cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/16133154
Link to original Tweet: https://x.com/DavidZipper/status/1795048724021862898
I wonder if it has anything g to do with all the advertisements for luxury cars in every edition of the paper… :-/ Cheers for the post.
Or oil companies selling gas.
I skimmed the picture first, and thought you were talking about escooters which are terrible, ebikes are great though.
Why do you think escooters are terrible?
There are two kinds of escooters, the rentable, and personal.
The rentable escooter are absolute shit, they are scattered over cities, making is difficult for disabled people to get by, they promote use without helmets which increase severity and frequency of accidents, they also are driven recklessly.
The personal escooters are mostly fine, people drive them less recklessly, often wear helmets and in general take better care of them.
Both types are bad in that they move people away from existing public transport lowering demand meaning that public transport gets less money which lowers the quallity and again moves people away from public transport.
Ebikes doesn’t have that direct cause and affect as they mostly replace cars, ebikes also tend to have less severe accidents as the result of the combination of larger wheels with better banace, a better riding possition with a lower center of gravity again improving balance
I live in Taipei and it’s also pretty dense and even tho we have one of the best transit systems, an escooter is much better for the last leg of the trip.
And now the incentive for the public transport company to improve last mile service is gone.
Why would you expect public transport to take you the last step?
Why would you not have a bus stop within walking distance of your destination?
There’s a lack of infrastructure to accommodate rental scooters which cause the problems you mentioned. Having safe places to ride (i.e bike lanes) and designated places to park them would solve these issues. I could also argue that cars do all the same things.
Reducing demand for public transport is a good thing in a developed city. You want there to be more space for people that aren’t going to choose micromobility, which is much cheaper for a city to provide more capacity for.
I’d be interested to see some research into your theory of ebikes replacing more car journeys and escooters replacing more public transport journeys.
I agree with your points on why ebikes are safer, but scooters are also more compact and therefore easier to transport and store when not riding, and the safety issue is really solved by having safe places to ride. Having the choice available is important because different people have different priorities and preferences.
Thr lack of infrastructure for rental scooters is intentional though. It makes their overhead non-existent while making their scooters the city’s problem. The Netherlands figured out how to do bike rentals decades ago, but just leaving a bike/scooter wherever is a menace to the community. People used to keave them in my yard or the middle of the sidewalk until my town banned them. Personal scooters are fine, but Bird and Lime are terrible.
Bike rental in the Netherlands is great for certain uses but not for others. You can’t use the OV-fiets as a tourist, and you generally have to take them back to where you got them from.
Docked systems are better, and you can remove most of the cost of the docks by doing the “dockless docks” where you just have to return them to designated areas. This can work for both bikes and scooters.
Companies like bird & lime take advantage of the lack of regulations, but there’s clearly a demand. Cities can take advantage of this by regulating, providing infrastructure, and charging the companies to operate, things already done for cars.
I think that e-bikes and e-scooters are misrepresented by few a-holes who makes motorbikes from them.
Yes when you brake the law and are going 30 km/h in a bike lane you are a-hole but most of them are ok.
Many e-scooters IME are driven by idiots with a DUI. And they’re exploiting a loophole that lets you drive on the roads at road speeds even if you’ve lost your license for drunk driving.
E-bikes are awesome though!
Here (in EU) I know lots of people who use them legitimately, but no one checks for removal of speed limiter.
Now at least they have to have insurance so it may decrease the number of a-holes because it is easy to check.
In California the speed limit is now very high for class III e-scooters, 28 mph (45 km/h). And I think a lot of e-bike riders, who can’t even get close to that speed, assume that e-scooter riders are “breaking the law” when they get passed up by them. But it’s allowed, at least here.
It’s stupid but I understand. At these speeds you shouldn’t be allowed to ride there. When you don’t have to make an effort to get to this speed it is easy to lose track how fast you actually going. When you ride on bike path it is common to slow under 20km/h when it is full.
Do you have a reference for “class 3 e-scooters”? My understanding of the California Vehicle Code is that the class system only applies to bicycles with pedals, per CVC 312.5.
Whereas e-scooters – the things that Bird and Lime rent through their app – exist under CVC 407.5, which previously covered the older, gasoline-powered 50 cc types of scooters. But apparently the law has now completed written out the gas-powered ones, only mentioning electric-powered “motorized scooters”.
Strictly speaking, there isn’t a requirement in the law for e-scooters to have a speed governor, whereas ebikes must have one, either 20 mph (32 kph) or 28 mph (45 kph). Instead, riders of e-scooters are subject to a speed limit of 15 mph (25 kph), a stalwart from the days of the gas-powered scooters.
The key distinction here is that an ebike over-speeding beyond its class rating is an equipment violation, akin to an automobile without operational brake lights. But an e-scooter over-speeding beyond 15 mph is a moving violation, potentially incurring points on the rider’s driving license – if they have one – and can impact auto insurance rates, somewhat bizarrely.
I’m not saying CA law is fair to e-scooters – it’s not – but I can’t see a legal scenario where an e-scooter can overtake an ebike rider if both are operating at full legal limits.
I have a Segway C80. It has tiny, but functional pedals. It looks very much like a scooter though, like a mini Vespa. I believe mine is a class II factory, but the governor can be lifted to 28 mph to make it a class III. I assumed that’s what was meant by “e-scooter,” but I guess you’re talking about another kind of vehicle that entirely lacks the pedals. I had thought a “real” e-scooter required a motorcycle license since those can reach freeway speeds and are above 750W.
Ah, now I understand what you mean. Yes, the stock C80 would indeed legally be a Class 2 ebike in California, by virtue of its operable pedals, whether or not it’s actually practical to use the pedals. That the marketing material suggests the C80 is used primarily with its throttle is no different than other Class 2 ebikes which are often ridden throttle-only, as many city dwellers have come to fear.
As for the unlock to Class 3, I wonder how they do that: California’s Class 3 does not allow throttle-only operation, requiring some degree of pedal input.
The spectrum of two-wheelers in California include: bicycles, ebikes (class 1, 2, 3), scooters, mopeds (CVC 406), motor-driven cycles, and motorcycles (aka motorbikes; CVC 400)
The “moped” category, one which has almost been forgotten to the 1970s, has seen a resurgence: the now-updated law recognizes 30 mph, electric, 4 HP (3 kW) max two- or three-wheelers. These mopeds are street legal, bike lane legal, don’t have annual registration, no insurance requirement, but do need an M1/M2 license. These CVC 406 mopeds are not freeway legal, but darn if they’re not incredibly useful for in-town riding.
I could get myself an electric dirt bike and plates for it, 100% legally.
45km/h e-scooter ?? Those things with tiny wheels where you stand on a small platform ?
They must have a death wish for that. 45km/h on a bicycle (electric or road bike) is already a bit too fast in most situations.
Between 35 and 38km/h is my perfect spot for riding in cities and is the usual speed on flat of a good road bike (not rode by a professional, those guys are crazy fast).
I think there is a Northern Europe country (ofc it’s Northern Europe…) where the limit isn’t 25 and 45 but 38.
If we had one unique class at 38km/h the world would be a better place.
They go much faster than that if you’re willing to drop 5 or 6k. There’s a reason youtubers wear full riding gear on some of them.
The faster ones have bigger wheels
escooters which are terrible
That’s a bit of a stretch. They aren’t great, but they’re still better than a car, and a lot of the disadvantage is because of poor infrastructure and lack of courtesy by a lot of e-scooter riders. One of those is easier to fix than the other.
E-bikes are way better than e-scooters, though, and I’d say e-bikes are more versatile.
That seems like a groundless distinction.
I just posted a comment about my reasons for making the distinction in this thread.
EDIT, why is this being downvoted? I get that you may disagree with my viewpoints, downvote them if you must, but this is simply a comment letting a user know that I posted an explanation.
Your distinctions are invalid.
My city has rental bikes that work similarly to rental escooters. Are they now bad?
People here use helmets with them, same for rental scooters, which have designated parking areas here, same as bikes.
Neither moves people away from transit. They are a last mile vehicle that people use to get to and from transit hubs, or to do short trips that would take longer to do by transit.
Not to mention that this is a stupid argument. Multimodal transit is the highest form of public transit. Only idiots want to replace all private vehicle ownership with public systems or all cars with mass transit. The greatest transit capacity is achieved when deploying all modes simultaneously.
Your distinctions are based on how something happens to be utilized around your local area, and the etiquette that has (or rather hasn’t) developed around using a given vehicle.
There is nothing about electric scooters that stops them from being used in an equally reasonable manner as any other mode of travel.
Your problem is with local norms and people. Not the vehicle type.
If the rentable bikes are just scattered throughout the city with no regard for pedestrians or traffic, then yes, they are bad.
If that doesn’t happen, then no, they are fine.
Here in Stockholm the transit authority has noticed a shift from public transport toward escooters, it seems to have stabalized for now, but that could easily change.
Our healthcare system has also noticed a big uptick in patients who has had their jaw smashed, all from escooter accidents, people have been run down and have been injured by escooter drivers, some has even died.
I am happy that it works for you, but in my experience rentable escooters is just plain dumb.
If a city cannot manage their bicycle traffic, how should we ever expect them to handle car traffic?
Any problems with bicycles is a simple issue of infrastructure and priority.
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As a cyclist in NYC the complaint that bikes are weaving through cars is hilarious.
Of course they are. Cars are almost always stuck in traffic while bikes move faster.
I can make my 12ish mile commute in 45 minutes. Until the bridge I spend every mile of that commute passing cars.
That’s all besides the point though: there shouldn’t be personal passenger vehicles in NYC. Business vehicles sure. A few taxis are personal vehicles because of Uber - sure. But there should be 0 street parking and heavy restrictions on where drivers are allowed to go. We need to take back our streets.
Ahhh, I see the problem! … The car drivers feel like fools sitting around in their enormous polluting wastes of space and resources but not going anywhere! So naturally everything good must be destroyed in the name of making the wrong thing feel better.
I’ve seen multiple instances of driving being mad that they are in traffic while bikes or buses zoom by.
If they weren’t so infected with car brain, the easiest solution is to leverage one or both of those transportation methods that zoom by you.
Having been a motorcyclist in NYC this is true. They will try to hit you to keep you from doing something they can’t. I can’t imagine how much worse it must be for cyclists.
The only advantage we have is that we have an increasing number of bike lanes parallel to major thoroughfares. While there’s the prevalent issue of trucks parking in the lanes they are, for the most part, clear and in reasonable condition.
Well, that and bikes just being inherently significantly more space-efficient so those lanes are not clogged when the car lanes are.
I mean advantage over motorcyclists
Such a shame those sleeping trucks get scratches on them :/
Yes. Yes, yes, yes. As a cyclist in NYC myself, the hate that I see bicyclists get is fucking absurd.
“That person is riding their bike in traffic! How dangerous!”
Like, motherfuckers, you’re the ones forcing us to ride in traffic. And it wouldn’t be dangerous without the car element. The danger is in the cars. A bicycle crash can hurt and cause damage, but with a helmet? You’re mostly pretty safe from deadly accidents. THE CARS ARE THE ONES CAUSING THE DANGER. Not the cyclists.
And then all this talk about congestion pricing being ridiculous. TAX THE FUCK out of them. Ban them. It’s a fucking addiction. And a crippling one. Why people take cars into the city is mind boggling. Like you said, it’s necessary, especially here, for there to be some traffic. Deliveries for businesses, cabs. That’s pretty much it. But, no. Every single road is full of parked cars, driving cars, double parked cars BLOCKING THE FUCKING BIKE LANES EVERY 100 GODDAMN FEET…it’s actual lunacy.
It’s such a bikeable city. Few hills, relatively short distances. But with cars creating so much traffic, it seems far because everyone sits in a car in stop and go traffic for 45min to get from the FiDi to the park. All these wasted resources with cops directing traffic UNDERNEATH FUNCTIONING STOPLIGHTS BECAUSE EVERYONE IS SO AGGRAVATED SITTING IN TRAFFIC THAG THEYLL ALL JUST BLOCK THE INTERSECTION BECAUSE THEYVE GONE THROUGH FIVE LIGHT CYCLES, the constant construction…it’s lunacy. There’s really no other word for it.
This is a sensitive subject for me lol clearly
Listen here now I’ve played simcity and good transport is the backbone of a strong economy.
“Teens are dying on bikes” - it’s because of a bike of it’s because of a fucking truck that weighs like 300 bikes?
Douches driving big trucks doesn’t preclude teens from doing stupid shit on ebikes. You don’t have to pick a side, you can recognize that there are multiple problems that need to be addressed.
And you can recognize that there are multiple problems with different severity and need to be adressed from most severe to lowest severe.
Awful aggro to someone just pointing out a simple fact. They never said we don’t need to address large vehicles, or even that they shouldn’t be the first thing addressed. They’re simply pointing out that these aren’t a perfect golden bullet to the issues that plague cities, and we need to be aware of the downsides to any potential solution, and be willing and able to make the changes necessary to then fix THOSE issues. I don’t expect nuance, though, everything is a dichotomy online.
Awful aggro my ass, you cunt.
But jokes aside: I interpreted the comment like they put teens on ebikes and our car favoring infrastructure on the same level. Those two problems are so far apart, that I think that my response isn’t too harsh, or even ‘Awful aggro’ (That’s an awfully aggro interpretation of my comment, by the way).
Sure, but I’m responding to a comment that is suggesting they aren’t a problem. We don’t have to turn a blind eye to all other problems just because we think one is biggest.
Well since we can’t ban cars, the most severe problem, then I guess we can’t do anything. Good job defending the status quo I guess.
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You are right, banning private cars for only a few streets would be a great success for any city.
Lower hanging fruits would be to allow bikes to drive in both directions in one way streets, put some asphalt on cobble stone streets, get an inner city speed limit of 30 km/h, use many zebra crossings, design narrower streets (the narrower the street, the faster a driving person feels, without going faster), remove parking space in the inner city and make cars park outside of the center,…
Many many things that should be done before even starting to try to regulate ‘rude teens on ebikes’ with idiotic ideas presented here (driver license for ebikes?!)
The fast ebike problem would solve itself with an infrastructure that stops favoring cars and starts to seperate pedestrians and bikes with the gained space.
Your list of ideas what we actually can do is pretty short, we obviously need to spread more information. Good to know, thanks.
@EatATaco @Moonrise2473 teens do stupid shit without ebikes. And them using one doesn’t increase the danger to non users by much.
Cars and trucks do.
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Honestly it’s both. There’s shitty infrastructure combined with 2-ton passenger trucks. But you also have a society that while creating bike lanes, doesn’t create cyclists. Instead I see motorcycles driving down the bike lane, cyclists going against traffic, scooters cutting through shit like the end of world is behind them.
Really no one person is wrong, we’re kinda all wrong for not getting fucking organized.
The street doesn’t belong to anyone, it’s there to efficiently move as many people as possible, as safely as possible. That requires everyone to participate though.
, it’s there to efficiently move as many people as possible, as safely as possible.
So you are saying you are in favor of banning cars from the street too then?
Yea honestly I’m not defending cars.
As a cyclist for decades my shit is all about safety. So running heavy motorcycles through a bike lane is a big fucking deal to me.
But I’m also smart enough to realize the solution isn’t to ban cars nor is it to force cyclists into weird positions. Got to be something in between no?
Nah let’s ban cars. The petrol ones are polluters that are killing all life on earth, and the electric ones still have PM10 pollution that gives kids asthma and allergies, plus they’re destructive to communities
Let’s ban meat and dairy farming, then, too!
Yeah!
Serious question: are you concerned that banning all cars will negatively impact some groups more than others - for instance, people living with disability? Cars are a far more preferable mode of transport for someone who has a physical disability; someone who has autism and struggles with sensory overload; or someone who is morbidly obese and struggles to walk even short distances. What are your thoughts on how their needs can be accommodated if we take all cars off the road overnight tonight?
Depends heavily on the disability. For, for instance, blind people, the day cars were banned would be the best day of their lives!
I think you’re full of shit. I have autism and I can’t drive a car. I struggle too much with sensory overload. I think there is a nuanced conversation to be had about this issue, but not with your bad faith ass telling me nonsense about my own disability. A car dependent society is ableist. And here’s you defending it while using me as your prop to make a point that harms me. My disability isn’t yours to weaponise. You’re not helping me, you’re harming me.
That’s a fair call mate, but I would like to remind you that Autism is a spectrum, and many different people have many different presentations and symptomatology associated with their conditions. I’m sorry that you’re not able to drive due to your condition, but many others are able to including some of my close family members.
My bad if what I wrote made you feel like a prop - it wasn’t my intention. I was genuinely trying to spark conversation about disability accommodations in car-free world.
Amazing how the existence of a single person who (may possibly) need a car means that everyone gets to drive cars and there is nothing that should be done about cars. Man isn’t that convenient for you.
I think you might’ve made an unfair assumption about my position just because I asked a question. To clarify: I am all for reducing car usage as much as possible by implementing high-quality no-cost public transport solutions. I am however concerned that a blanket ban on all cars will negatively impact already underprivileged communities, and so a more methodical approach that limits and disincentivises car usage for those who don’t need it, while still retaining options for those who do, would better address the issue with the least unintended consequences possible.
Amazing how that didn’t address the question at all, and instead just dismissed it with your own preconceived notions for where this conversation might go.
we’re all wrong because we’re selfish pricks and there are very few consequences for our selfish actions.
if cops would enforce traffic laws you’d see a lot more compliance… but they won’t.
Id say option 3. Both of the above.
People suck driving. They also suck at riding.
Frankly just like driving needs a better training/licensing system - so does bike riding.
Especially any sort of self propelled bike.
I realize this is fuck cars, but let’s not pretend the biggest issues don’t boil down to stupidity of people.
Yeah, some of the e-bike circlejerk sounds like it’s from people who have never been in a major city where they get used by people with no regard for others. I’ve nearly been run down by app delivery drivers on ebikes and mopeds turning onto the sidewalk going the wrong way down one way streets at 30+ mph, people riding both acting crazy in the bike lanes, running red lights and cutting through traffic with no regard for their own safety or anyone else’s. You’ll have to excuse me when I lack sympathy for the guys on souped-up ebikes doing 30mph over a blind hill with no lights or helmet that get mad and start threatening me because they had to swerve to dodge since they were riding in the wrong lane.
Some of it could be app delivery drivers struggling to make ends meet while being subject to unreasonable and dangerous metrics, along with unlivable pay. I feel for them, but their struggle to earn a living doesn’t give them carte blanche to put other people’s lives at risk. On the other hand, a lot of people I see riding these tricked out ebikes and mopeds are the same people I know that were riding dirt bikes on NYC streets a few years back and moaning about how misunderstood they were and how the cops are picking on them just because they want to ride 40 deep down Third Ave and do wheelies while the streets and sidewalks are full of other vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians.
I’m all for encouraging people to use other modes of transportation, but people are being assholes and demonstrating why there’s going to be a need to regulate the ebike and moped industry more rigorously, and probably introduce some sort of licensing requirement to enable tracking dangerous riders and enforcing safety rules. You have people riding devices rigged up to go at highway speeds, being careless while riding and disregarding pedestrians, riding the wrong way, and just generally being reckless and putting other people at risk. This is also ignoring the issue of people being cheap and buying aftermarket batteries that cause some nasty fires.
If you’re on an ebike, scooter or moped that exceeds 25mph, I don’t think you have any business being in the bike lane. Yes, it’s riskier for those riders to be in vehicular traffic, but even ignoring the mass of the bike, just a person’s body hitting you at 30mph or more can do some serious damage. If you’re riding at a massively higher speed than those around you in the same lane, you’re a safety hazard to others in your lane, whether you’re on a moped doing 40mph in a 15-20mph zone, or in a car doing 70mph in a 45mph zone. People still need to be held accountable for putting others at risk with dangerous behavior, too, whether it’s a car driving erratically, ebikes going down one way streets the wrong way, cyclists taking blind corners at speeds that don’t let them stop for pedestrians, or even just pedestrians doing stupid shit like insisting on walking in the bike lane, rather than using a perfectly good sidewalk or pedestrian path right next to them. That said, they need to be enforced across the board, not just singling out people on ebikes or cyclists, while ignoring others.
There is no regulation for ebikes in the US?
Here if the ebike goes >15mph it is like any other vehicle (must have insurance and plate) and is not allowed on bike lanes.
Of course uber drivers and many others people use home made set-up on their bike which exceed legal regulations and drive recklessly but heh that’s an other problem.
They also suck at riding.
I keep encountering cyclists riding against traffic, on roads with no shoulder and around blind turns. It’s just about the most insane thing you can do on a bike, second only to sailing through red lights without looking. And it’s people of all ages doing it, not just young people like I would expect.
Those three scenarios you mentioned are all only dangerous because of cars.
Actually, the closest I’ve come to colliding with someone doing this shit is when I was riding my bike - on the correct side of the road - and suddenly encountered a cyclist (a mom towing her two kids on a trailer, no less) head-on coming the wrong way around a blind turn. I was barely able to avoid hitting her; if I’d been in a car going 25 mph I almost certainly would have hit her.
It’s just fucking stupid because it’s contrary to other drivers’ (and cyclists’) expectations and gives them virtually no chance of avoiding the situation or reacting correctly, and it also happens to be straight-up illegal.
And yet had you collided, it’s very unlikely that anyone would have died.
Unsafe behavior isn’t made okay just because the risk of death is minimal. The mother could have been concussed or had a broken bone, for all we know. If things go pear shaped and the trailer tips over, you could have the kids dumped out into traffic on one side, or down a ditch on the other, for all we know. This line of thinking, that it’s okay as long as it’s not equally dangerous as it would be in a car, makes no sense.
There will always be people who do not act with regard to the safety of others. I would rather those people be on bikes than in cars.
I’m not discussing the morality of this action in a vacuum. I’m discussing it in comparison to the same person behaving equally as unsafely in a car.
Bikes can be lethal. See my other comment here.
An old lady at the hospital I used to work at was killed by a bike rider crashing into her at a high rate of speed. She hit her head on the pavement & fell unconscious - person on the bike bailed, when she was found after a few minutes it was too late.
It is far easier to protect pedestrians from 4-wheeled vehicles with simple measures such as concrete bollards and fences, but a 2-wheeled vehicle can go basically anywhere a pedestrian can, and now with EVs they can do it way faster without much effort.
Momentum is the biggest factor in the severity of the crash, and an ebike is never going to have as much momentum as a car. Severe incidents can happen with bikes and they should be sensibly regulated, but it is far less common than crashes involving cars.
Going against traffic is actually the safe option in some situations. Being able to see oncoming traffic is a good thing.
Personally, I prefer a helmet mirror. Riding against traffic means that you reduce the reaction time for drivers. If you’re going 15 mph and the driver is going 30 mph, you are approaching at 45 mph. If you are both going the same way, the driver is approaching at 15 mph, giving three times more time to react. It also tends to place you in spots on the road where you are not expected. A helmet mirror isn’t as good as a straight-on view, but the tradeoffs are worth it.
Agreed. It’s definitely situational.
Media praising bikes - “Look see they work”
Media criticising bikes - “Huh, would you believe the media spin right?”
I’m just happy there’s at least one thing I agree with this community about.
First of all, that makes sense, as if the media is saying two things that conflict with another, praise the one that is backed up by urban studies and the other IS spin
Second of all, a large section of media is paid ads in disguise.
I would recommend upping your media literacy as it helps you distinguish between spin and not spin.
I am extremely in favor of bikes over cars but this commenter actually makes a valid point. I have noticed extremely shitty riding behavior on ebikes and there is no hope of any legislation to curb that behavior until we talk about it.
In any case the tweet chose to not include any links to these articles.
Oh the media often goes both ways - in this case it appears that there are some issues that need resolving. Not everyone appreciates dodging bikes mounting the sidewalk, or doing an emergency stop when cyclists dismount the pavements without clear signaling - this is a problem for everyone but the person on the bike. Cars have their own issues, and those are widely covered.
While I very much agree every media story has “spin” (be it unwarranted cynicism or blind optimism), I am fairly certain it is the same on both sides of this issue.
Your point seems to be “all good things on bikes are backed up by studies, all bad things about bikes are big oil”, and that is quite simply the best validation of my post you could ever give. Thank you.
Media praising bikes - “Look at all the benefits for humanity”
Media criticising bikes - “Car brain go vroom vroom vroom!”
FTFY.
Media praising bikes - “Bike brain goes brrring brrring!”
Media criticising bikes - “Car brain go vroom vroom vroom!”
Come now, let’s be fair and open minded ;)
I love my e-bike.
I love that you ride one! Stay safe ❤️
Thank you kind person of the Internet. I will do my best.
Ebikes will be banned in most of North America in 5 years, calling it now :/
We can still build our own!
I don’t know what this is about, but it reminds me of the constant ev-bashing in most major newspapers over the last two decades (since the beginning). I believe it’s oil money in the press, and definitely had effect on the overall conversation, especially discouraging small evs, but not clear effect on policy. It just keeps consumers from adopting.
Those articles pulled a lot of weight because my province over the last few years have removed all purchase incentives for EVs. The gov used to give up to $10k CAD rebates for electric vehicles. They recently got rid of it and after the election next year, they’ll fully get rid of all remaining incentives.
Incentives are great for a few years but then they just become part of the price. Most provinces will eventually remove their incentives towards EV as they become mainstream or at least transition to a subset of EVs maybe leaving out those considered luxury.
What they shouldn’t stop investing in is the infrastructure making those EVs a reliable alternative.
Do you see EVs being mainstream anytime soon? There are no places to charge (spare for a few big businesses in the bigger cities) and EVs are often double the price of their gas counterparts.
The infrastructure is growing quite fast considering how young the whole EV market is.
As for the price that’s exactly what blanket incentives would do. Affordable EVs are hardly developed currently because people buy larger more expensive (profitable) vehicules that would normally be 10k+ over their budget and that 10k is free money in the pockets of the manufacturers. Start giving incentives only for affordable EVs and they will start appearing all over the place
The smaller affordable EVs are not available in the North American market. The only choice North American consumers have is the large over the top unaffordable EVs. If consumers literally have no choice, surprise surprise they do with what they have access to.
Incentives in this sense really do nothing except subsidize luxury cars for the rich. Cheap EVs are available all over Europe and China but they are purposefully kept out of North America.
There is no political will or interest to actually switch over.
Car manufacturers and oil producers have a vested interest in making bikes, ev bikes in particular, illegal.
Basically the same playbook that Henry Ford used to make cities less walkable.
NYC’s cyclists (of whom I know many) need to follow traffic laws.
Those laws are there because people need to act predictably on the street. When a red light becomes a mere suggestion for cyclists, motorists eventually start treating them as such as well. Monkey see, monkey do.
…and getting t-boned by some douchecanoe driving a car when you have the light is commonly fatal for a cyclist.
There was an uptick in utterly shitty driving from 2019 onwards in NYC, and the police stopped all enforcement actions even in egregious cases… then the roads became, and largely remain, a free-for-all. I’ve seen some attempts recently to start clearing the mess up, but too often NYPD are ignoring these dangerous road users… or hiding their license plates and being offenders themselves.
…and this is before you’re fighting for space in a the bikelane with some drunk+stoned asshole on a moped.
I’m fully in favor of delivery professionals being required to have a license and display it at all times when on the clock. They should also be required to have specific insurance, and a highly visible personal identifier when working. They should also get automatic Union representation and a living wage.
Anything more powerful than a class-C e-bike should have a license plate, and if not it gets taken and destroyed, or auctioned to a more responsible owner. Sales of these vehicles without a registration needs to be illegal. Anything more powerful than a class-C e-bike found in a bike lane should be impounded on the spot. Running a stop sign or a red light should get you a ticket, regardless of what wheels you’re on. Going the wrong way down a one way street should get you a ticket.
It doesn’t help that NYC doesn’t have the space and largely practices “maximum-conflict” street design… but that’s just the slow, shitty entropic action of self-serving interests pushing communities around, and they react very slowly. It takes (usually multiple) fatalities for anyone to wake up and actually do anything about it.
Also wear a damned helmet.
The solution for large scale behavioral problems isn’t telling loads of people to do better, it’s systemic change, and in this case that means infrastructure for safe biking. That includes traffic calming measures, separated and protected bike lanes, regulation to reign in vehicle sizes and weight, etc.
The OP is correct wrt powerful e bikes sharing space with pedestrians and normal bikes.
They are a different beast, heavier and noisier. They have much higher speed limit, and require less effort (some models need no pedal power) to travel. This, alongside the rise of delivery services, encourages people to overspeed (more than 20mph).
15mph is roughly the limit of what makes bicycles safe for mixing with pedestrians, but beyond this speed, they aren’t that different from a motorbike in terms of road design considerations.
At least they are better than cars and SUVs
For sure, that is still a big part of this.
But a blanket statement pointing to cyclists as the source of the problem is just ridiculous.
This is a classic for a reason. We make everything as inhospitable for bikers as we can and when they work around it somehow they’re the bad guys
Do you ever wonder why you never see videos of people flying down the street and weaving through traffic in the Netherlands?
Infrastructure is your answer.
Respect and discipline AND infrastructure is the answer.
lol… in the Bay (Northern California), E-Bikes would be left abandoned on the side walks and parking lots. I never seen the organization that provides these e-bikes have someone or a team drive around and pick them up…
All I assume is that the e-bikes are used up until their battery is dead and they’re left abandoned right on the spot. I assume the battery has enough life in it still to be located and picked up and placed back into their charging stations.
Edit: Wait not e-bikes, e-scooters.
You could just delete your comment when you realise it isn’t actually relevant, instead of just throwing the edit on at the end.
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Why are you gatekeeping? Some people only want transportation, not a workout. Ebikes are infinitely better than cars in every way.
Why are you gatekeeping cars then? Some people only want transportation where they don’t get soaked in the rain, or cold in the winter.
Do I really need to repeat every reason why cars suck?. Just check everything else in this community.
Relevant for this conversion is that driving a car is far less exercise than even an ebike, and that generally people riding any kind of bikes creates a positive feedback loop where others feel more comfortable, cities build infrastructure, ect.
All those same things apply when you compare actual bicycles to e-bike though. An e-bike is a half-measure, at best.
Let’s say that for the same journey, an ebike is a half as much exercise as a pedal bike(or whatever you want, the actual number isn’t important). A car journey is 0 exercise, it’s infinitely worse. Going from a car journey to an ebike journey is infinite times more exercise, going from an ebike journey to a pedal bike is twice as much exercise.
By gatekeeping you’re stopping people from making smaller improvements because they aren’t going all the way
Because I guess pedaling is too hard for people that live in one of the flattest cities in the world.
Some people, yeah. They might have a longer distance to ride, they might have disability, or just not be that fit. There’s no problem with that.
I used to do 14 miles one way in Chicago, year ‘round. (I stopped because I moved to Georgia, and now my commute involves about 2000’ of elevation difference, which is likely around 4000’ of elevation change.) If you’re not fit, well, that’s a pretty good reason to start riding then, isn’t it? NYC also has a fantastic public transit system, one of, if not the best in the US, and it’s readily accessible by people with disabilities. Much more so than an electric bicycle.
I don’t want the first thing I do at the office be a shower.
E-bikes let me control the amount of sweat, while still giving me a cardio workout.
It’s really not a big deal. You just shower before you leave, and have clean clothes in your bag.
Seriously. Hundreds of thousands of people do this every day.
Shower before I leave where? I arrive at the office covered in sweat. My clothes completely soaked.
Then I need to shower, change and still haven’t clocked in.
Shower before you leave home, duh. And then change into the clean work clothes in your bag–the one I said you should carry–once you get to work.
Since this is apparently difficult, I’ll break it down.
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Wake up, get coffee. Maybe breakfast if you eat in the morning.
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Pack your work clothes in a messenger bag (I used a Chrome Kremlin for a decade, but ended up switching to a Trash Bag). Pack lunch if you want to; make sure lunch is in a leak-proof container.
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Shower. Change into cycling clothes appropriate for the weather.
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Carry your bike down three flights of stairs to the street.
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Ride to work.
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Lock bike to a heavy, immobile, hard to destroy object (I was partial to light poles when there wasn’t a city rack available; I used a Kryptonite Evolution chain and lock for about a decade with zero bike thefts.)
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Change into work clothes and shoes. Comb hair again to minimize helmet hair.
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Stow backpack under desk, get to work.
you are trying to reason with someone who is operating on the belief that cycling to work a few miles will make them sweat 5L or something.
give up.
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if you got fitter you wouldn’t sweat.
i bike 5 miles to work, year round, freezing winter and hot summer. i never sweat unless it’s like 90 and high humidity. that’s a handful of days per year.
I’ve competed at a country level in martial arts. I’m not unfit.
It’s a genetic thing, I sweat like crazy and it takes a long time for me to cool down after I get a good sweat going. Even if I shower, I still keep sweating for a good 30 minutes.
New York’s public transport is heavily focused on getting people in and out of Manhattan. If you’re going between the other boroughs it can be very lacking. A bike can save you a lot of time in certain cases.
If you’re not fit, an ebike is a great way to get started because it allows you to start cycling for your commute before you’re at the fitness level needed.
In my experience in Chicago, a bike was almost always faster than public transit, period. Even before I was fit, when it was painful to ride my bike in to school, it was faster than the train during rush hour.
If you’re not fit […]
…Then riding an e-bike isn’t going to make you fit, because you aren’t going to pedal it. An e-bike isn’t going to make you fit, any more than my Triumph Speed Triple is making me fit. Sure, I’m still on two wheels, but I’m not getting any physical fitness out of it.
I was–briefly–a personal trainer. I saw a lot of people avoiding putting in the work using almost every excuse they could. People that tried to ease themselves into getting fit were still going easy months later. The only people that made progress were the people willing to do the work, even when it was difficult and uncomfortable. For myself, I don’t like making excuses for people that won’t put in the effort, and that’s pretty much everyone that uses e-bikes. If you want a motorcycle, just do that, pay for insurance, and obey the rules of the road, rather than riding on sidewalks and bike paths while putting in zero effort.
The term ebike generally refers to a bike with pedal assist, not an electric motorcycle. Pedal assist means you are still exercising and you can set the level of assist you want.
Many–most of the ones that I see in Atlanta–do not require any pedaling at all. They’re functionally speed-controlled electric motorcycles that people ride on sidewalks.
So no, most people aren’t exercising, any more than they’re exercising on electric scooters.
Again, you’re talking about something different. I’m talking about electric pedal assist bicycles (often called an ebike), not electric mopeds.
@HelixDab2 @mondoman712 you’re wrong. An actual ebike, with assist rather than a throttle really does get you to exercise because you are pedalling, but you’re not adversely affected when going uphill. It’s cycling, it burns calories, but it doesn’t have the tiring bits.
most people however, are straight up lazy.
IMO if you’re riding a bike, even if it has pedal assist, you’re not lazy.
But even if that is the case, what’s wrong with that? Is it not better to have these “lazy” people on ebikes than in cars?
There’s definitely no bias at all here /s
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Washington Post.
Uhh I think you’re thinking of The Washington Post.
Oh is it? Well, fuck. 🤣 NYT has been pretty one sided on certain things so I must’ve mixed em up
Genocide deniers and enablers also happen to be in the pocket of the regime that wants us all wasting our lives in traffic when we are not working to make them rich.
Yeeeep
