Written by a USian because they never encountered bike traffic and bike parking problems, which are issues basically in any west European city
My town used to have problems with this up until a decade ago (sadly most people switched to cars by now).
We have several factories here and they all had to have their own bike parking lots which used to be a sight of its own, with bikes hanging from walls and even roofs sometimes.
Drivers hated it specially during end of shift times as the streets would get a massive amount of bikes and even if there were not that many of them, folks would cycle side by side with their friends and neighbors which slowed down the car traffic anyway.
Now that most people use cars, the dedicated parking areas that were used for bikes are mostly empty or at most been converted into a couple parking spaces for cars, which gets reserved for higher ranking employees only since its limited. There are no parking lots anywhere so people park their cars on the street.
Most streets had to be converted to maximize parking space, which took even more space than the side-by-side bikers used to and slowed traffic more as well. Food trucks were banned so it doesn't take parking space. Traffic lights were all replaced by mini roundabouts (not sure what the name is in English). Between 5 and 7pm it takes several minutes to get a chance to cross a street now.
I desperately want to bike everywhere but the hills in my neighborhood are too extreme. Going down them is scary and trying to peddle up them killed me.
I am dead now.
Incompatible with traffic jams
You would be surprised. Rush hour in Copenhagen is quite something.
collisions are significantly less likely to kill
I guess if it is with another bike...
With any other non-motorized traffic participant.
There's 2 types of bikers, those who are sweaty af and love it and those who are sweaty af and miserable and the latter is why people prefer cars. Me? I want a train... that i can drive OFF ROAD!
those who are sweaty af and miserable and the latter is why people prefer cars
but now that ebikes and electric motorcycles exist cars should basically be banned in all downtown areas
People have the wrong kind of bikes. You either need a cheap women's bike that goes 20 km/h if you try hard and 15 km/h if you go easy (you will chill!) or an Ebike if you got the cash.
Everything else is a hobby bike.
Living in a flat city, I have the opposite philosophy: biking is more fun if you go fast without putting in any effort, and you don't need an e-bike for that: you need an excellent bike that's built reliable.
I have a 2k€ city bike that I bought like a decade ago. Configured for max reliability, it only needed absolutely minimal repairs so far. E.g. it has a belt instead of a chain which I didn't need to touch yet. It was like 200€ out of the 2k, but it not needing maintenance is so convenient.
What about a train bike
Bike slower if you get super sweaty.
You must live somewhere with hills.
Too many hills :(
e-Bikes ;)
[Laughs in Dutch]
Oh yeah but the RANGE on these things SUCK. How am I supposed to travel 500 miles in a single trip!
High speed rail, there is hands down no better way to travel 500 miles in a single trip.
I think it might be a bit dangerous to ride a bike on a high speed rail. And I don't see how it would help either.
But consider that the speed of the train and the bike are additive
Eating 566 Nerds gummy clusters at a rate of one every 3 minutes and 30 seconds.
Having a bear chase you the whole distance helps
i pick the bear
Yeah but can I eat a burger while riding a bike? Checkmate atheists.
You can! Just gotta learn how to bike without using your hands. I see people do all sorts of dumb shit in bikes in Copenhagen
yes?
I've eaten slices of pizza from the box while riding before lmao
dudes rock
skill
let me tell you, I can no longer do this
damn i gotta get my bike serviced and start riding again
I'm sold then.
hell yeah
and you can wash it down with a beer in a paper bag, and hardly anyone will care because you aren't in a megagram+ mass vehicle
You can if you're brave
Once you get used to it, keeping your bike up becomes nearly as natural as standing on two legs. You don't even notice it anymore but you shift your weight to keep it steady as needed. The only risk is hitting something on the road that causes the tire to suddenly shift direction, but even then that something needs to be able to break the momentum so a bit of speed is enough to protect you from most pebbles and other small stuff that you won't see quickly enough to avoid. You do need more space to maneuver through.
Cars:
Have air conditioning
And need big asphalt roads that retain heat and make the surrounding area significantly warmer compared to either light rail, smaller roads needed for bikes and even regular train tracks
To be fair they don't necessarily need asphalt roads. That's just what used to be the most convenient and relatively cheaper kind of road. There are other options these days that are better both for the vehicles and for the environment - but even if those better options were used, your point still stands in general.
And a lot of areas would be cooler without cars its crazy how much a traffic jam heats up an area when you have a bunch of cars idling
chopping down all the trees and paving a 12 ft wide strip of black tarmac so cars can even drive there in the first place also massively increases the temperature
Cars:
Also require everything to be further away, increasing your time in extreme weather.
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