Oxford Professor: Cycling is 10 times more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities
Cycling is ten times more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities
cross-posted from: https://jlai.lu/post/17684914
I just want cheap and reliable mass transit.
Yes! Fuck this individualistic "you should cycle instead of taking the car" language. We need collective investment in mass transit, because not everyone can bike to work, and even less people want to do it in the rain.
I cycle almost every where, at every weather, but at distances above 30km, it's just taking too long to be viable for every day tasks or visiting friends and family.
Public transport is neccessary.
I used to cycle out of necessity but after a while i just got sick of it from either not wearing enough and being too cold, wearing too much and being too hot, and having to guess correctly whether it'll rain or not but be miserable even if I prepared for it.
Where you can take your bike with you. The two modes of transportation combined is almost perfect.
The emission savings from replacing all those internal combustion engines with zero-carbon alternatives will **not **feed in **fast enough **to make the necessary difference in the time we can spare: the next five years. Tackling the climate and air pollution crises requires curbing all motorised transport, particularly private cars, as quickly as possible. Focusing solely on electric vehicles is slowing down the race to zero emissions.
Ah thank god we still have 5 years. Now the climate scientists just need to advise the general public to start shooting all the cars through the motorblock because it has been scientifically proven that is the one way we'll make it.
Published: March 29, 2021 10.59am EDT
OH MY GOD!!!! WE ONLY HAVE A YEAR LEFT TO MURDER ALL THE CARS??
@LarmyOfLone @grue Shooting the engine block draws too much attention. Home made spike strips and caltrops, on the other hand, can have a chilling effect on drivers. When you never know if the highway is going to be shut down because 30 cars all got flat tires in the same spot, and the devices that caused it are attached to the road with epoxy or JB Weld.
Actually a better idea is just dumping 2-3 cups of sugar in the gas tank. Will muck up the fuel injection system and put it out of commission pronto.
Haha well that could cause serious accidents. And I sort of expected like two decades ago in my naivete that we'd see "electric car conversion shops" spring up. Take out the motor block and tank and replace it with standardized electrical motors and special adapters and just put some lithium battery block in the trunk.
I think something that gets regularly overlooked is scooters. They can be gas or electric and they will drastically reduce emissions. ICE scooters can do 100 mpg and the manufacturing emissions are going to be a sliver of what a car or truck would be.
Make one that doesnt go BrrrrAAAP ! And I'm onboard:-D
On a serious note, electric; bikes, scooters, cargo bikes, small utilitarian vehicles, busses are the future of the city IMO.
There are some very cool electric ones now.
I recently bought one that does ~40km on a single charge and doesn't go above 25km/h and honestly I don't get why anyone would need more (people living in the hellscape distopya commonly referred to as "the US" need not reply).
Roads and highways would be perfectly fine cycling infrastructure, if we just got the giant motorized death machines off of them.
I liked your comment, but there is a lot more space that could be regained for pedestrians as well if we cyclists took only the space we needed. Car infrastructure is easily converted into one, but not into the other and asphalt causes heat islands.
Plus, roads are important for the people who can't walk or cycle as well as for emergency services. Goods can't all be transported by bike, either. Of course, that doesn't require multiple lanes. Part should be kept, part turned into small green spaces to compensate for the environmental effect of the road, and part should be used for separate cycling and walking spaces. It becomes a bit more complex with streets that aren't big enough for all that, of course.
Cycling would also help to reduce the amount of dangerously fat people. Which is an ever increasing problem.
And not just fat people. It helps prevent cardiovascular diseases.
For me the biggest benefit aside from generally increased fitness is how it helps with my mental health. It's hardly a new revelation that exercising regularly is good for your mental health. But it's so much easier to get yourself to move when you have to to get somewhere than it is if it's purely for exercise. At least for me.
But it’s so much easier to get yourself to move when you have to to get somewhere than it is if it’s purely for exercise. At least for me.
That's definitely not just in your case!!
True story: I was just at presentation for cyclists... there were maybe 30 of us. Every single person, young and old, were trim and healthy looking.
Go to any car show, and let me know if you can say the same. LOL
I dated someone for a couple months who was really into cycling. Like, she'd ride from NYC up to Storm King (~75 miles) for funsies. She had the body of a greek god. (Was also super smart and pursuing an interesting career. I'm still sad she dumped me, but she was reasonably kind about it.)
It also help to just feel better in general.
This reminds me of a story of a guy that lost his license due to an accident he caused, he was extremely overweight and had heart medication.
His coworker asked what he was going to do about it and if there was a possibility of him quitting or getting fired because he couldn't drive to work anymore.
The guy asked his coworker for a spare bike and started going to and leaving from work in a bycicle from that point on and about a year (or maybe less than a year?) later, the guy is already off heart medications, lost something along the lines of 100kg, something crazy, and he was as fit as he could be.
He got his license back and decided to not drive anymore unless absolutely necessary. They guy was essentially unrecognizeable.
As inspiring as that sounds, I wonder about how easy it is for someone facing obesity to ease into cycling. Their own machine and their balance struggle will have an uphill battle against that weight, and it may be especially scary if they live in a car heavy area.
Curious about this story, since I may know people who would benefit from such experience, both in terms of fitness and extra transit options!
Increased exercise won’t reduce the number of fat people. Fat people are caused by hormone levels typically due to diet. If you increase calories burned and do not address the hormones, fat bodies will simply increase caloric intake to maintain the balance.
Cardiovascular health and strength improves with increased activity. And these are great health benefits. But diet is the way to reduce the amount of fat one is carrying.
Cycling and walking are also far healthier options since they count for the whole "if you walk at least 30 minutes a day your chances of heart conditions drop by 70%" thing.
Even better, the fewer the cars around, the better it gets for everybody who walks and cycles (due to decreased pollution and less danger on the road).
Even electric cars and even if 100% of our electricity was from renewables still pollute due to the micro-particles produced by the tires when rolling on the road (and heavier vehicles make this worse).
I think cardiovascular disease risk drops more than 70% if you dont eat meat, which is another critical requirement for softening climate catastrophe too
You can eat meat and stay perfectly healthy
I have an EV and I still agree with this. An EV is better than an ICE vehicle but it is no substitute for designing cities around people - footpaths, cycle lanes, recreation, public transport etc.
what do you use your car for? like piano transportation?
To do things. Drove my kid to school 8km at 0610 today for a school trip, then a 20km drive to work, then later to get groceries etc. I wish I could cycle but my personal circumstances don't allow for it. Doesn't mean that my situation applies to everyone or that towns & cities shouldn't be designed with cyclists & pedestrians first, cars second to lessen the need for cars because I think they should.
I am actually considering getting an EV for transporting my Cello :/
It's unfortunately not possible to reliably transport it by bike (strong winds, icy conditions on my rather hilly ride to the city). Makes me miss out on re-joining an orchestra.
Everything else (groceries, work,...) would still be by bike, just... That.
Smh I put my piano on my bike racks. It's the timpani that go in the car - the rain ruins the skins.
That statement is just straight out false. Yes electric cars still represent a huge deal of energy needs for producing, but they are much, much more efficient at using energy than ICE cars. If I remember correctly it was something like 40% vs 90% energy efficiency? That's why if you put several electric cars connected in a row, place them on tracks, externalize the power source, and you get the most efficient way of travelling - trains.
It may help with the car pollution but car infrastructure is also miles and miles of lanes that add to the heat island effect and force homes and business further apart, reducing density. The secondary and third order effects of car culture are significant.
The (urban) issue is the space they require when not in use. Public transport and cycling require a lot less parking space. Shared (quick easy short term rental) electric vehicles are quite a good thing too.
That's why if you put several electric cars connected in a row, place them on tracks, externalize the power source, and you get the most efficient way of travelling - trains.
Sounds right when said like that, but I think very important factors are missing in that comparison. Maily: energy used per person & space used per person.
Most cars on the road are only transporting one person (the driver), which leaves a lot of wasted space. Trains on the other hand can carry way more people than cars can when using the space amount of space.
I don't know energy used per passenger but it's certainly less for train vs car (when both running on renewable energy).
Apparently (I think C02 emissions should give us the same idea if we assume both use clean energy): Eurostar: 6g CO2e per passenger km Electric Car: 53g (one passenger) CO2e per passenger km (or 13g with 4 passengers)
Don't think a lot of trains are as clean as the eurostar worldwide but it's possible to be that clean.
Theres many more benefits to trains too such as: You don't have to drive (browse lemmy while travelling), cheaper, 20x safer, a good train system can save you time, less waste (when your car eventually is scrapped, I'm sure a lot if recycled, but must still be a lot of waste, including energy spent recycling). Probably a lot of other stuff too.
p.s. sorry if i am wrong about stuff im trying to be right ;()
Yes, electric cars are just like trains
ngl you had me in the first half
Electric cars just replace a car with another car. I'm not even convinced we need lots more public transport, at least not long-range public transport.
We can replace a lot of existing cars in single digit years it will take decades to build out transit everywhere
Yeah, but bicycles don’t have the same profit margins as cars
Edit: just gonna add that I was being snarky with this comment. I’m for walkable cities with quality public transportation infrastructure.
Bikes really are a downward spiral. First people don't need to spend 20% of your annual salary into their car so they have all this extra money that they can use.
Worse! Since they are now traveling through their city in open air rather in a glass and steel prison they might start noticing local businesses and spend their money there rather than the billionaire's owned giant box store.
And now that they arrive home on their bike they will stay to notice their neighbors, maybe even say hi and start building local communities. It's also much easier to build a local community when you don't have deadly machines that you need to avoid passing in front of your house all the time.
My $4k piece of carbon and $3k hunk of titanium would like to have a word...
I would bet just about anything that the only reason profit margins could possibly be higher for a car is due to volume --- which, if everyone rode bikes, wouldn't be an issue at all.
Absolute profit, sure --- cars are more expensive, so they'll win out.
Might be less of a difference than we would think since every shared car would presumably become multiple bikes.
Eg: Family of 4 that have 1 car, turns into 4 bikes?
Of course big oil wouldn't like that very much. Screw you big oil, you are a turd.
Around here families of four probably have at least two cars. I didn't realise what 'car-dependency' looked like until I moved out of London. People tell me, "You don't have transport," but I walk, I have a bike, I get the bus or the train.
It's worse for the economy if people have to buy and run cars because that's money that could have spent elsewhere. It's "lost opportunity cost" to have to have cars.
Bicycles also help reduce health costs. As does walking and good public transport.
have you seen the latest price of the most expensive bikes? Maybe not a car price of the last couple years, but the most expensive bikes are the same price of small car in the 90's and 00's.
And please also note, that people have more than 1 bike (but not the expensive ones)
People don't buy carbon fiber bicycles for commuting and those who do tend to have them stolen unless the have a closed and locked place to but them at both ends of the commute.
If there's one thing I learned from living in The Netherlands is that you want a bicycle for day to day commute which is impeccably maintained whilst looking like crap (which explains why most bicycles outside Amsterdam Central Station look shabby).
Fancy bicycles are for Sunday Cyclists.
Modern bikes are beyond insane. Like, $10K to $15K is considered normal and appropriate - just to get disc brakes, electronic shifting, internally-routed cabling etc. Meanwhile I look for '90s era hybrids on Craigslist for $50 or thereabouts and get thousands of miles out of them - and somehow I'm still able to shift gears and stop when necessary.
to be honest; a factor of 10 seems a bit low
who do I need to kill to get the infrastructure going?
You can start with politicians like Doug Ford in Ontario, Canada. He passed bills letting him rip out fairly new bike lanes from Ontario's largest city's downtown, banning the entire province from building new bike lanes without his approval, and hidden in his bill is legislation that lets him build highways without doing any environmental assessments.
All while Canada is in a economic and housing crisis, a time where bicycles and bike lanes can lower cost of living and support denser housing developments.
he's been on my list since that wind farm thing
Whoever rules Prague. I travel to a lot of European cities and that one is continuously throwing a middle finger at pedestrians, especially given the size and planning of the city center.
I was surprised to see even Berlin and Munich doing much better.
Yes, I will cycle 15 miles (one-way) to the nearest produce section.
I'm all for bikes in sufficiently urban areas, but they are never going to be reasonable for 90% of America (by land mass, not population).
We need passenger train service (or other mass transit) that can cover lower density areas and still be reliable. (There's active train tracks within 100m of both my driveway and the produce section, so for me a passenger train would be ideal.)
It really seems like your phrasing and tone indicate you think your views are incompatible with the thesis of this article, but they aren't
Sorry, my bad.
Okay, so counterpoint: In a lot of ways, the EU is like a country. And it’s a large one - maybe not quite the US’s size, but big. And much of it is bike friendly.
No, people don’t traverse the mountains in their little hand-me-down red bike. But they don’t often traverse those mountains every month anyway. And when they do, trains exist for that.
So this exposes not a landmass problem, but an urban planning problem. It is the easiest thing in the world to stand in the middle of an 8-lane stroad in the boonies, where people are waiting 5 minutes to traverse two blocks of traffic lights to get to the quarter-square-mile parking lot outside their coffee shop, praying you’re not killed as you wait for the walk signal, and scream at the top of your lungs “What in the everloving fuck is the point of all this?” And it would be a family-friendly exasperation since it would be drowned out by engine noise.
We can build about 8 new walking-friendly cities in the space taken up by one goddamn McDonald’s parking lot.
If we had passenger trains with bike storage, I would never need a car again. We will never see that in America though. We can barely get infrastructure built. We have no national impetus to get it done.
Why the fuck is the nearest produce section 15 miles away? That's a major planning failure. Most trips that Americans take are less than 3 miles, so planning by population would be a lot more sensible than planning by land mass.
Well, there are a lot of reasons, I suppose. It's hard to name just one, but I guess because it isn't profitable to run a produce section any closer? That's not a root cause, and it's not something that reveals individually actionable items, but it's what I have. I'm not even sure there a collective action the 300 residents could take, other than funding a non-profitable community grocery store, maybe? But most of the residents are living below the poverty line, and the ones that aren't are either retired or otherwise uninterested in that kind of community action.
There's only 19k people in the whole county and 15mi. is the distance from where I live to the county seat.
I agree that urban planning should stop subsiding cars. But, America is, by land mass, not very urban, and I'm stuck in one of those areas.
Thats more a problem inherrent to how america builds its cities than it is a problem inherrent to the bicycle. I agree we still need to buld rail, but you would likely still have to increase density to get good ridership. Otherwise you start to sacrafice speed for frequent stops serving low density. A problem many buses already face.
"City" is an optimistic word for where I am compelled (by familial duty) to live. But, we need to plan for my density, too. Otherwise we'll still have millions of cars on the roads and they will need somewhere to park when they visit the city.
When I visit a real city, I don't mind paying for parking. I'd prefer not to have to pay for parking to get groceries each week, but that would probably be fine. But biking is not reasonable, and mass transit is unavailable.
people who live in 90% of the least densely populated land on earth are... not that many people in the grand scheme of things.
And if you live close enough to civilization to have utilities like power maybe it's possible to also have a grocery store that's closer than average distance between towns in germany. Might even be beneficial idk.
My father used to run the grocery store in town. My brother ran it for a bit, too. I don't know the ultimate reasons it ahut down, but Dad wanted to retire and brother decided it wasn't worth it to run.
There's a dollar store in town, and an another 5 min north, and another 10 mi. south, but no produce at any.
I want to move back to a more urban area and be able to walk to a grocery store in 15 minutes, but Dad needs someone to live with him since he is now disabled. (Brother died.)
I remember there was a problem getting wholesale deliveries at the small scale needed to serve this town of barely 300 people.
So the tracks are already there they just don't run passenger trains on it?..
worse, a lot of places have "rails2trails" programs where they rip out old train tracks and put in bicycle paths instead.
It makes more sense to put trains there and convert old car roads to bike paths
Yep. Passenger service stopped in my area before I was born, but my father remembers being able to use them that way.
Freight trains run through multiple times a day, still.
The "old train depot" meuseam / visitor's center is literally across the street from the grocery store w/ produce section.
15 mile with an electric bike and good infrastructure that let you go fast is doable. And electric bike is already so much better than a car because it weight much less and as such consume much less. But I agree overall it does not replace a train because people won't cycle when it rains.
I'd rather cycle when it rains than get a train, assuming it's not like 3 hours in a freezing temperature watching cars go by while I'm stuck at cyclists-only red light.
That's still almost an hour each way with the US class 1 ebike limit of 20mph. Not really doable for me or most people purely from a time usage stand point, not to mention 2 hours in the weather if it's poor.
An electric motorcycle would be a lot more interesting to me, because it's not held up by the stupid US ebike laws with such low speed limits.
Even if you need/prefer an ebike you get about 85 ebike batteries out of one Nissan leaf not even a powerful e-car the most pedestrian one.
Unfortunately I live where its cold and raining 99% of the time. They are trying to build a line from where i live to where I work though so it might be bearable to bike the distance to the station in the rain
Bicycles just aren't suitable for cold places. They only work in places with warm, sunny weather. Like Norway.
I saw a lot more electric cars than bicycles in most of norway.
The netherlands, a huge cycling country, is also known as a dreary place where it rains more than the sun shines. You just put on a good waterproof outfit and you're good. Cycling heats you up as well, so as long as you have good clothes I would say its doable up to and including freezing temperatures, depending on the road surface.
It also helps when your office has showers and indoor parking. This is part of bicycle infrastructure that is normalized the more we ban cars.
Maybe
I get mild frostbite super fast though because my circulation to my fingers are nonexistent
I also unfortunately live in the lands of cars, in the part of the washington where theres no real bike lane and I have to share the road with cars
The Netherlands is also flat as fuck.
Where I live it's either cold and burns my lungs to do any outside exertion or hot and saps all my energy, with a brief tolerable window between.
I live in Denmark and despite wind and horrible weather still we manage to bike everywhere for most of our needs.
Summer was unbearably hot, and I decided to commute via a bus with AC instead of a bike, but in september I started using a bike and didn't stop unless there was pouring or there was snow on the ground.
I even in mild rain I just took my bike. First winter season I used a bike at all, not to mention riding in a full face cover, leather or ski gloves with a ski jacket.
I also researched some motorbike rain pants but we're in a decade long drought, so far didn't need them.
One thing tho. If it's raining you better have disk breaks, the clampy ones just slip on wet wheels. I had to re-learn how to stop safely.
I live in a similar climate and use rain pants.
Rain pants and rain overshoes. It's a bit annoying to take them off after you arrive, but that's a small
Although I am privileged enough to just take the bus or WFH if the weather is truly terrible (like freezing rain).
Good luck. I hope there isn't too much wind. I find it the worst part of bad weather cycling
I have the opposite problem. If I tried to bike home from work in the summer, I would literally die of a heat stroke. I biked to college and even when I had a 7am class, I would arrive drenched in sweat and have to do a paper towel bath in the restroom.
I used to cycle 7 km to work, but now, after moving to suburban village, there is no way to go other way than car. Especially with small kid. Unless you are fit enough to do 25 km every day by bike and risk your life (and potentially kid's) on the street between cars. So no, there is not realistic to "fuck cars". I am speaking from European perspective, probably US has the car things much more fucked up.
risk your life (and potentially kid’s) on the street between cars
I dunno, boss, seems like a plenty good reason to say "fuck cars" to me.
Yes, I can be pissed by cars for that reason, but will this make them disappear or make less needed? Sure, many people could go by bike not the car and they are just lazy bastards, but some just need a car
I don't think you realise how much you've been fucked by car. I presume you move out to the suburb not because the city council decided to exile you and never let you stay in the city, you move out because you have a car and can drive 20+km toward your destination, which then mean everything is so out of your way you have to use car to do everything. So no, you're the one that got fucked by motonormativity and yell "cum inside", you don't get to then deny everyone a better solution.
Did the 2x12km for theee years, only got ran down once.
I did have beast legs though :-)
I had to fix the tyre tube every week (cost similar to LPG fuel) until I started to pump for almost maximal pressure. It was fucking frustrating, also without proper infrastructure, riding a bike is not fun at all
All I need now is the knowledge, sense of balance, and confidence to ride a bicycle
If you have enough balance and leg strength to walk
That's factually not true. I know you try to cheer them up and telling them, you don't need special abillity or to be fit and sportive to bike, which is true, but what you are saying is not true. They is people with disabilities that affect balance that can walk but not bike at all.
My country runs courses for adults to learn how to bike - maybe yours does the same?
The more you ride, the better you get. Try include cycling into your exercise, and within a year you should be better with it.
If you're in need of some inspiration; Tom Scott on YouTube made a video of himself learning how to ride a bike. Seeing someone else learn something can be useful, and there's a lot of little things in the video one can pick up on to avoid common mistakes.
do you have a bicycle?
but they're not handicap friendly... public transport serves a purpose... edit: I'm not saying keep using cars, I'm saying get more trains and rail... and then free up space for more bike lanes whatever
I can’t see this taking off in my city. It’s tropical here and during the colder months it’s in the 80s.
People are not going to cycle to work because they will be drenched in sweat by the time they arrive.
Given how popular bikes used to be in Vietnam, which is positively scorching most of the time, I don't think this narrative had any credibility.
Besides, with e-bikes being a thing, this take is even less valid
Just going to point out that it's kind of an unreasonable expectation that people will not be sweaty when it's that hot outside.
That's why you need it in combination with public transit. Even if it's 90-100 degrees I can go for a bike ride for at least 10 minutes as long as I can keep moving and keep the air blowing on me. And I'm not even really in good shape. So as long as you can bike to a bus or train stop in a fairly short time, then hop on that where there's air conditioning, then ride for a while, and eventually take another short bike ride to your work, then it should be fine. Of course during heat waves having a car as back up is definitely good or just to use during the hotter months also works and would go a long way to reducing green house gas emissions from either driving an ICE car or from the energy you use for your electric car.
It's the same everywhere though, and people who commute to work tend to have facility in their office(if they work there) to help with that. Else i heard some people wipe it down with baby wipe. If they work blue collar like me then what's to worry?
Also ebike(class 1) help tremendously and also help keep you healthy.
Been there, done that. Only time I actually sweated was when waiting at intersections, rest of the time the wind from riding kept me dry.
when you cycle regularly, a commute doesn't make you sweat.
When it's that hot, just existing makes me sweat. It's barely 15°C in the UK and I'm down to shorts and T shirt already.
This is not true in my experience cycling in 32°c to 34°c and 75% to 90% humidity environment. 😅 I used to commute daily to school at early dawn and i drench in sweat everyday.
But there's way to avoid that and people tend to commute to work in the morning and evening, where it isn't as hot as noon.
It depends on whether you know how to pace yourself, which I seem to never be able to learn. I can only go full blast every time, and hence I always arrive sweaty.
Luckily, I only have 5.5 km to go to work, and with my current speeds, that doesn't get me sweaty enough to be unable to air-dry out. Previously, when I had a longer commute of 14 km, I was luckily able to use the showers offered at work.
This depends on ambient temp and humidity
Lol no
Most places I worked at had showers available for those who cycled a long distance or enjoyed a lunch activity such as running.
Sadly that’s not very common in the country where I live.
no shit sherlock!
If sending 800 emails is the equivalent carbon released as biking instead of driving for a day then watching a 4k movie must be equivalent to burning down 10 acres in the Amazon. 🙄
They always ignore the rest of the world. Sure you can bike ride in yor little university town built from riches pillaged from the world but the rest of the world? You want India and Africa to ride bikes? Did they include the absolute infrastructure update in their calculations?
It's not like poor Chinese, Vietnamese or Indian people would ever use bicycles. The very idea, how ludicrous. Haha.
They use motorbikes 🤦♂️
Colonial extortion built the cycle infrastructure....
Oh, goodie. Lemmy always delivers, lmao.
Do indian and african not ride a bike?
Its not the optimal choice. Motorbikes for one are much more viable because the winters are easy and the terrain can be too difficult for muscle powered bicycles. Also Motorbikes can carry a lot compared to a bike. The rest is filled in by public transportation - busses, trains, rickshaw, converted pick up trucks.
I've been living in Asia for almost 20 years now and bicycle is not it trust me. It's only viable for rich small diatance well developed countries and anyone who says otherwise really needs to get out more.
Bicycle commuting reduced all-cause mortality by almost 50%. All-cause. That's with the risk of getting murdered by a driver priced into the figure.
Yep, meanwhile my country built bike highways. I'm at work after 35 minutes of cycling. (15 km)
I live outside of a city, so I can choose between multiple cities where I wish to work. It's pretty convenient.
I simply don't feel like accepting a job offer that has a bad commute.
The biking is a huge stress reliever, I come fresh at work and freshly home.
I suppose you felt like sharing this information because it confirmed whatever weird biases you have but you’re obviously wrong but you still haven’t deleted your comment so I think you are a republican
I think if you think that saying that US needs more remote work, affordable housing near where we work, and investment in transit makes one a Republican you must not be very familiar with Republicans. I think you should probably rethink your entire perspective on life.
...yet city in the US been looking at this and found out biking is not as dangerous as people think, and facilities being build for cyclist is increasing.
https://www.axios.com/local/seattle/2025/03/19/traffic-safety-2024-pedestrian-cyclist-deaths
It is exactly as dangerous as people think as you can clearly look at the miles biked and driven and see that the deaths per mile are massively higher. What you are posting is that its possible for it to be less dangerous than before mediation not that it is sanely possible to make mixed use as safe as cars.
Yeah biking is extremely deadly where I live. You really don't see bikes at all. Sometimes they're left on the roadside where someone died on one. You can't walk, either.
The government should ban cars to make cycling safer
On the narrow roads where I live in the UK I also doubt the number of cars having to slow down and then accelerate to overtake is saving energy. I'd love to see a study that looked at the rural roads in the UK because I'm sure it's less efficiebt and more polluting.
Obviously this changes if there are dedicated cycle paths, but they are a rare thing or here in the sticks. Also there idiots on road bikes who refuse to use cycle lanes when provided. I think the highway code needs updating to stop this.
I'd also ban racing bikes from the road, if you can't cycle over a drain or a pothole then your bike isn't built for UK roads.
I'm sure I'm going to get down voted to hell and back for this post.