A list of all kinds of uninformed reasons people give for not making it safer and easier to bike, with rebuttals. This is exactly the kind of thing the internet is useful for!
It's available in many languages, and you can help translate it. The content is CC licensed. It's great!
Thanks to the fantastic podcast Bike Talk for letting me know about it!
#Introduction
I was never on twitter, but I figured I'd try out Mastodon. I'm a chemist and chemical biologist by training and my work comes home a bit too often as an amateur baker. I've done bike commuting in worse climates with better infrastructure (Fort Collins, CO and PDX) and better climates with much worse infrastructure (Orange County, CA). Anti-car, pro-community. #Science#Chemistry#ChemicalBiology#Baking#Biking#BikeCommuting
on my bike ride home, I passed a kid who was maybe 11 years old riding his bike the opposite direction on the sidewalk, and while we were passing he yelled at me, “I’m riding a bike too!!”
I rang my little bell and we gave each other a thumbs-up and it was so cute & wholesome ☺️
(honestly this is the interaction I hope for every time I pass another cyclist)
via @gerrymcgovern
“The results show that making streets friendlier for #bikes — and sidewalks friendlier for #pedestrians — is actually good for #business. The rise of #completestreets and #roaddiets, as urban planners call them, has been a huge boon to businesses in #cities”
“survey after survey has shown that business owners overestimate how many of their customers drive to their stores, versus #walking or #biking”
I guess I should do an introduction... I joined Mastodon way back when Twitter imploded (not that I was on Twitter, but it seemed like the place to be), but really didn't figure it out. Now that Reddit's imploding, I'm gonna give it a real shot. I read that it's only polite to do an intro so here I am.
I go by Krispy in every place except work, I'm 36, married, with a dog, two cats, and two snakes. I don't have kids and do not plan to. I have a variety of hobbies, some outdoor (biking, disc golf, birdwatching, etc), some more sedentary (video games, board games, reading, etc), some creative (miniature painting, fountain pen/handwriting, TTRPGs), and some consumptive (tea, baking)... I'm probably missing some.
I love animals/wildlife/ecology. I got my Masters in wildlife parasitology and though I don't use that in my career, I've kept that curiosity and interest. I'm obsessed with paleontology and obscure animals.
I love stories, mostly fantasy, sci fi, mystery/thriller, romance, in virtually any medium. I'm currently playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, reading Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan, listening to A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie, and watching Drag me to Dinner.
I have a strong science background and believe in questioning everything, but with the understanding that I can't know everything and much in life is unintuitive, so something not making sense to me does not mean it's wrong.
I have no idea how to find people to follow, so if anyone makes it to the end of this and thinks I seem interesting enough to follow, I'll follow you back... I'll start there.
When I sold my last car in 2011 and switched to bike (first a standard, last 5 yrs eBike) I walked past the auto-electrician, the tyre place, the rego office, spare parts dealer, the mechanic, the panel beater, the petrol station etc etc and counted all the money I was saving and it made me very happy.
Also noticed how many things I did not spontaneously shopped for because I had no way of getting them home (and really didn't need them anyway).
It works well for me, public transport is used for trips I can't make with the bike.
The freedom of pulling up next to the shop without having to search for a parking spot is priceless.
Some would find it extremely inconvenient for sure. Others, like myself, find it very liberating.
Finding out there's a not insignificant amount of people think that a #15MinuteCity means creating little isolated island prisons is a whole new level of human idiocy that I wasn't expecting to ruin my day today.
Alright fuckers listen up. 15 minute cities are simply a city designed around the basic fucking principles of #urbanplanning and having actual walkable streets so that wherever you are in the city, or wherever your neighborhood is, you have all the basics necessities you need to go about your day within a 15 minute trip. This isn't isolated to singular neighborhoods or "zones". It's an interconnected network accross the entire city, in any place you are, in the city as a whole.
This isn't some new agenda, or just about #ClimateChange or the #environment, it's about designing our cities around human needs and #Community. It's how we used to have our cities before cars took over. If you need to go further, or prefer to go further, you can easily do so by #walking#publictransit or #biking. It's just going to take longer than 15 minutes. That's it. Shocking I know.
Why are people like this? Just take the train you fuckwits.
I've been seeing lots of #bike toots & discussions in my feed lately and thought I'd describe my experience as a #disabled bicyclist who lived in one of the most bike-friendly regions (the Netherlands) but moved to a very different bike culture (Belgium). This is a long one! 🚲
Growing up in The Netherlands, I started cycling as a small child and always owned a city bike. I biked to school, to hospitals, to anywhere. Everyone I knew owned at least one bike. Even if you own a car, if the distance is small, most people would use a bike.
Everywhere is flat so cycling isn't intense physical exercise, unless it rains or is very windy. Many cyclist lanes are separate from roads used by cars or pedestrians, so there isn't a lot of fighting over space, except in very busy city centres.
Even though I have muscle/joint problems and limited stamina, I did everything with my bike. I could manage getting anywhere within 5 km at least 2 - 3 times a week.
This all changed when I moved to Belgium. 🇧🇪
The problems I've encountered the most here (and I expect these will be the same for many people living anywhere but NL) :
Everything is hills, nothing is flat. I can't get anywhere beyond 2 km. Combining this with bad road quality makes cycling incredibly intense. I switched from a regular city bike to an #ebike to at least have a chance at arriving anywhere without physically crashing.
Most areas don't have separate cycling lanes. I have to share the road with cars and many HATE cyclists, because they're slower and in the way. Cars will rush past you dangerously close. It's stressful and accidents happen. Sometimes you have to share the road with pedestrians, and suddenly you are the aggressor trying to pass them dangerously close because they are slow and in the way. It's drama all around.
One thing worse than sharing with cars and pedestrians is sharing the space with other cyclists. To survive as a cyclist you turn into an apex predator and it shows. There is a permanent war between these parties, ordered by speed: speed pedelec bikes (>30 km/h), professional speed cyclists (>25km/h), ebikes (>20 km/h), cargo bikes (15-20 km/h), school children on city bikes (15 km/h), parents cycling with children next to them on tiny bikes (anywhere between 1 and 10 km/h).
There is not enough space for all of us and someone's always trying to pass you by in a ridiculous way. People will yell and bully. It was getting normal for me to be screamed at often. Somehow using your bicycle bell is the biggest faux-pas and people will stop and try to fight you if you use it. You will learn the hard way.
The country's infrastructure is just not made with bikes in mind. Roads suddenly stop, the absence of cycle lanes, traffic intersections where cars and bikes cross at the same time... There are even officially named 'dangerous intersections' because an above average amount of cyclists keep dying there. Yes, the government is very concerned, they will change the layout by... 2030? 2035? 2100?
Suddenly biking was a political thing. In the NL a bike is just a thing that gets you from place A to place B, no matter who you are. Here, bikes are Progressive. People think you either use a car or a bike and you better be in the right team. I've seen quite a few bikes with a little sign on the back of their saddle that says "This is one less car on the road!". In regions where tensions are high, car owners will destroy traffic signs meant for cyclists and 'reclaim' the road. It's NUTS.
I don't know if this specifically concerns cyclists with a #disability, but there is barely any parking for bikes. If I get anywhere with my bike, I still have to go kms beyond for a parking area and walk back. I have to bend my back in difficult ways to get to low parking spots. Some spots even expect me to lift the front half of my bike up in the air to park it!!! Some parkings are underground without an elevator, I have to push my bike up and down besides stairs! I can't manage it!
So, tldr, I took driving lessons and now I use a car 90% of the time and a bike 10% of the time. Public transport is too risky because of #covid in this ongoing #pandemic.
It sucks and I have a lot more understanding now, both for people struggling to bike and for people just not able to do so and using a car.
There’s a bike policy ride this Saturday in #Beaverton where you can hear and ask questions about #Biking infrastructure projects to reduce car dependence in the city.
One of the MOST IMPORTANT THINGS your city could do to become more healthy, sustainable, livable, affordable, equitable, resilient, etc — stop pretending to “balance” transportation modes, & commit to PRIORITIZING walking/rolling, biking, public transit. HT @dublincyclingcampaign for graphic
Did an end-to-end test. Towed the kayak with my bike 5 miles to the lake, then disassembled the cart and stowed it in the kayak. Folded up the bike and bungeed it down on the rear deck. Went kayaking around the lake for a while, then reversed everything and biked back home.
It's a lot slower than putting the kayak on the car, but... I gotta say, it felt pretty awesome to head out knowing I could go anywhere there's water or a trail. And switch between them as needed.
Think public transport is over-subsidised? Think again!
If walking costs you $1, we all pay $0.01. If biking costs you $1, we all pay $0.08. If bussing costs you $1, we all pay $1.50. If driving costs you $1, we all pay $9.20
I recently got to ride this fun trike at the math museum in NYC. Reading about it further, I learned that “for just about every shape of wheel there’s an appropriate road to produce a smooth ride, and vice versa,” as one article put it.
Okay, I'm calling it: RC1 is Release Version 1.2 of the MEGAMAP, the combined bike map including Greater Northshore, complete Seattle (the complete part is new), and 2 Link Eastside maps, with also a little chunk from King County Regional Trails to get us all of Lake Washington.
It be LORGE but it be FAIRLY COMPLETE as bike maps go of Northwest King County, except ironically for the little KC-maintained section. But what that does buy you is the last section of the Lake Washington Loop. So I think it's worth it.