cooker

It wasn't exactly a "paradise". It was a poor country where most people couldn't afford a car. Now that they can afford them they are buying them, but also struggling with the consequences and trying to set limits, at least in the largest cities, long before they get anywhere near US ownership levels.

It's really unfortunate they are restricting bikes on trains. I assume it is because ridership is so high they just don't have room, but I hope they reconsider, and, for example add baggage cars with bike racks like we have on some VIA trains in Canada. The Bike Train | VIA Rail

tandempower

My limited understanding of history also recalls that China had fast market-growth in opium, whose addictive potential could also be exploited for profiteering. I found the following quote in Wikipedia in reference to opium, but you could probably substitute driving/cars and achieve the same validity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_opium_in_China

Mobile 155

Your point? Like the west's addiction at the time caused opium usage and the people were waiting for it? Does either of you last two post address the issue of which direction India and China are moving in transportation. Or is it your assertion the Chinese are not intelligent enough to tell the difference between an addiction and mode of transportation?

Do you believe business Week and Forbes are mistaken on their predictions?

Mobile 155

I am not making a judgment call on the Chinese people I am simply pointing out the reality of becoming a First World economy in relationship to private transportation. The day might come when they rethink their decision but I don't believe they will reverse course till they feel they have reached parity with the US like Japan and South Korea have.

tandempower

You don't have to be unintelligent to get exploited by addiction pushers. With driving, there is a societal dynamic that, once established, pressures people into buying cars and driving. It becomes hard to 'keep up with the Joneses' without driving, so people give in and sign a term-sale agreement.

People in the US or any other driving-dependent area are not addicted to driving because they lack the intelligence to choose otherwise. They/we get saddled with time-demands that make it too lucrative to forego driving. Certainly one can choose to LCF by sacrificing certain opportunities, but that is a matter of willpower, not intelligence.

An intelligent person can simultaneously see how life could be better with less driving, while also being rational enough to choose to make more money when doing so requires driving. There are just a few of us far-sighted enough to see how the sacrifices that come with LCF are worth it in the long run for the greater good of sustainability, personal health and budgetary decompression, etc. but that doesn't mean we're more intelligent than someone who drives to a job where they do rocket science or otherwise apply their high IQ for high pay.

tandempower

I don't think they will reverse course as long as global investment gurus are pulling the strings to effectuate higher investment returns. People can be used to make money without caring about the well-being of the people being used.

McBTC

Whether such "sacrificing" is much or little or for the right or wrong reasons or "worth it in the long run" is wholly subjective.

tandempower

When you debate things like this in threads, it threatens to get the thread moved to P&R. That said, the sacrifices of LCF are not subjectively worth it. They are real contributions to conserving fuel, reducing CO2 emissions, reducing demand for paved lanes and parking spots, etc.

Mobile 155

The subjective part comes when someone outside of the people making the decision make the determination as to what contribution is or isn't worth it. If the things can be accomplished and people can have the choice they want it is a win win. It becomes debatable when someone that has never experienced poverty and hardness of life that someone in a developing world has tries to tell them what sacrifices are worth it when that same someone already enjoys the options the developing people are striving for. If you get the point. I have no right to tell people in Oslo how to build their city and they have no influence on how we build ours. That is how it is supposed to be I think. My opinion anyway.

McBTC

Many can make that claim (possibly the person below) although for most, not by choice...

I-Like-To-Bike

Who claimed that the pipe dreamers of BF and elsewhere post about their wishful thinking visions only on this thread?

Is it your selective vision thing that causes you to reword/paraphrase other posters' statements into something that fits your agenda of cheerleading for the dreamers who post about various imaginary alternate realities that only they and you can see?

You know damn well that what I posted about naive/uninformed believers of hyperbolic rhetoric/promises about the imminent arrival self driving cars is frequently discussed elsewhere on BF (several threads on it are active on A&S this week) with some of the visionary/dreamy comments made by at least one true believer who also frequently posts about his faith in technological wizardry on LCF including this very thread.

cooker

So you're trashing this whole forum based on stuff one person said in a few other threads and in completely other sub-forums? If you don't agree with what tandempower or anybody says, you can respond to it directly or ignore it, but this standing around not actually contributing to threads or starting any of your own, but just vaguely and endlessly pontificating about how unspecified people here are not meeting your approval (which is what we are really talking about here) is what really drags the forum down.

tandempower

It's also subjective to say whether sacrificing alcohol is worth the health benefits, etc. If you want to rationalize destruction by saying it's worth the benefits you get from it, that's your business but don't expect others to pay the consequences for your indulgences.

I don't think there's any win-win possible in terms of certain industrial practices like ubiquitous driving and liberal energy use harming the environment/climate/etc. I've explained why numerous times in various threads, and I think people keep debating it just because they don't want to make certain sacrifices regardless of the harm they cause. Where this leaves us is that some people are trying to diminish the significance of sacrifices such as LCF by some, while others are struggling with what to do in the event that many, even a majority of people, just never come around to seeing how the cause and effect of things like driving and pavement add up to environmental degeneracy. Where is win-win possible in this?

The problem is you keep making assumptions about what causes suffering in the developing world and what alleviates that suffering in the developed world. I and many others disagree with assumptions such as yours, but you and others like you will always go back to implying such assumptions as driving is an essential part of developed world living/prosperity, etc. etc. You simply won't acknowledge that prosperity and other positive aspects of developed world life can be maintained while reducing driving to a much smaller share of total transportation. I believe you do this because you seek to protect the automotive industry and its economic functions beyond question of whether life could be better as that industry shrinks. So always we have to deal with your posts as aggressive attacks against any idea that would question the maintenance and growth of automotive culture.

wolfchild

What the heck does opium addiction in China have to do with transportational issues in North America ??

tandempower

The question was about why driving was gaining so much market-share in China. I say it is a form of colonial exploitation similar to what was going on with the opium boom in China. The US has been used as a lucrative consumer market by global investors for a long time, and now there are efforts underway to expand consumer markets in China for the same reason. Getting people addicted to expensive products is very lucrative and good for global GDP growth, if not for the people being used to pay for that growth by maintaining their addictions.

McBTC

The Commuting sub-forum helps people. The above although what you expect on the LCF sub-forum is nothing but the sort of rank eco/enviro-whacko, self-aggrandizing, self-congratulatory demagoguery we might expect to see in Al Gore's upcoming sequel to, An Inconvenient Truth-- Gore's impending crockumentary titled, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power-- nothing to do with bicycling and the love of cycling. Simple 'Foo' faire.

Mobile 155

For me the problem has almost always been the difference between what the people are doing and what the people that didn't follow the others believe they should be doing. China has groups trying to establish a return to cycling and feel it should be easy. What is hardly ever talked about is the want or even attitude if the people the few are trying to win back. They have even started several ride share programs for bikes. Look at some of the problems the old kingdom of the bike are now having.

https://www.wired.com/story/photo-of-the-week-a-dizzying-view-of-a-bicycle-graveyard-in-china/

cooker

That's a great story - there turns out to be a huge demand for bike share in the largest Chinese cities, but so many unregulated private entrepreneurs are getting in on it and flooding the market with "dockless" bikes for hire, that can be dropped off anywhere, it's clogging the city with parked or abandoned or dumped bikes that the police end up confiscating by the thousands.

Once they get the wrinkles worked out and the players winnowed down, it should end up being a lucrative business and they expect to export the model to places like "Panama, Malaysia and Italy".

Mobile 155

I found it interesting as well because someone has suggested just such a plan for the US. I also got a kick of how quickly the Chinese have moved away from respecting bikes. All in less than 20years. I didn't post the ones about some cities banning bikes all together. But they do seem to be in flux. There are those that are trying to revive the bicycle and investors are doing their part. At the same time the infrastructure is falling apart. It shows that things can fall apart a lot faster than I expected. When I saw that bike shares where taking off I thought they would be an easy sell. I had heard they had built bike lanes but I didn't realize the Government was using them to widen the roads for cars.

It seems if part of the problem is the populace is more interested in bikes because they can be used by opening an App on their phone. I read the average Chinese consumer uses their phone twice as often as someone from the US might to charge things and bike share is one of those things. They are however looking at size restrictions, too big or two small and have already started working on laws restricting kids under 11 from using a bike in town.

And today I ran across an article saying they are working on banning E-bikes because they are too dangerous. Looks like the Government will be pushing car production for the next few years to me. But as I said before, we shall see. Their country their problem. https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshe.../#7a2c139b141b

I-Like-To-Bike

There is still some real estate available in the Amsterdam metropolitan area for those not enamored with living in a beehive. Our dreamy friends can just get out their checkbook or check in the sofa cushions for lost change and make it happen.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/05/r...amsterdam.html

jon c. 

In a lot of mid sized cities in the US, the center city has become much less central for many. Whereas in the 50s and 60s, everyone commuted into the city for work, we now see office complexes and even manufacturing being built in somewhat self contained suburban areas. My own city is really almost like two distinct cities. The old city that has the university and state office buildings, and the 'northeast' section which has all been built in the last 40 years and spreads out from a core of office complexes. Many people live in one section and very seldom venture into the other section.

In a perfect world, I could see more such 'pods' that would each be relatively complete in terms of supplying the needs of the citizens. And ideally, they would have more walkable town centers. And could be connected by mass transit so that activities and businesses that depend on a larger critical mass of population (pro sports, for example) could draw from a number of such 'pods.'

But have pondered this over the course of a few long bike rides, I realize that's pure fantasy. Looking at how these 'satellite cities' have been developed in the real world, there is no central planning, and no real attempt to make things more livable by finding a way around the "acres of free parking" that tend to dominate such areas.

When I wrote my original post, I was thinking that the current model of city is quite old and is ready to be replaced with a new and better model tailored for a changing world. But on reflection, I think if that happens it won't be for another century or so.

McBTC

If "acres of free parking" is the only thing that keeps us from having to live arsehole to arsehole like in NY, NY then I'm for a lot more acres of it.

Stadjer

Mass cycling helps people becoming less of an arsehole.

cooker

That "central planning" is happening to at least some degree, both actually centrally planned, and through unplanned mechanisms. More young people are giving up driving and looking to live more centrally, and communities and regional and federal governments are investing more in public transit and other urban improvements. As discussed in this thread, cities are growing both up and out, so not just out, as they did in the latter 20th century

see eg. Millennials Continue Urbanization Of America, Leaving Small Towns : NPR

Mobile 155

But it doesn't look like they are buying much of the urban life. It seems as if they aren't buying much of anything but rather moving in with friends or parents, wherever that might be. https://time.com/3974659/millennials-labor-living/