micromobility as a solution to car traffic?

[nikkiscy]

hey recently I see a lot of articles and a lot of buzz about ebikes and electric scooters as a solution to car traffic. what are your thoughts about this? me personally I totally agree with this 2 kinds of mobility because they are silent , friendly to environment and cost effective. I personally think that governments should promote them and fund them instead of banning them...any hidden interests behind the bans? what are your thoughts?

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by nikkiscy

hey recently I see a lot of articles and a lot of buzz about ebikes and electric scooters as a solution to car traffic. what are your thoughts about this? me personally I totally agree with this 2 kinds of mobility because they are silent , friendly to environment and cost effective. I personally think that governments should promote them and fund them instead of banning them...any hidden interests behind the bans? what are your thoughts?

I had a friend who swore that scooters did nothing but replace former walkers. So to them, it didn't help with traffic at all.

I personally like scooters because 1) they provide transportation to people(period). 2) they are environmentally friendly 3) they provide a decent income to those who charge them at night 4) I was in a pinch a few months ago(my tire blew out on my bike at school) and I was able to get home to my car within 25 minutes vs 1 hour or more walking.

Ebikes-I own one. I will NEVER go back to a regular bike. Granted, I am out of shape, but when I see people struggling while biking in windy weather I can't help but feel sorry for them, as I never have that issue. Ebikes have increased my commute range and comfortability. I can peddle like I am on a leisurely ride while going as fast as someone who is pushing themselves hard. Also, older folks who have full-throttle functions(I don't) can now enjoy biking again. My Ebike replaced about 25-40% of my former car rides in Norfolk(vs maybe 5-15% replacement with my old reggie bike).

[emathias]

Originally Posted by nikkiscy

hey recently I see a lot of articles and a lot of buzz about ebikes and electric scooters as a solution to car traffic. what are your thoughts about this? me personally I totally agree with this 2 kinds of mobility because they are silent , friendly to environment and cost effective. I personally think that governments should promote them and fund them instead of banning them...any hidden interests behind the bans? what are your thoughts?

Regular bikes are even better than ebikes or escooters, as they don't require a power-charging infrastructure and cost less both to buy and maintain. Their reliance on batteries is also They are also marginally healthier for the users. I don't necessarily think they should be banned, but I don't see a public benefit of subsidizing them over regular bikes.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by emathias

Regular bikes are even better than ebikes or escooters, as they don't require a power-charging infrastructure and cost less both to buy and maintain. Their reliance on batteries is also They are also marginally healthier for the users. I don't necessarily think they should be banned, but I don't see a public benefit of subsidizing them over regular bikes.

Power charging infrastructure? Are you talking about like bike-sharing ebikes? Because for mine, I just need an outlet lol Regular bikes usually do cost less, true. But I would bet my bike(which albeit I got a great deal) is about in line with what others pay for a nice bike. As far as health, I am terrible with math but I assume my "workout" by biking is probably reduced by 30-50% vs the same miles traveled by a regular bike. Of course, if you have a throttle and rely on that 100%, you get zero benefits.

However, all this aside, my range has increased tremendously and my enjoyment has also increased. This is most important to me. My bike has become a lot more useful to me in actually using it to commute.

[mousquet]

Biking is clearly is an excellent and very exciting option. However, there are obvious limitations.

1. Forget it when it's rainy and windy. A bike is just an obnoxious pain in that kind of nasty weather.

2. I recently found out that if you need to commute over some longer distance (say more than 8 or 10 miles at most), the subway remains more time-efficient when you don't have to walk too much from a station to your final destination.

On a side note, they're selling more and more electric bikes over here, including strange bulky things like this:


https://www.tritoncycles.fr/

Which leaves me in a "what the heck!?", especially when these things sell for €5,000 or more.
Electric bikes tend to be pretty expensive, to the point that €2,000 feels cheap when it comes to that kind of products.
They are nonetheless more and more in trend over here.

It is yet probably better and surely cheaper for us all to only use our legs (unless we're really old), but it's up to anyone and their particular needs or taste anyway.
I won't blame on anybody riding an e-bike. It is still a smart choice over a car where I am.

[jtown,man]

Yeah, a bike like that doesn't function much like a bike once you hit point B. You need a safe and large area to store it. 2,000 dollars is about right when people talk about cheap ebikes, but you can get nice cheap ones(from good brands) for around 1,400. Mine was even cheaper than that and wasn't some rando Chinese brand. I would never ever spend 5k on a bike. Ever.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Power charging infrastructure? Are you talking about like bike-sharing ebikes? Because for mine, I just need an outlet lol Regular bikes usually do cost less, true. But I would bet my bike(which albeit I got a great deal) is about in line with what others pay for a nice bike. As far as health, I am terrible with math but I assume my "workout" by biking is probably reduced by 30-50% vs the same miles traveled by a regular bike. Of course, if you have a throttle and rely on that 100%, you get zero benefits.

However, all this aside, my range has increased tremendously and my enjoyment has also increased. This is most important to me. My bike has become a lot more useful to me in actually using it to commute.

Yes, when you wrote that governments should promote them and fund them, I assumed you meant public share setups. I support the government promoting the use of alternatives to cars that don't pollute, or pollute a lot less. I don't support them paying for alternatives other than bike share. Bike share already drains a little transit ridership and other P2P alternatives would drain even more. If people want to self-fund those, that's fine, but I think the government can't and shouldn't promote every alternative. Transit and regular bikes seem like a good mix to me for dense cities. In cities that can't afford or justify any rail transit, then maybe they could add some electric bikes, etc, because that's a strong indicator that trips might be longer and justify the electric option. But in New York or Chicago or Boston or Washington or Philly - transit and bikes seem like the right balance to me.

[canucklehead2]

If I didn't live the currently frozen hellscape of rural Alberta I'd consider it. Or if I moved back to inner city Edmonton.

Alas due to almost 80 years of right wing rule (with the exception of 4 glorious spins around the sun under a social democratic leader) the roads here eat cars. Oversized loads + frost heaving/thawing cycled leaves the roads eating suspensions. How do I know? I own a Smart Fortwo cdi that gets 50 mpg but has gone through 2 sets of shocks thanks to potlines... I can only imagine someone trying to play chicken traffic trying to commute on our crap roads or sidewalks.

Still a good idea though especially for last mile solutions for most of the world!