Amsterdamize

[Buck]

The visual case against cars and for mass transit and bicycles.

http://amsterdamize.com/2008/09/09/tony-bullard-makes-you-think/

Why not in America?

http://amsterdamize.com/2008/09/09/why-not-in-america/

[ozarksnick]

I like those sites. I currently do not have a car but travel everywhere by bicycle.

[Buck]

It's amazing to me that so many Aemrican's will think up
endless reasons not ride a bike when if that's all they
had they would do just fine.

The amount of money saved ,and the stress relieved, is simply
astounding! *:o :o

Gee, I wonder how Americans lived when we just had horses?
Bet it was better and way more relaxed

[chloe3388]

It would work in some areas, for us no. We are way to far from town with not very good roads to begin with. Now a horse that I will go for.

Neighbor and I have ridden to town horseback several times, it's about 40 miles round trip. Yeah it was relaxing. We have been talking about using one of the pack horses to see how shopping would go.. The grocery store has a nice grassy are that we staked the horses at last time we went, we got some drinks and something to eat there..

I grew up in a area that not many of the kids even had bikes, the only way you could ride one was to haul it to town.. LOL.. But we all had horses..

[bookwormom]

I take it you ride a bike everywhere you go Buck?

The amount of money saved ,and the stress relieved, is simply
astounding!

Oh really? been there done that.
downhill you had to brake all the time and uphill you had to push. you do that for a few miles and see how relaxing it is. this is just too generalized. It will work great in some areas (that are arranged like amsterdam) and in other areas it will be a hardship. Where I live now I would have to push a bike up a steep hill for 4 thenth of a mile to get to the nearest gravel road. i do not like riding a bike on gravel roads, I slipped in a curve once and busted myself up good on the gravel. then I drive down some steep, narrow road until I get out to a main road that does not have a bike track. It would scare the living daylights out of me, the people here are not used to bicycle traffic. Up pineridge I will have to push again, and I would need one of those little bike trailers that you used to see all over the East European countries. very handy if you do not have far to go, it will hold quite a bit, like 50 pint bottles of beer. I am afraid a horse is more than I can handle, and feed for that matter, though a horse would be a handy one around here if TSHTF. by the time I got to town I would be worn out, and then hauling anything home in my east European little bike trailer, I tell you what, you do that.

[Buck]

I take it you ride a bike everywhere you go Buck?


Yes, I do with the single exception when I visit the city 40 miles away.
For that there used to be a train that one could ride in in the morning
and back at supper time. Sady the train stopped running 15 years ago
so I use vehicles that sit idle except when I need them to leave town.

And before you ask..I ride year around!

[OzarkMtnDaredevil]

Hey kids! Do you mind if I interject here? I knew that you wouldn't. Thank you!
Chloe and Book; In no way do I intend to argue your points or discount your situations. I'm just gonna lay something on you, then I'm gonna ease on out. I got a feeling, tho, that I know what Buck's talking about.

In 1999, the Arkansas Trails Council awarded me thier Volunteer of the Year award for the efforts that I ... never mind. I've built and ridden, on a bike, trails that equestrians don't even care to lead thier horses over. Of course, I'm a hard-core mountain biker and don't think that a $2000 bicycle is outrageous. My point is; a bike can go anywhere you want it to IF you have the right bike AND skills.
The bicycle is the most efficient use of energy (think Distance devided by Caloric Expenditure) that man has ever devised. It just boils down to having an understanding of and a feel for the gears.
I've ridden a road bike (some call them 10 Speeds or English Racers) 50 miles on mountainous roads just for fun. We'd eat lunch and ride 50 miles back home. Granted, it took us all of a long Summer day but, it was fun.
Traffic and drivers that do not understand that bikes have the Right Of Way are a real gripe of mine and also a real hazard. Maybe someday?

Ride On.

[ozarksnick]

I calculated that it was costing me more than $2,500 per year to own a car. That was only allowing for $50 a month in gas (which wouldn't go far), and was figuring that I owned the car outright (ie- no loan payments). After I figured that up I sold my car. That was back in July.

We've had a few changes of priorities in the past few months though, like deciding to fix up our place in Missourah and sell the place here in Kansas. So we're currently looking to purchase a small pickup. It's a real long bike ride from here to Missouri! *;D

But if we weren't wanting to move back I doubt I'd be interested in purchasing another motor vehicle.

I can understand the hesitation on some folks parts though. Folks in America are not used to seeing bicycles used as real transportation. And our roads are generally not equipped to deal with slower moving traffic.

I'm lucky now to live in a small town where everything is less than three miles from my home (and I live outside town). And most everyone here is extremely polite to us when we're on our bikes.

But when we move back to Missouri the closest real town is almost 8 miles away over some not-so-great looking gravel roads. So I probably will not ride quite so often there either.

[mike82934]

My only problem with riding a bike everywhere would be when I had to go to work and back. Some days, I've come home from work so tired and sore that just climbing into the truck and sitting was painful. I can't imagine having to ride a bike while feeling like that. Add that to the fact that I live in a small town, with my work usually 60+ miles away, and it just doesn't seem practical to me.
If not for those two factors, I'd be more inclined to buy a good bike and use it for most of my transportation. I'd still need a truck for hauling lumber and the like, but my gasoline use could go way down.

[Buck]

My only problem with riding a bike everywhere would be when I had to go to work and back. Some days, I've come home from work so tired and sore that just climbing into the truck and sitting was painful. I can't imagine having to ride a bike while feeling like that. Add that to the fact that I live in a small town, with my work usually 60+ miles away, and it just doesn't seem practical to me.
If not for those two factors, I'd be more inclined to buy a good bike and use it for most of my transportation. I'd still need a truck for hauling lumber and the like, but my gasoline use could go way down.

Then consider going "car-lite" by using your vehicles ONLY when you
have to drive over 10 miles. That distance should be able to cover all
of you local travel thus cutting the cost of fuel for local chores.

[chrisser]

I'm not going to take a position on this directly, but one of my economics professors once told me something that has stuck with me and I find using it to evaluate options is a very useful tool.

The only commodity is time.

Money, possessions, education all are ultimately measured in return for one's time in acquiring them, and they ultimately only have value in acquiring time from others.

Certainly there are tradeoffs and benefits, pro and con, for bicycles and cars. The one I seldom see discussed is time.

My commute is about 15-20 minutes by car. By bicycle, it is likely several hours. Sure, I'll walk to the corner convenience store if I have time, but most things I buy on the way to work, or on the way home.

Even factoring the cost of vehicle, gasoline, insurance, health, etc., having about three hours per day that I'm not commuting is worth it and is likely to remain so for the forseeable future. Its not unusual (I did it for years) to have a 40+ minute commute by car in my part of the country. I know people who do 2 hours each way - the jobs available in the country make it difficult to afford to live there, and living where most businesses are located is not desireable or possible for many people.


There is quite a lot of open space in this country still. Better, there are plenty of towns, and even some cities, which are near desolate, usually due to economic decisions.

I'd like to see some of the pro-bicycle people get together, pick a few areas, and build the utopias they envision. Find green investors to fund it if they can't fund it themselves. Build a light rail system to thenext town over. Show us all that these ideas have merit, and they will work, especially in places which don't have climates like San Diego.

[Buck]

"The only commodity is time." No, it isn't. "Time" exist only in the
human brain as a concept.

"My commute is about 15-20 minutes by car. By bicycle, it is likely several hours. Sure, I'll walk to the corner convenience store if I have time, but most things I buy on the way to work, or on the way home. "

No one expects a person to travel this distance to work on a bike.
Please see my comments on "car-lite" to keep this topic in context.

"There is quite a lot of open space in this country still. Better, there are plenty of towns, and even some cities, which are near desolate, usually due to economic decisions."

So what? America, like another country will find a way to travel
to & fro so that makes the car , and limited oil it consumes, a
liablity at the end of the day. America settled this great land
on horse back & rail.

"I'd like to see some of the pro-bicycle people get together, pick a few areas, and build the utopias they envision. Find green investors to fund it if they can't fund it themselves. Build a light rail system to thenext town over. Show us all that these ideas have merit, and they will work, especially in places which don't have climates like San Diego."

A car lovers lement if I ever read one. There is no crime to using
a bicycle for tasks that it's better suited for instead of a hulking
car. Humans can, and have, done a lot worse with the limited
energy this planet provides.

Don't be so afraid to work up a sweat once in awhile ;D

[rice paddy daddy]

All very well and good for those who live in an appropriate environment.
I live 6 miles outside a one stop light town (pop 1,000) on a dirt road that gets muddy enough during tropical storms that 4WD is more than merely a soccer mom's affectation.
Hay and 50 lb sacks of animal feed need to be hauled. Lumber and fence wire needs to be hauled, as a small homestead is a never ending project. Then there's the 75 mile daily round trip to the city to earn the money to support our chosen lifestyle.
In other words, if you can use a bike, do so. The end result may just be cheaper fuel for our 3 pick up trucks. :D

[chrisser]

"The only commodity is time." No, it isn't. "Time" exist only in the
human brain as a concept.

Sorry Buck, but time is more than a concept. I value my time at a certain monetary value. If someone is not going to pay me that money in exchange for my time, then I'm not going to give them my time. This is why I don't work for McDonald's, as an example. My additional, non-work hours, are valued even more highly, which is why I don't go out and get a second job.

"My commute is about 15-20 minutes by car. *By bicycle, it is likely several hours. *Sure, I'll walk to the corner convenience store if I have time, but most things I buy on the way to work, or on the way home. "

"No one expects a person to travel this distance to work on a bike.
Please see my comments on "car-lite" to keep this topic in context.

The context of this topic is your orignal posts on Amsterdamizing.

From one of the articles:

"7 1/2 miles is not a particularly short commute, even by American standards. Abraham’s story is one of costs and benefits. Gas is expensive, roads are congested, and Berlin’s system of bike lanes is pleasant to use."

"Commuters in Northern Europe have been lured out of their cars by bike lanes, secure bike parking and easy access to mass transportation"

The other article was essentially an anectdotal example of a bicycle commute


"There is quite a lot of open space in this country still. *Better, there are plenty of towns, and even some cities, which are near desolate, usually due to economic decisions."

So what? America, like another country will find a way to travel
to & fro so that makes the car , and limited oil it consumes, a
liablity at the end of the day. America settled this great land
on horse back & rail.

"I'd like to see some of the pro-bicycle people get together, pick a few areas, and build the utopias they envision. *Find green investors to fund it if they can't fund it themselves. *Build a light rail system to thenext town over. *Show us all that these ideas have merit, and they will work, especially in places which don't have climates like San Diego."

A car lovers lement if I ever read one. There is no crime to using
a bicycle for tasks that it's better suited for instead of a hulking
car. Humans can, and have, done a lot worse with the limited
energy this planet provides.

Don't be so afraid to work up a sweat once in awhile ;D

Lament? No. Life experience. It is ridiculous to try to change an existing organization or structure to fit purposes for which it was not designed. Like it or not, for 100 years our transportation network, cities, and economy have been structured around automobiles. There are costs and there are benefits, but largely, it works.

Some places have made radical structural changes to utilize a different paradigm. I'm fine with that. However, every one has funded that change by taxing automobiles. That isn't a proof of concept, and by the statistics in the articles, and any survey of the situation with mass transit in this country (which are not self-sustaining), no one has made this transition with anything but limited success. Since the details argue against the idea, its reasonable to be skeptical.

All I'm suggesting is that if bicyclizing urban centers is a good idea, then the best way to prove it is to build an urban center based on this philosophy, not try to fit a round peg in a square hole.

There are plenty of places where land is inexpensive. A lot of people in the areas where bicycles are being pushed have citizens with much disposable income and work in industries that are not tied to geography.

Good ideas don't need to have their competition taxed, or to have government force them into being. They should stand on their own. I think a non-auto urban center is agreat idea that has merit, at least in some parts of the country, and the best way to prove that is to actually build one - to figure out what works and what doesn't, and to determine the most cost-effective way to bring it about.



There are a few bicyclists that I see now on my way to work, quite a bit more motorcyclists. But that's going to change radically in two months when several inches to several feet of snow blanket the ground, and brisk cold winds will exceed the maximum speed obtainable on a bicycle by tens of MPH. This is a real hurdle for routine bicylcling in a wide swath of the country that needs to be addressed. Say you build some sort of enclosed bicycle network - what does that do to crime? Is it more cost-effective to put bike lanes underground vs overhead with a covering? Is it better to have private bicycle ownership, or would a service that simply provides bicycles on either end of the trip be better? How do you deal with rush hour, injuries, insurance? How do you fund this infrastructure - taxing bicycles, taxing tires, taxing endpoint storage, taxing everybody? How do you deal with people who want to walk? Do they need their own separate, protected area, can they intermingle with bicycle traffic, or are designated lanes sufficient and how are those increased costs dealt with? How do you build an infrastructure without pathways for cars and trucks to deliver the materials? What about structure fires? Do you need to have special throughfares for standard fire trucks, or is there a lightweight option, or do you rely on some other water-delivery infrastructure?

None of these questions have to be asked nor problems solved in "traditional" cities because there already is a car/truck infrastructure in place to piggy back onto.

[Buck]

chrisser, you do a good job of pointing out many of the negatives
that would affect not only cycling but any massive travel pardigm
change in America.

Please remember that the car has only been king for about 100 yrs
with man being much older than that. How on earth did man travel
before the car?

[rice paddy daddy]

chrisser, you do a good job of pointing out many of the negatives
that would affect not only cycling but any massive travel pardigm
change in America.

Please remember that the car has only been king for about 100 yrs
with man being much older than that. How on earth did man travel
before the car?
I'm way ahead of ya. I already have 3 horses. Just need to get a buggy. ;D
"Got a shotgun and a rifle and a 4 wheel drive. A country boy will survive."
Hank Williams Jr.

[chrisser]

chrisser, you do a good job of pointing out many of the negatives
that would affect not only cycling but any massive travel pardigm
change in America.

Please remember that the car has only been king for about 100 yrs
with man being much older than that. How on earth did man travel
before the car?

By any reasonable measure, most people didn't travel at all.

People didn't leave the towns they were born in. Most never left their home countries, which weren't even as far apart as a few states here.

Even when horses became prevalent, it still took days and weeks to travel distances that take hours today. The pony express averaged 9mph by swapping horses out every 25 miles. I can leave Cleveland OH and be in Winston Salem in 8 hours (467 miles) by car. Even travelling 12 hours/day by horse, it would take over 4 days if I had a network of fresh horses all the way up and down the country.

There's a reason cars are so popular - they are a quantum leap above the next best thing in transportation.

[Buck]

By any reasonable measure, most people didn't travel at all.

People didn't leave the towns they were born in. *Most never left their home countries, which weren't even as far apart as a few states here.

There's a reason cars are so popular - they are a quantum leap above the next best thing in transportation.


Cars in America are so popular because Henry Ford perfected mass
production or they wouldn't be. Cars used to be the province
of the very rich. Oil likewise.

It's true people didn't travel like we do today but the naked truth is
most people don't need to travel any distances anymore today than
in the past. A vacation or a trip to granma's house were both rare
and very special as recent as the 1950's when I grew up.

America of today is anomaly of cheap plentiful oil and cheap housing
when you look at the world's economy. "The American Dream" is an
invention of the folks on Wall Street and marketing and is NOT
normal or sustainanable in terms of Planet Earth. "The American Dream"
didn't exist in the 1950's ,when I was a boy, as we know it now.

For a real eye opener on the history of the big three car makers in
America read the "Divorce your car" to see the uglyness and deceit
that is big auto from their very beginnings.

while not everyone can , or should, give up their cars it's also true
that cars that we own should ONLY be used for tasks they are best
suited for....and that ain't to haul our tired obese butts everywhere
we go. That is pure folly & fiction.

[cubcadet]

Most things have changed in my life, to where most folks must travel long distances to work. Growing up in the `60`s and `70`s like I did, I saw many changes, and heard many older adults talk about how things were in the time following WW2. I understand that most people in America lived on farms, or, were very close to their place of employment. They didn`t need to drive much. Whole communities grew up around main sources of employment. America then was a net exporter. Boomers were the greatest resource the world ever saw. They turned out to be the weathiest, healthiest, best educated and at the same time the stupidest demographic the world ever saw. They allowed their jobs to be magically transported to other countries, and for purposes of addressing this thread, were forced to resort to getting jobs farther from home. Both spouses had to work. So, now, the same people responsible for shipping our industry overseas, are now forcing us to pay $3.50- $4.00 or more for gas in order to just run our households. Personally, I am being forced to "get a job" this winter because it is just about impossible to make it trying to make a living from the land. I now need to get liability insurance to sell eggs and produce at local farmer`s markets. Local grocers will not buy my stuff because of liability. This year, I was forced to range out farther to do my work because of cost of living increases. I put about 200+ miles every week on my truck, and had to charge my customers extra to pay for the fuel.