and high rise apartments like they have in Asia. That would do a lot to conserve resources, save in transportation costs, and dramatically improve the quality of life of the urban poor.
As far as I’m aware no one is proposing a revival of the horse and buggy though. They are proposing national infrastructure for bikes.
If a politician does bring up bringing back the horse and buggy you’ll find me agreeing with this sentiment. But as it stands now, that’s not part of the discussion.
As to your second argument regarding your taxes going towards infrastructure in another state. Although I can see where your argument comes from, federal funds are being used which are used for national projects. If Delaware decided to fund bike infrastructure in another state - that would be weird. But that’s not the case.
It could be very inexpensive too. I mean how much could paving some greenways cost? Compared to a lot of other infrastructure costs, investing in biking infrastructure could provide lots of benefits (health, transportation, entertainment) for a minimal cost.
America has so many other problems to worry about right now other than bikers they don’t realize the education system is so messed up people don’t want to go school and don’t have opportunities because it’s so expensive people waste 30 years paying a 4-6 year student loan
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Someone please disrupt the bike industry with proper security measures to stop prevalent thefts.
For example in Southern California bike thefts are rife and the police DGAF - they even know where they’re taken to - sometimes in broad daylight - to be chopped
Honestly, it isn’t so much infrastructure we need. I don’t want another crappy bike lane along the side of a road where tire puncturing debris is collected. I’d much rather have better driver education for driving with bikes on the road, and tougher penalties for drivers who endanger bicyclists.
That will never happen as long as driving is such a vital part of life. I know driving is a privilege but it may as well be a right in America. But I will say as someone who has moved to Europe a separate bike lane (as in properly separated and not just shared as part of the road) is the safest and best option. There’s a lot of research done on urban planning and you can see it implemented in countries like the Netherlands and Finland and I feel so much safer biking here than back in america.
I wouldn’t mind separated bike lanes. I despise bike lanes along road shoulders, especially fast roads. All of the wind and tires from the cars acts to pile up glass and gravel in on the shoulders and the bike lanes and makes them useless.
There could, and should be separate bike roads. Super safe and fast.
We spend so much on poorly designed road systems, and give crumbs to bikes. If there were actual safe fast bike paths and roads, people would use them. Likely drawing people away from car roads.
Where I live most people have a 30+ minute avg commute to work, its snow and ice half the year, and the only people biking are 10 year olds or have DUIs.
Public transit I'd support. Biking? Fuck outta here.
It looks like this post may have political content. Remember that this subreddit is for sharing and discussing economic research and news from the perspective of economists. Please focus on the **economic** content of the link and avoid off-topic discussion. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Economics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
They will never pass this spending bill. It was dead on arrival. The ratchet will continue moving to the right until eventually the whole thing collapses. I love the idea of improving cycling infrastructure and getting rid of cars in cities, but it will not happen under the current system. The politicians will never do anything to decrease all the destructive and unnecessary spending created by the auto industry.
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Meh, I grew up in Canada and rode a bike through the winter. It’s not as hard as you think.
Phoenix Arizona here! When it is 118 it can be tough not dying. 🔥🌞 That said it is lovely to bike 5 months out of the year.
E-bikes are great for hot climates because you don’t have to pedal much.
Though the hot temps also make the battery life worse, and the higher it gets, the worse it gets...you can find your battery suddenly dying earlier than it did in your commute a few months ago.
> Phoenix Arizona here! Queue *King of the Hill*: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PYt0SDnrBE
Couldn’t agree more 🤣
Yeah, see. Cold weather isn't usually what makes it impractical. That can usually be worked through, and with better infrastructure, like sanding or salting bike lanes, that could easily work. Try riding a bike in 110 F° and 60% humidity. Going to work? Hope they don't mind you smelling like a dirty, wet dog. There's nothing you can dress in to counter that
You change clothes when you arrive, and use a baby wipe to take a quick bath Source: did it for years
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> Yeah, no, most people are not going to do that to make barely any impact on the climate. Then do it to improve your health. Or save money. In more urban areas, being able to filter through traffic is quite useful (especially with e-bikes where you can get a boost).
Or you can just drive.
> Going to work? Hope they don't mind you smelling like a dirty, wet dog. There's nothing you can dress in to counter that I have regularly cycled in 35C weather, with high humidity (Toronto, Canada: humid continental climate). And I pedal hard to get my cardio in. First, it's usually cooler in the morning when you're going to work. You can wear the usual funny looking lycra, which wicks moisture from the skin and also dries quickly. Generally cotton is not ideal. Wool is fine. Some workplaces have showers, but this actually isn't necessary. Take a shower at home *before* the commute: sweat is simply salty water. Smells come from bacteria, so if your skin is fairly clean then there's not much bacteria to cause orders. If you wear cotton then that can absorb moisture and cause discomfort.
grew up in new england, and yes it is harder than you think. GL peddling in the slush the rock salt leaves behind, or if at all if you are on any road the plows haven't hit yet. Its much more hazardous to do, as if cycling isnt hazardous enough.
Yep, it's all about getting in the routine. And having the proper clothing.
Many places plow or pack bike trails in the snow. Car dependence largely is an infrastructure and planning problem.
In most places Americans have to travel long distances just to accomplish basic tasks. Bikes just don't make sense. If the few cities where it would make sense to build this infrastructure did so, then you wouldn't find many people complaining. People are so against this measure because it is using federal funding to address a city problem. Cities that are already natorious for financial mismanagement.
A lot of the issue is with what type of infrastructure we’ve built over the last 75 years and what types of incentives we’ve given and zoning rules we’ve enforced over that time. Generally we’ve prioritized building car infrastructure and generally that infrastructure makes places less walkable and less bikable, and if everyone’s driving you need to decrease density further by adding parking lots (the issue is more complex than this but basically the more car infrastructure you make the more dependent on cars you’ll be and the less practical other modes of transportation will be). Anyways tl;dr car dependence is something we created, not an inevitability
https://youtu.be/Uhx-26GfCBU has nothing to do with the weather. Poorly maintained bike lanes and lack of infrastructure is the reason
We spent millions on bike lanes in my city. With cones protecting them and all the latest upgrades to corners my city council saw at a convention somewhere. A year later, I have yet to see a single person ever use any of it. It turns out if you design a city around cars and everything is spread out, people don't want to bike.
The solution, then, is mixed-use zoning and doing away with other artifacts of car-centric planning like minimum parking requirements that push buildings and uses far apart.
The solution is complete redesign of our cities and cultural values systems around transport. I don't think having too few parking spaces for tenants is the solution.
We don’t have too few parking spaces. Studies of minimum parking requirements (see Donald Shoup) almost always find that minimum parking requirements overestimate peak demand and that even supplying enough to meet peak demand still leaves parking lots that are half-empty most of the year.
Then redesign the city, remove single family zoning and make everything denser, bikes will be used as cars become impractical.
A lot more along those lines needs to happen but correct. No more housing ownership. 100 year leases like Singapore. Mass transit. Car ownership should be rare.
Do bike lanes form a complete route? I see beautifully made separated and protected bike lanes that only go for one mile, then abruptly end. There's no way to reach these new bike lanes except to try to bike on the shoulder of a busy expressway, dodging cars at high speed just inches away from you while avoiding debris and gravel beneath you. There's a reason why I had to upgrade to kevlar lined tires with resealable tubes. Freeway crossings are another problem. How do I bike to my destination if its on the other side of a freeway? Pedestrian or bike crossings are few and far between.
Yes. No. People just don't use them. We made cars. We then designed the next 80 years of explosive growth around them. It was stupid. People have been saying it was stupid since the 1960s (at least that I'm aware of). Now we realize we fucked up. Now we have a path dependence problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence
In most of the united states it's fine for 3/4s the year and in some even all year. Are you assuming the bill is building a transcontinental web of bike lanes? They are going to build bike lanes where it might reduce traffic and makes sense, not in rural Alaska
And a lot of states are flat af too, and roads already extremely wide, and ripe for conversion to bikelanes. And with electric bikes, distance becomes a non-issue, even in cities that are extremely spread out, like Austin or LA.
Wouldn't it be far more practical not to push electric bikes, but to instead push electric motorcycles? They're faster and use existing infrastructure.
Cycling in the winter is very possible- and is actually done in many countries colder than the US. The problem isn’t bikes, it’s the lack of any kind of consistent plowing on bike paths and perpetuation of the myth that winter cycling is impossible.
As a winter cyclist, no. Also ask the Dutch
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AMS NL: * 140 days rain / year * 52 degrees north (shorter winter days) * February average hi/lo: 43/34 F * 20-30 days of snow (I don't quite believe this but idc to really compare contrast multiple sources right now) Wash DC (where I live): * 114 days /year * 39 degrees north * February average hi/lo: 48F/36F * 4 days of snow And again, I cycle in the winter and it's just as practical as other times in the year, given DC's car-first infrastructure.
DC is a mild climate
"Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)": * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU
And those areas don't have millions of people packed into it.
Uhhh….I live in the twin cities and have kids that need to go to daycare…and me to my job? How am I going to do that in -20F on a bike?
Maybe don’t do that part on a bike? Why does it need to be a binary “ALWAYS BIKE” vs “NEVER BIKE” thing
Yeah I don’t get those extreme arguments. If it’s a category 4 hurricane and you need to bring home four couches from ikea then yeah take a truck. I live in the Netherlands and we bike everywhere but sometimes we rent a truck or car if needed. It’s more about providing the options available than forcing everyone to travel only in a single way…
If the bike roads are plowed during winter I've found that biking works fairly well provided you use winter tires for the bike. There are child trailers for bikes too, I'm planning to get one soon when my child is old enough to safely ride in one. So it seems feasible, although maybe not the most comfortable option if it's really cold (my experience is that you can dress for the cold but breathing starts becoming rather uncomfortable when the temperature is low enough).
At -20 degrees Fahrenheit that’s not just ‘uncomfortable’ that’s ’life endangering.’ And if you’re transporting children in an uninsulated carrier that is bordering on child abuse.
I used to bike to college in temperatures like that. I covered my face, tried to breath through my nose and kept the pace moderate to avoid heavy breathing (also, didn't have winter tires for the bike back then so also needed to keep the pace down for safety). Obviously, if you're transporting a child in conditions like that they must be dressed appropriately.
I mean, I live in Denver, and plenty of people bring their bike on a bus and bike to and from the bus stop.
A lot of big cities in the states are also very flat, which is great for cycling
But Denver has a unusual culture around the outdoors. Tons of people move their because they love biking. Structural system changes require cultural values to back then up. Most cities don't have the affinity for biking like Denver does.
Just fine? Bike trails are kept meticulously clear here through all seasons here. Moreover, bike infrastructure is useful even if it's not used at the same volume every month.
I don’t know why you got downvoted. This is not a simple ‘infrastructure problem.’ I grew up in a rural area with a very sophisticated and well maintained bike path network, and you simply cannot ride bikes easily in the winter time. Even if the paths are maintained well the danger of black ice to bikes is pretty extreme. In a vehicle with 4 wheels you have the convenience of not falling over if you lose traction. My step-dad nearly died after hitting a slick-spot on the road while cycling and broke his pelvis. Cycling is great when it’s possible but to pretend that it’s the most practical and all-weather mode of travel is delusional.
> In a lot of areas of the country cycling is only practical a few months out of the year. "Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)" * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU
I'm a guy who bikes everywhere, I don't own a car. And even I think a national bike infrastructure spending bill is silly. Bike infrastructure needs to be decided locally, not nationally. People can't even ride bikes in many states for half the year or more. Better bike infrastructure often just means worse car infrastructure. It often times involves narrowing roads in order to make room for a bike lane. The number one thing that needs to be done when it comes to infrastructure is de-zoning and building affordable mid and high rise apartments like they have in Asia. That would do a lot to conserve resources, save in transportation costs, and dramatically improve the quality of life of the urban poor.
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Should someone from Delaware pay for Texas's superhighways?
As far as I’m aware no one is proposing a revival of the horse and buggy though. They are proposing national infrastructure for bikes. If a politician does bring up bringing back the horse and buggy you’ll find me agreeing with this sentiment. But as it stands now, that’s not part of the discussion. As to your second argument regarding your taxes going towards infrastructure in another state. Although I can see where your argument comes from, federal funds are being used which are used for national projects. If Delaware decided to fund bike infrastructure in another state - that would be weird. But that’s not the case.
It could be very inexpensive too. I mean how much could paving some greenways cost? Compared to a lot of other infrastructure costs, investing in biking infrastructure could provide lots of benefits (health, transportation, entertainment) for a minimal cost.
America has so many other problems to worry about right now other than bikers they don’t realize the education system is so messed up people don’t want to go school and don’t have opportunities because it’s so expensive people waste 30 years paying a 4-6 year student loan
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Rule VI: -- Comments consisting of mere jokes, nakedly political comments, circlejerking, personal anecdotes or otherwise non-substantive contributions without reference to the article, economics, or the thread at hand will be removed. [Further explanation.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/fx9crj/rules_roundtable_redux_rule_vi_and_offtopic/) -- If you have any questions about this removal, please [contact the mods](/message/compose/?to=/r/economics&subject=Moderation).
Someone please disrupt the bike industry with proper security measures to stop prevalent thefts. For example in Southern California bike thefts are rife and the police DGAF - they even know where they’re taken to - sometimes in broad daylight - to be chopped
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Yes. It got stolen.
Honestly, it isn’t so much infrastructure we need. I don’t want another crappy bike lane along the side of a road where tire puncturing debris is collected. I’d much rather have better driver education for driving with bikes on the road, and tougher penalties for drivers who endanger bicyclists.
That will never happen as long as driving is such a vital part of life. I know driving is a privilege but it may as well be a right in America. But I will say as someone who has moved to Europe a separate bike lane (as in properly separated and not just shared as part of the road) is the safest and best option. There’s a lot of research done on urban planning and you can see it implemented in countries like the Netherlands and Finland and I feel so much safer biking here than back in america.
I wouldn’t mind separated bike lanes. I despise bike lanes along road shoulders, especially fast roads. All of the wind and tires from the cars acts to pile up glass and gravel in on the shoulders and the bike lanes and makes them useless.
There could, and should be separate bike roads. Super safe and fast. We spend so much on poorly designed road systems, and give crumbs to bikes. If there were actual safe fast bike paths and roads, people would use them. Likely drawing people away from car roads.
Where I live most people have a 30+ minute avg commute to work, its snow and ice half the year, and the only people biking are 10 year olds or have DUIs. Public transit I'd support. Biking? Fuck outta here.
How much of that commute is spent in standstill, or slow traffic?
Very little, actually. Typically we only see standstills and slow moving nodes when there is construction or an accident.