Fun fact: The distance at which bikes with good paths are faster than metros / rapid transit / commuter rail, or light rail is surprisingly large. I commute to the center of Munich, 14 kilometers one way. It is about 50 minutes on the bike and 60-75 by light rail. And I go at leisurly speed. Plus the bike is much more reliable (outside of icy winter weather, where bike paths are not cleared).
Edit: I’d like to add that for bikes, you don’t need necessarily need a single 7 meter wide connection. Four connections, each 2 meters wide, will do fine, too!
Thanks for that. I wonder if anyone has developed a rough algorithm for it? I’m sure it depends on the infrastructure. My city is maybe 25% designed for bicycles (optimistically) so I imagine it would score lower than a lot of modernized European metro areas. And that makes me sad.
The season just ended, but every Monday I go cycling though a different urban neighborhood with ~600 other people so hopefully we can make an impression and improve things.
I have seen web sites which show the estimated average travel time from one place in a color-coded map.
Practically spoken, you can compare the estimated travel time from public transit apps or google maps with rough route planning in openstreetmap.org.
Concretely, I use the https://brouter.de/brouter-web app at my PC to plan commute routes, and set my own average speed (which is about 15 km/h - younger people with a bit of training might reach 20 km/h). (One could also use the OSMand app on the smart phone (or one of its open source forks), which underneath uses openstreetmap and brouter as well. But I find the phone display just too small to do that comfortably).
The trick for going fast, safe and relaxed along longer distances is to select routes with few intersections and traffic lights. In my case, around 35% of the daily commute is a cyclepath at the side of a motorway, 20% is along Munich’s river Isar, much of the rest are so-called bike roads with reduced speed for cars which attract a lot of bike traffic in the city.
Oh, and if you ever need to commute longer distances outside cities, consider a velomobile (for smooth concrete roads) or a recumbent bike (for dirt roads). They are great for that and you get more speed for your energy.
Yeah I had a commute through Boston US and the subway took 40-45 mins including 5 mins walk each end and the bike took 30-33 mins door to door. Subway was 50-70 for a while there when overdue critical repair work was ongoing. The subway route was straighter too.
the problem with bicycles is they are not weather proof. if it’s cold or hot or stormy or hails, bicycles suck. then on top you’re excluding people who are not physically fit enough to use a bicycle for more than 5 minutes. and that includes people with disabilities of all kind.
so you still need public transport options anyway. on days with bad weather, you can expect that at least 90% of people are gonna prefer public transport, so you have to size your buses and trams large enough to carry the full population anyways.
so now you already have full public transport. at this point, why bother with bicycles, apart from the fun and physical exercise people get?
that’s why i conclude that bicycles are only for recreation/sports, not actually for mass transport.
the problem with bicycles is they are not weather proof. if it’s cold or hot or stormy or hails, bicycles suck.
You can certainly use bicycles in many kinds of weather. Because this is a world-wide forum, we need to be a bit more specific about the weather conditions:
You can ride bikes when it is raining, even heavily so. (Here in Germany, this happens less frequently than 20 years ago). Good rain clothes help with that.
You can also ride a bike during stormy weather, though one needs to be a bit more careful. Said that, I have lived in Scotland and Northern Germany (which often has stormy weather in winter), and have been blown off my bike only a single time in, wait, over 40 years. And no, I am using bikes all the time - I never had a car.
You can also ride bikes in quite cold weather - they are popular in Finland even in deep winter. What you do need to do then is to protect your extremities, especially hand and feet and also the face, against the cold. I use bar mittens (like these) for long rides in temperatures below - 10° C, and I find them super comfortable. If the road is a bit icy, studded tyres are great! In Germany, not much people use bikes in icy weather but this is mostly due to bike paths not cleaned from ice by the municipal road service, snow is melting and freezing again for days so that they can not be used in a safe way. In Finland, things are different, and bikes are used even in deep winter, as a preferred mode of transport.
The limit is probably for extremely hot and humid temperatures, like are frequent in India, East-Asia, and some parts of Brazil. Here in Southern Germany, we rarely have above 33°C and perhaps 60% humidity, and being on the bike is still more comfortable than using a bus with poor ventilation, and much more comfortable than using a car without AC. Actually, I have now read several times of incidents in summer where AC was broken in very full trains, but never of any health damage a person took because of commuting by bike in hot weather. That’s because the movement provides ventilation by the headwind, and ventilation cools (at that European level of humidity). (One more funny thing is that in Germany, AC in cars became only popular in the last 15 years or so. Now, some people are saying that on a bike, you “get too sweaty” for working in an office in Summer. That’s funny, because entering a car without AC on a warm day was always like entering an oven, but nobody ever suggested to use the bike instead because it was less hot. All in all, that is just one of the many ways how people use made-up arguments to rationalize decisions that maximize their comfort, but are bad for their health).
then on top you’re excluding people who are not physically fit enough to use a bicycle for more than 5 minutes. and that includes people with disabilities of all kind.
I think you are making a mistake here, and this seems to affect the central point of your argumentation: You are assuming that somebody is demanding that a whole city uses either bikes or public transport, in an exclusive way. In reality, bikes and public transport are superb complements. Reasons for that include speed, economical factors, travel time, last-mile connections, urban life and more. Last not least because public transport in metros is two orders of magnitude more expensive than bikes, and therefore always limited in capacity. You can see this is way: Each time you are using a crowded metro, bus or street car, when you could as well go by bike, you are taking away a place from an perhaps elderly or ill person which really needs it.
In contrary, cars are not helpful for disabled and elderly people: Not only they can often not drive them, but they take away walking space and make their transport less safe.
so you still need public transport options anyway.
Of course, nobody was saying that one should exclusively use bikes! This is a strawman argument.
on days with bad weather, you can expect that at least 90% of people are gonna prefer public transport, so you have to size your buses and trams large enough to carry the full population anyways.
That depends a lot on culture and also on whether you have safe bike paths. Generally, normally rain, warm or cold weather does not impede cycling. What is making the difference is safe infrastructure and ways. One can see that clearly from the enormous rise of popularity of using bikes in Paris, once the necessary safe infrastructure was there.
so now you already have full public transport. at this point, why bother with bicycles, apart from the fun and physical exercise people get?
Again, bike and public transport are great complements - public transport will always be needed for elderly / disabled / ill people, and commuting or travelling large distances, and bikes are more economical, faster, and more convenient for shorter distances.
that’s why i conclude that bicycles are only for recreation/sports, not actually for mass transport.
Looks like you never have lived in a city or culture where the bike is a normal mode of transport. I guess you are American?
(And yes, I am aware that a community like this one which discusses alternatives to fossil-free transportation, might be frequented by poorly-informed people and also be targeted by astroturfing and 10-cent armies directed by the fossil fuel industry… one sees this in every discussion on climate protection.)
(And yes, I am aware that a community like this one which discusses alternatives to fossil-free transportation, might be frequented by poorly-informed people and also be targeted by astroturfing and 10-cent armies directed by the fossil fuel industry… one sees this in every discussion on climate protection.)
downvote for insinuating that i’m a paid bot of the fossil fuels industry for disagreeing with you.
Which leads to the question why are you telling such things?
And why I immediately think in astroturfing when I read such statements - I have seen them many times always when the discussion was how to reduce car dependency. And what raises my suspicion is that they come as (incorrect) fact statements, while at the same time they mostly emotionally appeal to discomfort - especially to people which do not know the situation by own experience. The thing is that when moving on a bike, factors like rain, cold or warm weather are actually much less uncomfortable than when you are standing outside, waiting for a bus, or sitting in a car. Because the movement warms your body in the cold (you need far less clothing than when hiking), and in warm weather the movement through the air boosts evaporative cooling.
So, the whole statements looks to me as if geared toward dissuading people which lack own experience.
I guess for bicycles, you’d get that down to about 7 meters. Estimated from heavily used bike lanes in Copenhagen where at rush hour two bikes per second pass (7200 persons per hour). Edit: Here is a video of bike rush hour in Amsterdam - try to count the number of persons passing per second.
Fun fact: The distance at which bikes with good paths are faster than metros / rapid transit / commuter rail, or light rail is surprisingly large. I commute to the center of Munich, 14 kilometers one way. It is about 50 minutes on the bike and 60-75 by light rail. And I go at leisurly speed. Plus the bike is much more reliable (outside of icy winter weather, where bike paths are not cleared).
Edit: I’d like to add that for bikes, you don’t need necessarily need a single 7 meter wide connection. Four connections, each 2 meters wide, will do fine, too!
Thanks for that. I wonder if anyone has developed a rough algorithm for it? I’m sure it depends on the infrastructure. My city is maybe 25% designed for bicycles (optimistically) so I imagine it would score lower than a lot of modernized European metro areas. And that makes me sad.
The season just ended, but every Monday I go cycling though a different urban neighborhood with ~600 other people so hopefully we can make an impression and improve things.
I have seen web sites which show the estimated average travel time from one place in a color-coded map.
Practically spoken, you can compare the estimated travel time from public transit apps or google maps with rough route planning in openstreetmap.org.
Concretely, I use the https://brouter.de/brouter-web app at my PC to plan commute routes, and set my own average speed (which is about 15 km/h - younger people with a bit of training might reach 20 km/h). (One could also use the OSMand app on the smart phone (or one of its open source forks), which underneath uses openstreetmap and brouter as well. But I find the phone display just too small to do that comfortably).
The trick for going fast, safe and relaxed along longer distances is to select routes with few intersections and traffic lights. In my case, around 35% of the daily commute is a cyclepath at the side of a motorway, 20% is along Munich’s river Isar, much of the rest are so-called bike roads with reduced speed for cars which attract a lot of bike traffic in the city.
Oh, and if you ever need to commute longer distances outside cities, consider a velomobile (for smooth concrete roads) or a recumbent bike (for dirt roads). They are great for that and you get more speed for your energy.
Or just work remotely from home.
Yeah I had a commute through Boston US and the subway took 40-45 mins including 5 mins walk each end and the bike took 30-33 mins door to door. Subway was 50-70 for a while there when overdue critical repair work was ongoing. The subway route was straighter too.
the problem with bicycles is they are not weather proof. if it’s cold or hot or stormy or hails, bicycles suck. then on top you’re excluding people who are not physically fit enough to use a bicycle for more than 5 minutes. and that includes people with disabilities of all kind.
so you still need public transport options anyway. on days with bad weather, you can expect that at least 90% of people are gonna prefer public transport, so you have to size your buses and trams large enough to carry the full population anyways.
so now you already have full public transport. at this point, why bother with bicycles, apart from the fun and physical exercise people get?
that’s why i conclude that bicycles are only for recreation/sports, not actually for mass transport.
You can certainly use bicycles in many kinds of weather. Because this is a world-wide forum, we need to be a bit more specific about the weather conditions:
You can ride bikes when it is raining, even heavily so. (Here in Germany, this happens less frequently than 20 years ago). Good rain clothes help with that.
You can also ride a bike during stormy weather, though one needs to be a bit more careful. Said that, I have lived in Scotland and Northern Germany (which often has stormy weather in winter), and have been blown off my bike only a single time in, wait, over 40 years. And no, I am using bikes all the time - I never had a car.
You can also ride bikes in quite cold weather - they are popular in Finland even in deep winter. What you do need to do then is to protect your extremities, especially hand and feet and also the face, against the cold. I use bar mittens (like these) for long rides in temperatures below - 10° C, and I find them super comfortable. If the road is a bit icy, studded tyres are great! In Germany, not much people use bikes in icy weather but this is mostly due to bike paths not cleaned from ice by the municipal road service, snow is melting and freezing again for days so that they can not be used in a safe way. In Finland, things are different, and bikes are used even in deep winter, as a preferred mode of transport.
The limit is probably for extremely hot and humid temperatures, like are frequent in India, East-Asia, and some parts of Brazil. Here in Southern Germany, we rarely have above 33°C and perhaps 60% humidity, and being on the bike is still more comfortable than using a bus with poor ventilation, and much more comfortable than using a car without AC. Actually, I have now read several times of incidents in summer where AC was broken in very full trains, but never of any health damage a person took because of commuting by bike in hot weather. That’s because the movement provides ventilation by the headwind, and ventilation cools (at that European level of humidity). (One more funny thing is that in Germany, AC in cars became only popular in the last 15 years or so. Now, some people are saying that on a bike, you “get too sweaty” for working in an office in Summer. That’s funny, because entering a car without AC on a warm day was always like entering an oven, but nobody ever suggested to use the bike instead because it was less hot. All in all, that is just one of the many ways how people use made-up arguments to rationalize decisions that maximize their comfort, but are bad for their health).
I think you are making a mistake here, and this seems to affect the central point of your argumentation: You are assuming that somebody is demanding that a whole city uses either bikes or public transport, in an exclusive way. In reality, bikes and public transport are superb complements. Reasons for that include speed, economical factors, travel time, last-mile connections, urban life and more. Last not least because public transport in metros is two orders of magnitude more expensive than bikes, and therefore always limited in capacity. You can see this is way: Each time you are using a crowded metro, bus or street car, when you could as well go by bike, you are taking away a place from an perhaps elderly or ill person which really needs it.
In contrary, cars are not helpful for disabled and elderly people: Not only they can often not drive them, but they take away walking space and make their transport less safe.
Of course, nobody was saying that one should exclusively use bikes! This is a strawman argument.
That depends a lot on culture and also on whether you have safe bike paths. Generally, normally rain, warm or cold weather does not impede cycling. What is making the difference is safe infrastructure and ways. One can see that clearly from the enormous rise of popularity of using bikes in Paris, once the necessary safe infrastructure was there.
Again, bike and public transport are great complements - public transport will always be needed for elderly / disabled / ill people, and commuting or travelling large distances, and bikes are more economical, faster, and more convenient for shorter distances.
Looks like you never have lived in a city or culture where the bike is a normal mode of transport. I guess you are American?
(And yes, I am aware that a community like this one which discusses alternatives to fossil-free transportation, might be frequented by poorly-informed people and also be targeted by astroturfing and 10-cent armies directed by the fossil fuel industry… one sees this in every discussion on climate protection.)
downvote for insinuating that i’m a paid bot of the fossil fuels industry for disagreeing with you.
You were insinuating that cycling in the rain like here does not exist or is not possible.
That’s bullshit.
Which leads to the question why are you telling such things?
And why I immediately think in astroturfing when I read such statements - I have seen them many times always when the discussion was how to reduce car dependency. And what raises my suspicion is that they come as (incorrect) fact statements, while at the same time they mostly emotionally appeal to discomfort - especially to people which do not know the situation by own experience. The thing is that when moving on a bike, factors like rain, cold or warm weather are actually much less uncomfortable than when you are standing outside, waiting for a bus, or sitting in a car. Because the movement warms your body in the cold (you need far less clothing than when hiking), and in warm weather the movement through the air boosts evaporative cooling.
So, the whole statements looks to me as if geared toward dissuading people which lack own experience.