Whilst I agree with the sentiment, it’s not possible for everyone to use a bike 100% of the time. Infrastructure does help, and I admit my UK city is certainly not very bike friendly, but even if it was it would be nearly impossible as everything is just too far away and/or you can’t transport what you need to on just a bike. We still need cars of some propulsion method or another.
I hear where you’re coming from but this isn’t what the article said. Dutch people use other modes of transportation than bikes. Just not as much. There are use cases where cars are hard to replace but right now, we are using them for way too many things. Public transportation is another alternative to cars that is way to often overlooked.
why “people cannot bike 100% of the time” but"people cannot drive 100% of the time" is never an issue? There are way more people who cant drive than people who cant ride a bicycle and that didnt stop humanity from making ourselves dependant on cars.
I’m from the Netherlands and I don’t use a bike 100% of the time either of course. I’ll ride it for any commute under 10 km that doesn’t require me to transport any large or heavy items, though. I’m fortunate enough to have a work place within cycling distance, so I’d estimate I use my bike about 70% of the time I need to go somewhere. Needless to say, this lowers my carbon output quite significantly compared to using a car.
Honestly, a friend told me a wonderful idea, which just makes me more disappointed in our governments lack of any real foresight:
They could’ve put a cycle path/walking path beside the HS2 rail line, would’ve been pretty darn useful for travelling large distances on bike.
Even could’ve had camping grounds and analogues to motorway services at points along the route…
Canals are kind of a useful aspect for travelling around the country on bike as you can basically cover most of the country, but they aren’t wide enough/maintained enough to be truly viable.
Whilst I agree with the sentiment, it’s not possible for everyone to use a bike 100% of the time. Infrastructure does help, and I admit my UK city is certainly not very bike friendly, but even if it was it would be nearly impossible as everything is just too far away and/or you can’t transport what you need to on just a bike. We still need cars of some propulsion method or another.
I hear where you’re coming from but this isn’t what the article said. Dutch people use other modes of transportation than bikes. Just not as much. There are use cases where cars are hard to replace but right now, we are using them for way too many things. Public transportation is another alternative to cars that is way to often overlooked.
why “people cannot bike 100% of the time” but"people cannot drive 100% of the time" is never an issue? There are way more people who cant drive than people who cant ride a bicycle and that didnt stop humanity from making ourselves dependant on cars.
I’m from the Netherlands and I don’t use a bike 100% of the time either of course. I’ll ride it for any commute under 10 km that doesn’t require me to transport any large or heavy items, though. I’m fortunate enough to have a work place within cycling distance, so I’d estimate I use my bike about 70% of the time I need to go somewhere. Needless to say, this lowers my carbon output quite significantly compared to using a car.
Honestly, a friend told me a wonderful idea, which just makes me more disappointed in our governments lack of any real foresight:
They could’ve put a cycle path/walking path beside the HS2 rail line, would’ve been pretty darn useful for travelling large distances on bike. Even could’ve had camping grounds and analogues to motorway services at points along the route…
Canals are kind of a useful aspect for travelling around the country on bike as you can basically cover most of the country, but they aren’t wide enough/maintained enough to be truly viable.
Proper infrastructure and proper public transport which allows bringing bikes solve most problems.
With a cargo bike you can transport most things just fine, for stuff that can’t be transported by bike a shared care or delivery company can be used.
Car sharing is pretty nice for that niche