genec

Latvian Cyclists Show How Much Space Bikes Save | Bored Panda

dynaryder

If they thought it would rain,they should've put roofs on those 'cars'.

kickstart

So it looks like if you use a messenger bag instead of a "cage", you need less room.

Coal Buster

The car guys could counter that five people in one car takes up less space than five people on separate bicycles....and a full bus takes up even less space than both.

keyven

Good point - if you really want to save space, then get on a bus, or train!

But seriously, that's pretty cool.

Saving Hawaii

Let's not kid ourselves. Maybe, maybe, a five guys burgers and fries combo and one overweight middle-aged man.

Chris516

The one next to the small station wagon, looks like the length of a 1970's Lincoln. While the illustration has a good point. That is too much space. While it is one thing for a cyclist to not want a motorized vehicle close behind them. Then are in control of how far back they are behind the motorized vehicle that is in front of them.

If some cyclists' tried that in the U.S., motorists' and even local authorities would not be happy.

kickstart

Do you not understand that they are simply demonstrating how much less space a bicycle takes compared to a passenger vehicle by surrounding a bicycle with a car sized framework?

genec

Oh quite true...



But look at most automobiles out there and it is quite obvious that there are not 5 people in them.

Get motorists to carry 5 people and watch and see how little road space is needed. This is EXACTLY what LA did when they last hosted the Olympics, and they had few traffic problems... then people went right back to their old habits.

Public transit barely pays for itself due to lack of ridership. Reward people that carpool or use public transit, and maybe bad habits can be changed, and we can quit building more roads, and have cleaner air... oh what a concept.

Chris516

Oh, I definitely understand the point they are attempting to convey. But I also think they are conveying a message of both, how far a car should be, when following a cyclist, and how far a cyclist should be when following a car.

Essex

While I appreciate their misguided efforts to show how much space is displaced by a car - the probable net effect (without proper explanation to the peds. and motorists) is "there go those biking kooks again."

mrodgers

All the talk on this forum by the self appointed superior race of car free cyclists gets a bit ridiculous. People don't own cars just to get back and forth to work. They own cars to carry the entire family. They own cars to get groceries. They own cars to go on vacation.

You all make fun of people commuting with trucks all the time. Go to Lowes and haul 15 sheets of drywall home on your bike.

Bring home $250 worth of groceries for a family each week on our bike. Have your family of 4 load up 3 or 4 suitcases on trailers connected to your bikes and take off for 6 days on vacation to your destination of choice 700 miles away.

You folks act like the only thing people do is drive back and forth to work. You don't see in the afternoon that guy in the truck pulling a 24 foot trailer hauling a tractor to go do excavating work on the side for a friend. You don't see the woman in the SUV in the evening putting her 6 adoptive children in it to take them somewhere. You don't see the guy in his sports sedan taking it to the local track on the weekends because that is what he enjoys. That guy you see in his car in the middle of the city, while you think he should bike to work and be as superior as you are, you don't see him wake up in the morning and get into his car 30 or 40 miles away.

intransit1217

Most of that are your assumptions of what we don't see.

Google "carrying drywall on a bike. It can be done. Bullitt makes a cargo bike that carries the load low and in front and could carry 250 of groceries easy.

Clearly the bus is the winner for for space saving. But people are just too used to their personal space or too damn fearful of everybody. Sadly though, the car is more efficent time wise. Even that can be adjusted for somewhat.

We're not talking about a pickup with a trailer full of wood milling tools owned by an independent contractor.

And there's this. I actually drive a car carrier for a living. Not only am I the antichrist of the group, I also need to fight my own carbon footprint.

intransit1217

And in some areas, a crapload of time is wasted sitting in traffic where biking the 40 miles would actually be faster. But I don't have any numbers on that.

dwbstr

And factor in that the bike will be on the road about three times as long to go a given distance. There are, of course, places that a bike would be as fast or faster than a car but usually those are not very pleasant or safe places to bike. Rush hour traffic in a big city can be like slow motion NASCAR.

edit: That's just the impression this small town guy got from rare trips to the big city many years ago.

B. Carfree

My you're being silly. We all know that less than 20% of all driving is for the purpose of getting to and from work.

As to your other listed activities, I've done (almost) them all by bike. I always laugh at the difference in mass and volume between what I carry out of the lumberyard or hardware store compared to what the folks with the bomber pick-ups carry. (Mine's bigger, usually by a lot.) There are such things as cargo trailers, you know. My last vacation was indeed 750 miles with my family on bikes. Out the back door to our destination, although the trip was a substantial part of the destination, and then a return trip home by train. My bike commutes have varied from just a few miles to a round-trip century, and the distance from home to work isn't exactly forced on me (or anyone else), it's a choice freely made based on one's priorities. You must not have been grocery shopping lately if you think $250 worth of food takes much effort to haul. Or maybe you live at the top of Mt. Ventoux and eat only watermelons? And while I don't have six adopted children (nice straw woman), I have taken entire soccer teams of children out for treats, all on bicycles.

I'll grant that when I needed a tractor I had it delivered (on a trailer hauled by a class A truck; it was a big tractor). Really, most of your straw men are things that are done infrequently. If people only drove when they had things to haul that were not possible for them to do by bike, our roads would be almost empty and there would be no issues over space and safety for cyclists.

Are we superior? Of course. We're the people who are not only choosing to not be part of the problems of creating toxic air, dangerous roads, climate change and diabesity, we're the ones who are trying, with various degrees of success, to get other people to help.

It's a challenge since no one makes money when someone walks or rides a bike as opposed to driving (where lots of money changes hands), so obviously there's a lot of vested interests opposing the positive changes we are trying to make happen. If you build roads for a living, I can see why you wouldn't want to see people give up their multi-ton wheelchairs. If you sell cars, ditto. If you build suburban sprawl housing, same story. If you're a physician who makes his living treating diabetes, heart disease, cancer or hypertension, maybe you are also concerned about losing patients (if you're an unethical physician, that is).

VTBike

While I appreciate the desire to reduce our carbon footprint, I don't think that going back to transportation in the style of Myanmar in 1962 is ever going to be taken seriously. Nor do I feel that it make sense even if it was taken seriously.

The right tool for the right job.

One of my pet peeves is that people justify large pickup trucks and minivans for the 1% of the time they actually need the hauling capacity. I'd love to see an affordable and convenient pool of these vehicles for short-term rent when that need actually arises. Something like a municipal program that won't panic if there is a dent after hauling a load of gravel. Essentially, a "truck share" program is what I have in mind. The only problem is that demand would spike on weekends and evenings. I'm not sure how easily it would be to get around that inefficiency.

VTBike

I agree that this "bikes takes less space" demonstration is somewhat silly. It does't really prove anything. As mentioned earlier, a bicycle sharing the road with motor vehicles is going to want more space than they are illustrating.

Gridlock occurs when you have lots of people competing for limited space and/or when you have factors working against the flow of traffic. The reality is that adding lots of bicycles to a shared-use (non-segregated) highway will likely result in even more gridlock. This isn't just theory. Take a look at the recent study showing how a bicycle lane speeds up traffic overall.

Frankly, vehicular cyclists are somewhat glib in the fact that there aren't too many vehicular cyclists. If significantly more cyclists start using the middle of the lane, just wait and see how quickly anti-cycling laws will be put into effect.

They are kind of like the people who want everyone to eat organically grown food - yet don't seem to understand (or care) what will happen to the poor when food is grown less efficiently and yields go down.

While I would never directly compare the plight of motorists to that of the poor, my point is that the "advocacy" group makes the mistake of looking at the problem extremely myopically. They figure that if it is good for them it must be good for everyone. Sometimes things are not quite that simple - and we should appreciate the fact that we are able to be the beneficiary because not everyone else is lucky enough to be.

Here is the simple reality: The highest form of advocacy will work toward the best possible manner of blending bicycles with motor vehicles in as safe a manner as possible - whether that is by separate or shared infrastructure. Motor vehicles are here to stay. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool. I don't follow fools.

kickstart

No, we're not,
Well at least those of us who are rational and honest enough to not be hypocrites as we all consume significant resources and leave a significant footprint in our lifetime.

I think its disgusting that some are so thoughtless they can feel an unwarranted superiority to others just because some of us (myself included) have the good fortune to be able make the choice to be car free, and have done so.
Being a working class guy, most folks I know and work with don't have the freedom to make that choice without being forced to make unacceptable sacrifices in their living conditions or employment as conditions conducive to it are a limited and valuable resource in itself.

The excesses of a few doesn't define the needs of the many, and we don't get to choose what others needs may be.
We are not in control of terrain, climate or how many hours there are in a day, many don't work standard or regular hours, many must travel to multiple destinations in their work day, many have commitments to young, elderly or special needs family members.

Sure, many people could make some changes, but the difference between "excess" and "need" isn't as significant as some want or need it to be for their personal validation.
Who am I to judge how others live only by my own perspective? I'm not arrogant enough to pat myself on the back for the good fortune that grants me choices others don't have.

Even when I agree with the expressed opinions, I must question the judgment of those who lack the wisdom to not be offensive even when "preaching to the choir". The conceited malcontent only serves their own vanity and the opposition..

atbman

[QUOTE=VTBike;17207503]I agree that this "bikes takes less space" demonstration is somewhat silly. It does't really prove anything. As mentioned earlier, a bicycle sharing the road with motor vehicles is going to want more space than they are illustrating.

No, it's not even theory, it's only a hypothesis, bearing in mind that "adding lots of bicycles to a shared-use (non-segregated) highway" is one of the less likely possibilities out there.

.

IIRC, study ofthe introduction of bicycle lanes(NY?) discovered that these led to an increase in the numbers of people cycling (for any purpose). So for every rider not using that "silly" (so-called) space is freeing up that amount of space for the remaining motor vehicles the more cyclists the bike lane attracts, the greater the reduction in motor traffic flow. there's also the possibility that the hypothetical gridlock caused by drivers speeding up and then slowing down because of cyclists may well be caused by the well known "concertina" effect where a slowing down of a car ahead leads to drivers slowing even more car by car down the chain of traffic. A hypothesis, I agree, but the concertina effect is a proven fact

Vehicular cyclists, of whom I was one in my commuting days, do not block the middle of the lane, except where the traffic environment requires, e.g. the lane is too narrow for cars to overtake safely within the lane, the side of the road is dnagerous (surface, drain covers, rubbish, etc.), all of which are mentioned in all of the FRAP legislation that I've read.

mr_bill

B. Carfree

Just wondering. Can you project when you'll cross 1,000,000 miles commuting on your bike?

-mr. bill

Chris516

While there are things that can't be done on a bike. Conversely, There are things that can't be done with four wheels. Additionally, Those exclusively(or at least predominantly) on four wheels, doesn't like someone on two wheels(motor or no motor) being in front of them. Anything from the Ford Pinto that explodes when rear-ended, to the pickup truck intentionally made to 'smoke'.

Regardless of bringing home the groceries, to transporting the family. There is no reason for a four-wheeled vehicle to run a cyclist, motorcyclist, or moped rider off the road because of a sudden 'entitlement' urge.

VTBike

I'm willing to bet that most retired biochemists aren't driving large tractors. Just a guess.

VTBike

Just like bicyclists who can't fathom sharing a path with pedestrians.

spare_wheel

The cognitive dissonance of your statement is amazing. Have you ever considered that I consider having a lower carbon footprint to be superior -- not no footprint -- but a lower footprint. The idea that I am a hypocrite because I once bought something is utter nonsense.

The perfect is the enemy of the good.