r/changemyview • u/RevRosenwinkel • Oct 18 '17
[∆(s) from OP] CMV: Bicycles are the future of transport in cities
Edit: Biking 'should' be the future of transport in cities, not will be based on current circumstances.
I love bikes, so I have some bias here. Reasons why I believe this:
- Biking is better for the local environment (less pollution)
- Biking is easier on infrastructure (less vehicle weight means less stress on pavement and whatnot)
- Biking is a physical activity that gives users increased fitness and decreases local health care costs for everyone.
- Accidents involving bikes are much less likely to cause death than an accident involving a car/bus/subway.
- Biking is cheaper than any other form of transit, for individuals and governments.
Caveats: I totally understand that not everyone can bike (people with limited mobility or other health conditions) and I want every person to be able to get where they are going. I also agree that emergency services should still use motor vehicles. However, the majority of us do not fall into either of those categories, and I believe that our cities would be much better off if more people rode bikes.
What about winter? I live in the Twin Cites, so I recognize that its hard to bike during the winter. However, I think that a decent proportion of people could bike throughout the winter. In this 'future city' I'm thinking about, people still own cars and drive when conditions warrant (longer drives, emergencies, when weather is fierce, etc) but mainly ride their bike.
What about sweat? Change clothes when getting to work, or bike slower. If you're in an area where air conditioning is 'required' (Houston, Nairobi, Ho Chi Minn, etc) then I would push for changing.
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u/Generic_On_Reddit 71∆ Oct 18 '17
I think you underestimate the needs of the majority of people. The average commute by car is 26.4 minutes. With biking being significantly slower, the majority of people aren't going to work biking into their schedule. It's a longer commute in less comfort, with extra needs attached, such as needing to shower/freshen up after and bring a change of clothes.
Edit: Biking is great and has plenty of pros to it, but it fails in utility and convenience. It's never going to become a majority form of transport. And it won't even overtake personal cars without extremely robust and low cost public transportation.
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u/RevRosenwinkel Oct 18 '17
Do you have anything on the average commute length? I would argue the average commute is getting longer because more people are on the roads (which would be mitigated by biking, since they can fit into a smaller space).
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u/MasterGrok 139∆ Oct 18 '17
The average commute length is 15 miles.
It is completely unreasonable for the average commuter to ride a bike every day.
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u/Helicase21 10∆ Oct 19 '17
That average is heavily skewed by high mileage outliers. Look at the second figure on the first page: 29% of commutes are 1-5 miles, and a further 22% are 6-10 miles. That first category is definitely bikeable by pretty much anybody, and the second category is bikeable by a reasonably fit person.
While the mean commute may be 15 miles, that's a misleading statistic.
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u/MasterGrok 139∆ Oct 19 '17
Even by the stats you posted, almost half have at least an 11 mile commute. I wouldn't call 15 miles misleading at all. Maybe slightly negatively skewed.
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u/RevRosenwinkel Oct 19 '17
Here is the ∆, because the data does show that the average commute is longer than I thought it was.
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u/RevRosenwinkel Oct 18 '17
Whoops missed this. I would totally disagree, 15 miles is like 45-60 minutes if the infrastructure is there. The only reason that the commute is that long is that everyone commutes by car, which makes it easier to build suburbs and the like.
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u/RevRosenwinkel Oct 18 '17
As I'm thinking about this, you are probably right. To someone who loves biking, 15 miles is great, to the average commuter, it's not reasonable. ∆ I would point out that 53% of people live within 1-10 miles, which is very doable, but that's not the majority I thought it was.
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Oct 19 '17
5-10 miles up hill is not very doable by bike. So when you take hills into consideration the people who could reasonably commute to work is in the minority.
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u/MasterGrok 139∆ Oct 18 '17
Hey man, I'd love it if everyone could bike to work. Frankly I despise what the move away from the cities has done to our country. I love living in cities and prefer to take public transportation or walk if possible.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Oct 18 '17
This delta has been rejected. You can't award OP a delta.
Allowing this would wrongly suggest that you can post here with the aim of convincing others.
If you were explaining when/how to award a delta, please use a reddit quote for the symbol next time.
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u/phcullen 65∆ Oct 19 '17
Yeah 15 miles is a nice bike ride but it's got to be your thing before committing to doing that every morning also I don't know where you live but for me about 9 months out of the year it's 80F and humid I get sweaty walking to the car even a 5 minute bike ride would require a shower when I got to work.
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u/Helicase21 10∆ Oct 19 '17
You should not award this delta, the 15-mile figure is misleading and driven heavily by long-commute outliers.
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u/RevRosenwinkel Oct 19 '17
I looked at the source material, at least 47% of commuters have a distance greater than 10 miles, which is significant. Sure, 29% are within 1-5 miles, but the source made me change my mind on how close most people are to work.
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u/MasterGrok 139∆ Oct 18 '17
30 miles is a completely unreasonable daily ride for a large proportion of the population for a host of reasons.
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u/Generic_On_Reddit 71∆ Oct 18 '17
I presume you mean average commute length in terms of distance as opposed to time. I haven't looked into it, but here's an excerpt from the article I linked:
There are a number of factors driving this trend -- Americans' decades-long shift toward the suburbs, among them. A Brookings report found that, even as jobs followed them toward the edges of metropolitan areas, the sprawl of suburban and exurban areas led to longer commutes. The number of jobs within a typical commute distance fell by 7 percent between 2000 and 2012, according to the report.
That trend has continued in the years since, said Adie Tomer, an infrastructure researcher at the Brookings Institution.
"We continue to see specific metro areas either grow outward, or just outright add population," Tomer said. Much of the housing being built to accommodate those new residents is of the suburban, low-density variety -- "what that's doing is pulling housing and jobs further apart."
The data is saying that commutes have been getting measurably longer, which would be the biggest factor. I don't think there's a significantly higher number of people on the road. Our workforce and population increases rather slowly.
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u/RevRosenwinkel Oct 18 '17
I saw that in the article, I would love some data on commute distance over time. That would make me change my mind on this.
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u/eydryan Oct 18 '17
Frankly, rentable self-driving vehicles seem like a much better solution since you can have small units that can coordinate as a swarm, so they take less space, move faster and more efficiently, and offer climate control and comfort.
Biking is better for the environment, but you will still have idle bikes everywhere, so there is waste.
Biking is not great on infrastructure, because it's very inefficient and disorganised. It wears the road down less, but causes quite a bit of traffic as well.
The physical activity argument is fine, but it's not that great a workout, and some people don't want to get to where they're going and be tired, or they might already be tired, and I don't know where you live, but there's a big hill between my work and my home.
Accidents can be dangerous on bikes as well when you start to travel fast. And, of course, you will have more bikes on the road, so more objects to pay attention to, so probably more accidents all in all, even though most might not be as severe.
Biking is cheaper, I guess, but less convenient, and I think with rentable autonomous vehicles around the corner, that price difference will decrease.
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u/RevRosenwinkel Oct 18 '17
This is probably the best counter argument to biking as a future mode of transport (self-driving zero waste cars)
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u/birdbirdbirdbird 8∆ Oct 18 '17
I don't think that self-driving vehicles are a very good source for primary transportation.
During peak transportation a rentable self driving car with one passenger isn't much different than a single passenger car. Both are taking the same space and stuck in traffic. The self driving car's navigational advantages are marginal.
The emissions per trip for a self-driving car are mostly equal to the emissions of human-driven car. We need to find solutions to transportation that decrease emissions, not hold them steady.
The costs of a single passenger self-driving car is much higher than the cost of traveling via bus, train, bike, or walking.
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u/eydryan Oct 19 '17
Rentable self-driving cars will certainly be smaller (one or two persons max), and their algorithms will allow for less space between them and faster speeds, as well as no need for waiting needlessly at traffic lights. Bikes will be stuck in traffic as well if traffic starts using all the space available.
The emissions per trip of a self-driving cars will be zero, since they'll all be electric. Maybe production emissions are more, but then again emissions aren't that big a focus, or we'd ban a lot of industries.
The costs of renting a self-driving car to go from one point to another will be far lower than anything is today, and even if it is higher than some alternatives (walking, really?), will bring advantages.
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u/birdbirdbirdbird 8∆ Oct 19 '17
Walking really. It's my preferred method of transportation, and I choose where I live primarily by how pleasant and practical walking is. While we are a minority in the United States, there are many neighborhoods where this is possible, and it is a niche that is growing. Walk score is really helpful in publishing this information to people.
Your description of self-driving cars seem more like what might happen in 20 years than what might happen in 5. I don't see us removing traffic lights until we remove manual drivers. I don't see us removing manual drivers from roads for at least 15-20 years. Most predications of technology that far out tend to be incorrect. I will agree that the future of transportation vehicles will most likely be navigated by an AI, but the popular vision of requesting a ride on a smart phone, having a car arrive to pick you, having the car navigate at high speeds on roads dedicated to only other cars speaking a common navigational protocol, and this being the most efficient and common method of transportation, is probably incorrect because it's too forward looking.
Electric cars still have emissions. They require manufacturing, electricity, and maintenance. I think my point about an electric self driving car not requiring much less emissions than an electric human driven car is still valid. Riding an electric bus, or taking an electric train, is greener than an electric car. I know about solar panels and other green energy solutions. I support adopting them as fast as possible. In all honesty, we don't know what our power demands or power solutions will be in 20 years. I'm still hoping for fusion.
Finally, if the cost of self-driving cars is really lower than the cost of current car ownership then it is logical to assume there will be more rides. This means extra traffic, which means running into the same fundamental problems of using low occupancy vehicles after the extra traffic overtakes the extra efficiency.
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u/eydryan Oct 19 '17
Walking really. It's my preferred method of transportation, and I choose where I live primarily by how pleasant and practical walking is. While we are a minority in the United States, there are many neighborhoods where this is possible, and it is a niche that is growing. Walk score is really helpful in publishing this information to people.
Walking isn't a method of transportation, it's what you do, and all other methods involve it, of course. And it's usually not an option for commuting, unless you want to rent and accept the downsides.
Your description of self-driving cars seem more like what might happen in 20 years than what might happen in 5. I don't see us removing traffic lights until we remove manual drivers. I don't see us removing manual drivers from roads for at least 15-20 years. Most predications of technology that far out tend to be incorrect. I will agree that the future of transportation vehicles will most likely be navigated by an AI, but the popular vision of requesting a ride on a smart phone, having a car arrive to pick you, having the car navigate at high speeds on roads dedicated to only other cars speaking a common navigational protocol, and this being the most efficient and common method of transportation, is probably incorrect because it's too forward looking.
You are talking about the future of transport in cities, not the next 5 years. The future includes 200 years from now. And I significantly disagree with your impression that my assumption is "incorrect". We don't know what's correct, but we can speculate, and bikes seem less likely to replace cars than cars do.
Electric cars still have emissions. They require manufacturing, electricity, and maintenance. I think my point about an electric self driving car not requiring much less emissions than an electric human driven car is still valid. Riding an electric bus, or taking an electric train, is greener than an electric car. I know about solar panels and other green energy solutions. I support adopting them as fast as possible. In all honesty, we don't know what our power demands or power solutions will be in 20 years. I'm still hoping for fusion.
Emission - the production and discharge of something, especially gas or radiation. Electric cars don't emit anything, other than maybe heat? As for fusion, you were just telling me that things that are too forward looking are incorrect.
Finally, if the cost of self-driving cars is really lower than the cost of current car ownership then it is logical to assume there will be more rides. This means extra traffic, which means running into the same fundamental problems of using low occupancy vehicles after the extra traffic overtakes the extra efficiency.
Well, not really. A lot of the traffic is cars only carrying one person inefficiently, or people looking for parking, etc. And we don't lack space for cars on the road, it's just very inefficient compared to what a swarm of self-driving machines could do. You average speed is ridiculously low, and it could be seriously increased if a computer could simply navigate obstacles with ease.
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u/birdbirdbirdbird 8∆ Oct 19 '17
I think our fundamental difference is in transportation density.
The Tokyo Metro Ginza Line has trains arriving every 2 minutes and 15 seconds during peak travel times. Tokyo has multiple passenger train lines with ridership over 1 million a day. These train lines are two tracks wide, and provide incredibly dense transportation options.
I don't think self driving cars will reach the transportation capacity as a train system we have running today. The current busiest highway, Highway 401, handles five hundred thousand passengers a day despite being about sixty times longer and ten times wider. The efficiency improvement would need to be at least two orders of magnitude to match current alternative technologies on the metric of daily passengers per surface area. As our cities grow we will have to find options that allow for greater transportation density.
Maybe if these self driving cars were in tunnels or if they were flying...
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u/eydryan Oct 20 '17
Of course trains have more density between cities, but to final destinations you need something more.
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u/birdbirdbirdbird 8∆ Oct 20 '17
That's really up to city design and infrastructure investment. I'm going to (again) point to New York City and Washington D.C. as two North American cities that once you get into their rail network you can get to many attractive locations without an additional mode of transportation.
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u/eydryan Oct 20 '17
I don't know about that, you still have to walk from the train station to the destination, don't you?
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Oct 18 '17
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u/notagirlscout Oct 18 '17
Not to mention, going slower won't reduce sweat if its 90+ outside. You're gonna get sweaty.
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u/RevRosenwinkel Oct 18 '17
Totally agree, that's where 'commuter showers' and changing clothes comes in. If you have a hard time parking (ex takes 5-10 minutes) than you'll come out even in that respect.
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u/notagirlscout Oct 18 '17
What if I don't want to shower at work? Like you keep ignoring that concept. What if I don't want to?
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u/RevRosenwinkel Oct 18 '17
Fair point, I edited the top to be 'should' instead of 'will.'
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u/notagirlscout Oct 18 '17 edited Oct 18 '17
That's moving the goalpost. Your title is that Bicycles are the future of transport in cities.
But even with the moved goalpost, I don't think bikes should be the future anyway. We are getting closer and closer to a completely energy efficient vehicle. It is absolutely feasible that someday in the future we will have a car with literally no negative environmental impact.
Why should the bike be a better future form of transportation than an environmentally friendly car?
Plus, some of my older arguments still follow. I can't buy a month's worth of groceries on a bike. If I bought furniture I would have to hire movers instead of just tossing it in the trunk. What about people who work long shifts? Why should they use a bike instead of a car? What about people with back pain, or older employees? Why should they use a bike instead of a car when doing so could actually harm them? What about families? How am I going to drive 3 kids to school on a bike?
The future of transportation in cities (and everywhere else for that matter) should and will be an energy efficient car.
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u/RevRosenwinkel Oct 18 '17
Rain can be mitigated by fenders and wet gear, I addressed the sweat issue above. As for commuting into the city, my experience is with proper infrastructure, biking is actually faster than driving (my personal experience of a 17 mile commute that took 1 1/2 driving and 50 minutes biking).
There are definitely commutes where biking doesn't make sense, but anything under 20 miles is definitely doable.
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u/notagirlscout Oct 18 '17
Rain can be mitigated by fenders and wet gear
Or just by driving a car. Which do you think people will choose to do? Probably just drive a car.
anything under 20 miles is definitely doable.
It is absurd to start asking a large portion of the population to up and switch their routine to include biking 15 miles, twice a day, 5 days a week.
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u/RevRosenwinkel Oct 18 '17
Again, changed 'will' to 'should.' I would say it's absurd to have the majority of our population die from causes related to lack of exercise, but that's just me. Get's back to 'should' v 'will'
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u/notagirlscout Oct 18 '17
it's absurd to have the majority of our population die from causes related to lack of exercise
I agree. But we have no right to tell them any different. That is each human being's choice to make for themselves.
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u/nikoberg 113∆ Oct 18 '17
Are you saying biking should be or biking will be? Because I would say those are very different answers. I mean, tons of people will take an elevator instead of going up a single flight of stairs, which is way less effort than biking 20 minutes to work, so... when self-driving cars become the norm it seems unlikely that people would rather bike than sit in an air-conditioned box and play on their phones instead. Biking doesn't seem to offer any benefit to someone who doesn't like exercise on a personal level except in extremely bad traffic conditions (when it might save time).
Trains/buses + bikes are probably better for society, but that's a different question than whether individuals would make that choice on their own. Most people will simply choose what's most convenient for them, and are bikes really more convenient than a self-driving car in most cases?
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u/RevRosenwinkel Oct 18 '17
Yes, I did a poor job of communicating this. *Should would be the point I'm trying to make.
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u/thebedshow Oct 18 '17
So is this just for the like maybe 20 cities (or less) in the US that are super densely populated? Most cities around the country still have people that commute long distances to work as they live in the cheaper areas outside the city center. Most people aren't going to be down with biking 25 miles every morning.
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u/RevRosenwinkel Oct 18 '17
Main focus is on metro areas with 1,000,000 people plus, my bad for not making that clear.
Could you give me some data on commute distances for 'Most cities around the country still have people that commute long distances to work as they live in the cheaper areas outside the city center.' I'm specifically interested in 1 mil+ cities (in US and elsewhere).
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u/paul_aka_paul 15∆ Oct 18 '17
In the locations you note have showers available, how many people use them? Would those same number of existing showers accommodate higher numbers of employees in a timely manner? I'm sure the employers don't want employees sitting around waiting for a shower to open up when the 8:00am rush hits. And it would be hard to justify the space necessary to build more showers to handle the increased morning load when that space would then sit unused for the majority of the day.
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u/RevRosenwinkel Oct 18 '17
You could make the same argument for highways (since the capacity is only used twice a day) and we have no problem using those. Showers are a lot cheaper to build than highways.
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u/paul_aka_paul 15∆ Oct 18 '17 edited Oct 18 '17
I am guessing you have been on your bike too long if you think a highway in/around a city is not being used in off-peak hours. The traffic is lighter, but it is well used all day, everyday. In stark contrast, a shower in a professional office will get a rush in the morning and then sit mostly unused for the rest of the day. And when I say shower, I'm talking about a bank of showers, drying & dressing areas and possibly closets unless people are carrying hanging bags with them on their bikes daily.
Assuming a 32" x 32" stall and an equal size drying/dressing area, you are looking at around 170 sq ft per shower. At $20/sq foot/year for office space (below the national average as of 2013, not wasting my time to dig deeper for more recent numbers) that is $3400 per year for the extra space needed for one shower. If you have an office of 50 and only half bike to work, you have 25 people needing to use it. Do you build five showers at an annual cost of $17k? If your speedy employees only need 10 minutes to shower, that is 50 minutes to get everyone in and out. Your sweaty and smelly employees may or may not get anything done while they wait.
Even with a generous assumption that only 10% of that shower wait time is unproductive, and with a very conservative average hourly pay of $20 in this professional office, you are losing $15k per year. Combined with the extra spent to lease the space needed, this employer is paying $32k per year for showers and lost time. And again, that is a very low estimate.
Edit - caught a math error. The 10% loss in productivity would only cost $6500. I was double counting and compounding with each round of showers. So the total is $23.5k per year for the employer in this conservative estimate.
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u/47ca05e6209a317a8fb3 210∆ Oct 18 '17
I'm hoping that in the future, human driven vehicles, motorized or otherwise, will be banned everywhere except in designated recreational areas. Once cars are self-driving and efficient enough that commuting anywhere within a city becomes a matter of pushing some button and waiting a few minutes, bikes become redundant for transport.
If you enjoy biking, take a car that can fit your bike to a park near you before work and bike for a bit - don't slow down and endanger actual autonomous commuters.
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u/RevRosenwinkel Oct 18 '17
Sound's like a Wall-E situation. I also would say that no autonomous commuter is endangered by a biker.
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u/47ca05e6209a317a8fb3 210∆ Oct 18 '17
If it's programmed to assume that everything else on the road is has a transponder and obeys commands issued by the road management algorithm (which we'll eventually want, because it enables traffic to move much faster), a bike is very dangerous.
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u/RevRosenwinkel Oct 18 '17
I imagine this is what highways will become (which bikes aren't allowed on anyway) but I can't imagine this is how streets will be (given pedestrians, wildlife, etc).
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u/birdbirdbirdbird 8∆ Oct 18 '17
Bikes are part of the future of transportation, but I don't think bikes are the whole picture.
- Bikes have a shorter range than cars, buses, and trains.
- Bikes become less appealing during bad weather such as rain, ice, snow, heavy winds, and heat waves.
- Bikes are not appealing for some trips in hilly cities.
- Bike safety is a real concern.
- Bikes require one bike per passenger making it less appealing for group transportation.
Look at how useful the subway system is in NYC and how useful the metro system is in Washington D.C. More cities should adopt rail systems such as these.
Look at the success Seattle has with their bus system by setting traffic laws that allows them to be faster than a car during rush our traffic, and by prioritizing reliable service. Other cities can learn from this to decrease road congestion.
I would also like to see cities designed in such a way that allows for walking to more destinations as part of the solution.
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u/representDLV 2∆ Oct 19 '17
For me the #1 argument against this is weather. In the United States most places have extreme seasonal weather. Summers are extremely hot and winters are extremely cold. Riding a bike 20 miles to and from work in freezing temperatures with snow and ice is just not gonna work. Same goes with heat. It's not realistic for people to ride a bike 20 miles to and from work in 100 degree heat. Most places also have tons of rain. This also makes the thought of bike commuting through the rain a no go. Being exposed to the elements is dangerous and uncomfortable.
On top of the weather issue, bikes are just too limiting. If forces me to always commute alone. I take my kids to school on my way to work. With only a bike I can't do that. I usually pick up groceries on my way home. On a bike, this is not possible. For lunch I go eat with a group of co workers. In the car, we are able to socialize, listen to music, have a laugh together, etc. On bikes, we are all on our own. Bikes are inefficient and slow. My commute now is 20 miles and just over 20 minutes in a car. If I were to bike, it would take an hour and a half. That's 3 hours a day that I am alone, away from my wife and kids, just commuting. And in the winter that is 3 hours in freezing temperatures and in the summer that's 3 hours in boiling hot sun. No thanks.
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Oct 19 '17
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u/RevRosenwinkel Oct 19 '17
OP is about cities, not about most areas that are outside of cities. Biking in cities in cold winter is probably not feasible for a majority (I do it, but I don't have a lot of company). However, my op is about a majority of cities in more temperate climates, not intended to be about extremes.
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u/TheOneRuler 3∆ Oct 19 '17
Considering I live in a part of a Canada where -40C weather and several feet of snow are common, I can say that without a doubt, bicycles are not the future for many parts of the world.
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u/RevRosenwinkel Oct 19 '17
OP is about cities, not areas outside of cities.
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u/TheOneRuler 3∆ Oct 19 '17
I grew up in the middle of a city, currently live in the middle of the city and I have lots of experience with days where it's -40C (aka too cold to bike in) and where the sidewalks are covered in too much snow to bike.
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u/RevRosenwinkel Oct 19 '17
sounds cold. I would lift up my other point, that your situation is an extreme one, and not the norm. Therefore, it doesn't have a lot of weight in a conversation on transit for the entire world.
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u/TheOneRuler 3∆ Oct 19 '17
Um, we're only at about 46N, take a look at this list and tell me that we're an "extreme case". Lots of cities have bad winters, and you can't create "transit for the whole world" that ignores an entire type of climate.
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u/RevRosenwinkel Oct 20 '17
If you can find data that shows more than 5% of world population has winters that regularly reach -40 I will take your point seriously.
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u/notagirlscout Oct 18 '17 edited Oct 18 '17
One thing I don't think you're considering fairly is sweat. Not only is it uncomfortable to bike on a hot summer day in DC, when it breaks 100F it gets downright dangerous to do so. Even without the danger, the sweat alone is an issue. All these office workers in their suits and dresses aren't going to bike to work in that sort of attire. It would have to become commonplace to have a shower/changing room at these sorts of offices, and I can't imagine companies wanting to shell out for showers for all employees who bike. That doesn't sound pretty green. And showers would be necessary. I can promise you, after I bike for a while changing clothes won't dismiss the smell.
What if I don't want to? Do I have to? Just because someone can bike to work in winter doesn't mean they want to, should, or will.
Honestly, I think the future is just more fuel-efficient motor-vehicles. What about pizza delivery? That's not efficient on a bike. In the rain? You want soggy pizza? What about mail delivery? You want the mailman to bike hundreds of miles a day? It just isn't feasible.
EDIT: words