Car, Bus or Bike.

I think this is much older than 2001. Certainly I saw something very similar at least 20 years ago.

Anyway, if you want to see a place where infrastructure isn’t trying to convince everyone to drive, come and take a look at the Netherlands.

In this city there are more cycle journeys than car journeys. Rich, poor, old and young alike cycle every day, and in comfort rather than in competition with motor vehicles.

The rush hour looks like this.

And for all those readers who choose to actually address the issues raised by Comrade Nick, check out the New York Times Sunday Styles section this weekend–there’s a big story about the chaos ensuing from the battle between bikes, cars, and pedestrians. We do need to figure this stuff out if we’re going to be something other than a car-based culture.

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This is terribly misleading. It shows the amount of space needed to cram people together. Literally, this is basically the same ratio as a single person to a car to a bike. People don’t walk like that, people don’t drive like that, and people don’t ride like that.

so what can you glean from it? Well, I’m not sure exactly. Each mode suits a different type of trip, and each can cross types if necessary (i.e. riding 30 miles to see someone in need, or driving around the block if someone’s ankle hurts). Also, as speeds increase, the footprint needed to feel comfortable increases. Everyone has walked in a crowded place, but have you ran in a crowd (like when rushing a football field?). Being in a stampede is terrifying–you don’t have enough space to mess up.

Driving a car is a similar story. If you follow the “two second rule” then you’d be literally bumper-to-bumper at a standstill, rising to 88ft away at 60mph (and each is “comfortable).

So this is an arrangement of what people would look like at a stoplight. A diagram with 50 people each traveling in the natural city gait of 3 mph walk, 12mph bike and 30mph car I suspect the diagram would give a better understanding of road-space usage. Even then, however, it wouldn’t make sense to use only one method of transportation in a city. More likely, a rebalancing is necessary to give “some” of the street area that is now reserved for cars over to pedestrians or cyclists. Right now, many people resist cycling because cars “rule the road”. This is an undesirable situation, since both the elderly and the young should be able to travel around with ease…

Of course, the government rakes in a TON of money from road tax, ticketing, road repair, fuel tax, and tax on the revenues of all the companies that sell and maintain cars, so our ‘beloved’ automobile will not go anywhere soon.

Fascinating! and hooray for no cars!

anne

i’d love to ride a bike as my 1st choice of transportation, but, in america, i can’t trust drivers of cars. i’ve experienced first hand being sideswiped in a crosswalk of all places, by a car too impatient to wait, let alone friends who have been seriously hurt by drivers not paying attention. i just don’t trust other people enough to be green. this breaks my heart.

clever.