geonerd04 t1_isvnapf wrote on October 19, 2022 at 12:59 AM

Reply to comment by Cunninghams_right in Reddit Democracy by bearjew64

Improved transit between thriving (and regional) residential and job centers would make this either/or scenario irrelevant. As in, viable alternatives to driving between places like Hunt Valley - Towson -Downtown - Columbia - Owings Mills, etc. While it’s an admittedly powerful lobby (especially on Reddit), the bike lobby would lose horribly on such a ballot initiative. The executive living in Timonium and working in Harbor East will throw money at the opponent of any politician supporting this. The CNA commuting across town from West Baltimore to Hopkins via the MTA will certainly vote against such an initiative.

I know I’m generalizing, but think it’s safe to say that the majority of folks in the region, whether they’re voting with their wallets or at the ballot box, would vote against their own interests for the convenience of a handful of transplanted 20-something cyclists that want to shave a few minutes off their cycling ‘commute’ from Mt. Vernon or Patterson Park to Harbor East. But stranger things have happened…

Cunninghams_right t1_iswgkwb wrote on October 19, 2022 at 5:05 AM

I started typing but I'm just deleting that message. it's so pointless arguing with someone who has no idea why it's impossible to run transit all over the county and also thinks that the only people who bike or would bike are 20-somethings. it's just so far out of touch that I would have assumed you were from towson or Timonium without you even having flair.

MixmasterMatt t1_iswkug8 wrote on October 19, 2022 at 5:54 AM

I live in the district with the most bike infrastructure, and no one uses it. You can count on one hand the number of bicycles I see in a year. Bikemore is very loud and that helps them get a lot of money for their hobby, but 99.9999% of people in Baltimore have no plans to commute via bicycle. We need rail, subways, and busses. Transportation for taxpaying adults with families and jobs that need to be able to work in the summer and winter, travel with their children, and get groceries. Baltimore neither has the climate nor the terrain nor the density for bicycles to be a legitimate option. As bad as Bikemore wants this to be Amsterdam, this isn’t Amsterdam and it never will be.

Cunninghams_right t1_iswnvqh wrote on October 19, 2022 at 6:33 AM

>I live in the district with the most bike infrastructure, and no one uses it. You can count on one hand the number of bicycles I see in a year

that's just false.
networks of bike lanes grow ridership exponentially. think about if we swapped so that the streets with fully separated, protected bike lanes were the only streets on which you could use a car... nobody would drive because a single street does not get you anywhere.

>but 99.9999% of people in Baltimore have no plans to commute via bicycle.

with no bike lanes and no subsidy of bikes or scooters and no 3-wheel scooters, I wouldn't expect huge numbers of people to commute by bike. that's the fucking point. lots of people actually do commute using the lime/spin/etc. scooters already instead of taking buses. you make those options free, you give every route within the city the option of a protected lane, you make many of the lanes covered, and you distribute 3-wheel scooters and you will see lots of people using bikes.

it costs $2-$3 per passenger mile to operate buses in Baltimore city, but the ride is 75% subsidized so people still ride the buses (in low numbers). if you did the opposite, and subsidized rental bikes/scooters/trikes $1.5-$2.25 per mile and took the monthly bus pass from $75 to $308 and you would see skyrocketing bike-lane use (and plummeting bus use), and it would be faster and more environmentally friendly. but we can actually do one better than that, we can not just subsidize the rentals, but we can subsidize employers to lease bikes/scooters/trikes to employees. a new entry-level bike costs the same amount as a single month of bus pass if it wasn't subsidized. an e-bike costs as much as 3 monthly bus passes. except, the bikes will last 10x-100x longer than the bus pass for the same amount of money. other organizations can provide the same role of unemployed folks.

>We need rail, subways, and busses. Transportation for taxpaying adults with families and jobs that need to be able to work in the summer and winter, travel with their children, and get groceries

again, more boomer stupidity. educate yourself. and here.

>As bad as Bikemore wants this to be Amsterdam, this isn’t Amsterdam and it never will be

you're probably right, but not for any legitimate reason, just the pure ignorance you've already shown, which is all too common. people think they'll die if they're outside in the rain with full rain gear on, but the only thing that is killing people is car-centrism.

MixmasterMatt t1_iswqf02 wrote on October 19, 2022 at 7:07 AM

How do you get to work in the winter or summer? Or when you have to bring supplies? Or when you have to commute a few dozen miles? Or when you can’t get to work covered in sweat? How do you take your kids to soccer practice? How do you get groceries? What about old people? What about people with physical disabilities? Bicycling only works under certain weather conditions for a very narrow set of people that has everything they need within 5 miles of their house and never has to transport anything bigger than a backpack. It is a recreational hobby, not a means of viable transportation for the vast majority. Bikemore hipsters want their private parade lanes so everyone can see how hip they are as they fixed gear towards the latest craft brewery. But most of us are getting fed up with the resources this city pours into your hobby while real solutions like busses, rail, subways, and even electric ride shares get ignored and the streets that 99.9999% of people use to get to work and pay taxes crumble. It’s a great way for the city to say they did something without doing anything useful though.

Cunninghams_right t1_isyb1lz wrote on October 19, 2022 at 4:17 PM

>How do you get to work in the winter or summer? Or when you have to bring supplies? Or when you have to commute a few dozen miles? Or when you can’t get to work covered in sweat? How do you take your kids to soccer practice? How do you get groceries? What about old people? What about people with physical disabilities? Bicycling only works under certain weather conditions for a very narrow set of people that has everything they need within 5 miles of their house and never has to transport anything bigger than a backpack.

I asked that you inform yourself and gave you links.

but I can give you the TL;DR: the advent of cargo ebikes and 3-wheel e-scooters remove all of the issues you've just mentioned.

> But most of us are getting fed up with the resources this city pours into

the city puts less money into bike lanes than into a single bus on a single bus route. you just don't know the cost of transit and the cost of infrastructure. if metros cost the same as bike lanes, then I would be saying we should build metros everywhere. bike lanes cost 1/60,000th the cost of a the average metro line in the US, per mile. but you don't know that because you drive a car everywhere because you have the mind of a boomer and haven't questioned whether there are ways that the city itself can improve things.