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Kennethrjacobs2000 t1_jb48kg9 wrote

Reply to comment by messopotatoesmia in Study reveals that although private automobiles continue to be the dominant travel mode in American cities, the share of car trips has slightly and steadily decreased since its peak in 2001. In contrast, the share of transit, non-motorized, and taxicab trips has steadily increased by giuliomagnifico

I'm almost 30, Obese, Cook at home, and watch my nephews regularly. I started biking for transit almost exclusively about 4 months back. Admittedly, it's a pain in the ass sometimes, because of the prevalence of black ice in the winter, lots of hills where I live, my slowly shrinking fat ass, and the beginning of urban sprawl. However, it has generally had a cascading positive effect on my life, and I would generally recommend that everyone who can should bike around as much as possible.

Electric Bikes are getting pretty inexpensive now, too. You can get one that pedal assists up to 20 mph and has saddlebags for only about $1200, so it's a good budget option instead of a car.

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messopotatoesmia t1_jb5uhnr wrote

I'm going to wait on getting an ebike until I can leave it chained outside a store without expecting people to show up with bolt cutters to steal it - which is the reality for Seattle right now.

You do miss the point entirely though:

You can't take two kids to school on your ebike.

You can't ride your bike if your knees are giving out.

You can't get a week's worth of groceries for a family of five on a bike.

You can't drop kid A off at elementary school, and kid B off at middle school across town, and do the reverse before you run out of after school care, if you're on a bike.

The reality is that we need solutions that work for a variety of different people. That solution for many has to include a car, because in the US our cities are huge, and we need to get around and across them.

So while biking is great and I'm all for it, it's not a blanket solution for everyone and never will be. It's not even a blanket solution for most people - in Seattle biking drops to near zero in the winter along normal bike commuter routes. Are those people getting the bus? Maybe. Not all of them. Many of them are just taking their car in the winter.

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