> Parts of the country are really spread out, parts are brutally cold, windy, and rainy, and yes some parts are lovely and sunny and packed to the gills.
Strongly agree on the spread out part, though that is (in part) a symptom of widely used planning doctrine in North America (parking minimums, maximum lot coverage, and very wide minimum lane widths). Cold, wind, and rain are all issues, but they can be overcome (and have been in some jurisdictions) - not for everyone, but if a few percentage do it it's better for everyone.
Most cycling activism I see focuses as much on advantages for drivers as anything. The North American population has been urbanizing at a high rate - for a few decades, that was accommodated with suburbs and car based transportation. Many cities are now at the point where key corridors are congested for hours morning and evening (and expanding these corridors, at great cost, would only buy a few years or a decade of congestion relief). Cycling (and transit) are both low capital cost methods to relieve congestion - get an extra 5% commuting by bike and another 10% going by bus, and you have a lot of growth room available for cars. But both these need density to be reasonable: if you have density to begin with (European and Asian cities), mass transit and cycling are obvious/sensible responses. If you're starting with a low density area, it takes incentives to get past some inflection point of density. (Or stop growing, but not many cities are doing that, and none willingly)
> The problem is that evangelists for Bike Jesus never seem to accept that, and there’s always one or two who claim to live in Antarctica with a family of 6, and all while only riding a bike.
Flamebaiting exaggerations like this really do no one any good, and are against the intention of this website. Check out the comment guidelines. [0]
Strongly agree on the spread out part, though that is (in part) a symptom of widely used planning doctrine in North America (parking minimums, maximum lot coverage, and very wide minimum lane widths). Cold, wind, and rain are all issues, but they can be overcome (and have been in some jurisdictions) - not for everyone, but if a few percentage do it it's better for everyone.
Most cycling activism I see focuses as much on advantages for drivers as anything. The North American population has been urbanizing at a high rate - for a few decades, that was accommodated with suburbs and car based transportation. Many cities are now at the point where key corridors are congested for hours morning and evening (and expanding these corridors, at great cost, would only buy a few years or a decade of congestion relief). Cycling (and transit) are both low capital cost methods to relieve congestion - get an extra 5% commuting by bike and another 10% going by bus, and you have a lot of growth room available for cars. But both these need density to be reasonable: if you have density to begin with (European and Asian cities), mass transit and cycling are obvious/sensible responses. If you're starting with a low density area, it takes incentives to get past some inflection point of density. (Or stop growing, but not many cities are doing that, and none willingly)
> The problem is that evangelists for Bike Jesus never seem to accept that, and there’s always one or two who claim to live in Antarctica with a family of 6, and all while only riding a bike.
Flamebaiting exaggerations like this really do no one any good, and are against the intention of this website. Check out the comment guidelines. [0]
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html