Lower, targeted tariffs on Chinese imports would ease financial pressures for Canadian consumers and mitigate Canada’s excessive reliance on the United States.
Canada should not be doing business with either country. When we can, we should decouple from both entirely.
No need to make nice with hostile dictatorships. Especially when those hostile dictatorships are constantly attacking our country and citizens on a regular basis.
Right, a bike. That’s going to help me bring all those groceries home, it’ll be an okay form of transport when it’s raining or -30°C, when I need to go across the city on an errand or appointment, when I need to give someone a lift, when I’m visiting a relative who lives the next city over, and so forth and so on.
This comment went much longer than I expected, and in general I don’t think it useful to beat anyone over the head about riding a bike. Doubly so on a post than ostensibly has nothing to do with bike riding.
Enjoy the read.
It’s always a fun read to see groceries as the prime excuse for taking the car. Is the trolley used for the initial collection of the foods closer in size to a car than it is a bicycle? Perhaps a Smart ForTwo.
Oulu, in Finland, has the same population density as London, Ontario. Three quarters of the population in Oulu rides a bike on a regular basis, with a quarter of all trips being by bicycle. About 40% ride through the winter, even though Oulu is consistently colder than Toronto through the entire winter. Just about every child rides their bike to school all year round. If an elementary student in Finland can do it, a grown adult in Canada certainly can.
Despite worse conditions in winter, Oulu citizens (Oluans?) cycle circles around Canadians. The reason is pretty straight forward. Oulu has more dedicated cycling pathway than Ontario has Highway 401, at nearly 1,000 kilometres. More importantly, Oulu has its most frequented cycle pathways plowed inside 3 hours of a 2cm snowfall with a guarantee that snow won’t accumulate more than 4cm. In comparison, Toronto doesn’t even start plowing their roads until 5cm of snowfall.
When the infrastructure is in place, and the snow is properly managed, people can go about their day just as they would otherwise. Oulu does snow management so well, people there don’t even use studded bicycle tires.
“When your only exposure to winter is the walk across the parking lot to your car, you never get used to the weather, and you get an exaggerated sense of how cold it gets.” - some guy
And glossing over the weather with “wear a raincoat” or “wear warm clothing”, too. People are aware this is the canada@lemmy.ca community, yes? A lot of Canadian cities get weather where it’s downright deadly to be outside for extended periods.
If you enjoy biking and you can make it work for you in your personal circumstances, sure, by all means go ahead and bike. But don’t car-shame those who don’t.
I am not here to debate you or anyone else. If you wish to choose to use something for your convenience that damages the environment, costs more than its worth, and pretend like you are safe behind the wheel that is absolutely your choice.
Just know you are being judged because you are a huge part of the problem, and seemingly joyfully so.
If I were to debate you it would go something like this:
Internal combustion engines are the largest contributors to man made climate change, and ceasing there use entirely would immediately drop the output of pollution to more sustainable and manageable levels.
Evidence of this was seen during COVID lock down.
“During the current COVID-19 pandemic (CP), human activities, which are considered as major sources of various pollutants, were stopped partially to completely almost globally, resulting in reduced pollution levels (Zambrano-Monserrate et al. 2020; Muhammad et al. 2020; Saadat et al. 2020; Gautam 2020b). Community mobility reports (https://www.google.com/covid19/mobility/) depict that human mobility decreased by 90% between 23 February 2020 to 05 April 2020, specifically in European countries (Muhammad et al. 2020). During the same time, a sharp decline in air pollution was noticed worldwide. Climatologists predicted that greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (NO) emissions declined to levels not observed since World War II (Global Carbon Project 2020; Zambrano-Monserrate et al. 2020). Some recent studies have shown that atmospheric emission of multiple pollutants such as NO2, CO2, CO, SO2, PM10, and PM2.5 significantly decreased (ESA 2020; Saadat et al. 2020; Dantas et al. 2020; Mahato et al. 2020; Quéré et al. 2020; Ju et al. 2021; Mostafa et al. 2021). Scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) revealed the reduction in NO2 pollution near Wuhan and the trend continued across China (NASA 2020; Dutheil et al. 2020).”
Individuals can make this happen again by simply taking extra time and effort to not use internal combustion engines. If every person with a non commercial vehicle gave it up where possible (Like living in major cities) we could see a turning point in Climate change.
Unfortunately due to a feeling of privilege, intense propaganda, and in many cases sheer laziness people generally do not want to put in any effort to make a difference regarding their personal carbon footprint.
Giving up the internal combustion engine would also allow for a complete redesign of urban environments. Another big factor in the warming planet: Concrete and Asphalt. Removing roads in cities, parking lots, and replacing them with walking paths and more trees, would immediately help cool the planet as there is less heat stored on the surface.
Another wonderful option is storing that heat as energy for use later, like Iceland does with their roads.
In conclusion, the use of personal vehicles and the required infrastructure is incredibly damaging to the environment and removing both variables would see an immediate net positive in regards to climate change. Those who choose not to do their part are a major problem, and saying that is not “insulting those who hold” such an irresponsible, unscientific, and damaging opinion.
Panniers, baskets, racks, cargo bikes if you have very large grocery runs
when it’s raining
Wear a rain coat, put fenders on the bike
or -30°C
Wear warm clothes
when I need to give someone a lift
Go for a bike ride with your friend, or call them a cab if they are not capable of it
when I’m visiting a relative who lives the next city over
Rent a car, take a bus or train, or if you are feeling frisky, do an extra long bike ride there and stay overnight
and so forth and so on
All your concerns are very easily addressed, but still glosses over the fact that nobody has said that you should sell your car and do everything by bike. Replace the trips you can with bike rides and you will have more joy in your life while also helping the environment.
That only works in the most urban locations. There is no way I am getting anywhere with a bike where I live. Even my horse would be a better choice but also that is impossible.
If you truly live in an area too remote to access any shops or services by bicycle or e-bike, then my post is not meant for you. Most people in Canada live in urban areas and are capable of replacing some car trips with bicycle trips.
Ages ago I used to live downtown. I was biking even less. It’s not safe most of the time. Let alone when hauling stuff. Very few people would actually be able to (mostly) replace a car with a bike. There are also many issues (time, physical abilities etc.) with actual meaningful use of bikes. I am not talking the odd bike ride to get a new book or so. Our country, climate, society and city design isn’t made for lots of biking. Should you bike as much as you can? Sure but it’s not a viable sub for cars.
Our country, climate, society and city design isn’t made for lots of biking
I do agree we need more bicycle infrastructure but commuting and shopping by bike are very doable for many different kinds of people. I know this because I do it and I see others do it every day.
Most car trips are under 5 km. That is a distance that could be easily covered by bike in about 15 to 20 minutes. I think a lot of people could replace a lot of car trips with bike trips without much issue at all.
Its cheaper to drive than ride a bike? I highly doubt that. Perhaps you should try an e-buke though. You may find that far easier, faster, and more comfortable than a regular bicycle and depending on where you live, it may be faster than a car too.
Regardless, the point isn’t necessarily to be doing the thing that is always the most convenient and most comfortable, the point is making choices that are good for the environment and good for both mental and physical health.
but still glosses over the fact that nobody has said that you should sell your car and do everything by bike.
In this scenario I have both a car and a bike on hand. The car’s been paid for. The insurance is being paid for regardless of whether I’m using it at any given moment. So the only expense is gas.
“That’s still more expensive than driving a bike!” You might respond. To which I counter: is your personal time and effort worthless? How much is an extra hour of your time spent pedalling a bike worth to you? It’s worth a lot more to me than the cost of the gas I’d spend making the trip an hour quicker.
the point is making choices that are good for the environment and good for both mental and physical health.
The point is people making choices for me.
You go ahead and ride a bike around if you want to. Don’t make the choice for me. You don’t know me, you don’t know my circumstances and priorities and preferences.
Nobody is making choices for you. You make your own choices to drive, I am just saying that you can make another choice that would be better for the environment, better for your health, and far cheaper than buying an EV.
is your personal time and effort worthless? How much is an extra hour of your time spent pedalling a bike worth to you?
I find the time and effort spent riding a bike to get places pretty enjoyable and I think a lot of other people too do. Plus it means less time needed at the gym. I dont know where you live, but most people live within 5 km of grocery stores, shops, etc. Which is maybe a 15 to 20 minute bike ride, not an hour. I somehow doubt an extra ten or fifteen minutes to go somewhere is going to ruin your day.
Of course I can. I could choose to walk everywhere barefoot. I’m not going to, though, for the reasons I’ve explained.
Plus it means less time needed at the gym.
I don’t spend time in a gym anyway. I am fit enough and I have better uses of my time and money. Most people don’t go to a gym.
I dont know where you live, but most people live within 5 km of grocery stores, shops, etc. Which is maybe a 15 to 20 minute bike ride, not an hour.
In other comments in this thread I’ve mentioned there’s a grocery store very close to where I live, it’s about 5 minutes to bike there. But I don’t, because even when the weather is nice I still need to haul groceries.
In other comments in this thread I’ve mentioned there’s a grocery store very close to where I live, it’s about 5 minutes to bike there. But I don’t, because even when the weather is nice I still need to haul groceries.
So its not a time issue for you? You just dont want to carry groceries on your bike?
And even then a lot of cities aren’t set up to make bike travel easy.
Years ago, in the before times, the office I worked at was within biking distance of my house and I routinely biked there. It was nice. Then they moved the office downtown and it was either a half-hour commute by car, an hour long commute by bus, and I-don’t-know-how-long-by-bike-because-fuck-that-epic-journey commute by bike. I bussed a lot, but that meant I was wasting an hour of my time each day. I wasn’t fond of that. I hadn’t entirely settled on which approach was better overall before Covid hit and I never went back to that office again by either route.
There happens to be a grocery store within biking distance of my house. I drive a car there anyway, because even living solo I still like to get several weeks worth of groceries when I go shopping. No way am I hauling cargo like that on a bike even if I had a trailer for it.
Not even a joke, someone on a bike was struck by a car and killed just a few blocks away from me this very morning; fourth one in the past few years in this area.
“Buy a bike,” is such privileged shit, dude. Most people in Canada do not live in a place where bikes are a viable option. I don’t have an extra three hours in my day that also puts me at substantially higher risk of bodily harm. If they’re not affluent hobbyist the most common bike rider is someone who cannot afford the expense of a vehicle and are exploited much more heavily by our public transport system.
Car dependency is certainly an existential issue that manifests in Canada’s city planning, cost of living, and environmental footprint. What you just said, that people’s choices are the problem, is exactly the narrative the state and capitalists would like you to subscribe to. It is a systemic issue remedied only by decades of consistent advocacy and action.
Why don’t you take a look at the authorities in Canadian territory that have fought tooth and nail to defend system we have for the better part of the last century?
Infrastructure is not the best for cyclists I agree and I dont blame you for feeling unsafe for riding your bike. Everyone has a different threat model though and most Canadians live in large urban areas with large and expanding bike networks that they can take advantage of. That might not mean commuting to work by bike but maybe trips like going to the grocery store or the dentist can be replaced by bike trips.
I do agree that safe cycling infrastructure is one of the largest barriers to getting people on bikes, but let’s not pretend that there is some big modern day conspiracy against bike lanes. It’s everyday people who fight tooth and nail against every bike lane that is proposed because they will take away parking or driving lanes. Doug Ford might have a personal vendetta against bike lanes but many many people support this vendetta and support Ford because he is trying to remove them.
I’m so tired of privileged people in the city talking down to everyone else like we don’t know how cities work (“different threat models” fuck outta here with that bullshit). I’ve lived in cities ranging from 200k to 700k and guess what? There isn’t bike infrastructure; you share the road and there’s some adequate bike-lanes in affluent neighbourhoods that I don’t give a shit about. In the city I’m currently in, bike-lanes share a merge with turning lanes f so nooooobody uses them because they don’t want to get nailed by some douchebag in a light truck who can’t even see past the steering wheel. Nobody is talking about a conspiracy, this is the reality of neoliberal politics and the ruins of suburban sprawl. When I say, “authorities” I’m referring to the systems of power that operate in opposition to workers and the land that relegates decisions for infrastructure to affluent land-owners who couldn’t give a shit less about sustainability or accessibility. I also saw you put “wear warm clothes” as a response to someone saying that dangerous winter weather makes bikes impractical like you’re on some Marie Antoinette shit. Don’t talk to me like you understand any of this when it’s obvious you haven’t actually had to live in different places in this country.
Regardless of that, car-dependency makes biking distances prohibitively expensive in the one way that you clearly have never had to think about: time. I do not have the fucking time to bike to my dentist or grocery store – even if I had a backfiets that could actually carry groceries – when everything is spaced out to accomodate cars. It’s nice that you have time for that, most people have work and responsibilites that puts their time at a premium and that makes biking a very low priority on how to live sustainably. I cannot afford to bike. Everything you’ve said speaks from the distorition that individual choice is a primary vector for change when we know that systemic causes for decisions, like driving instead of biking, provide more effective explanations and paths to real change. You subscribe to the very narratives that are used to reproduce this unsustainable way of life and have the gall to sit there and act like you know better than others. -
Im confused by your animosity when I mostly agree with you, but nothing I’ve said is wrong. Different people are comfortable with different levels of risk when biking but that does not mean it can’t be done. Cold weather biking is very doable in cities with warm clothing and if needed, studded tires. People go outside in cold weather to walk and for recreation all the time, biking is not some bizarre activity that is impossible to do in the cold. I’ve biked in places with cold snowy winters and places with mild slushy winters, if theres been a lot of snow that hasn’t been cleared yet, I usually opt for transit on those days. If I am not comfortable riding a bike in those conditions though, I certainly wont be comfortable driving.
car-dependency makes biking distances prohibitively expensive in the one way that you clearly have never had to think about: time
This is an argument that I find surprising. Maybe Im not as good at scheduling as other people but if a 5 minute car ride turns into a 15 or 20 minute bike ride, is that really that much extra time? Is your whole day going to be ruined? Or a 15 minute car commute turns into a 30 or 40 minute bike commute, is that extra time really not worth the cost savings? Not to mention the time you dont have to spend at the gym now. There are loads of people that choose to live somewhere where they have to spend over an hour commuting to and from work by car. Personally I think an hour long commute by bike would be much more pleasant.
I see a lot of lame excuses as to why people cant ride their bikes. But most of these are solvable problems. Safe infrastructure is, in my opinion, the only factor that needs to be addressed to get people on bikes. Unfortunately we have administrations that are actively adversarial against this sort of change. Rather than tell people that it is hopeless to try to ride a bike in our society, I am telling people that it is very much possible to make the choice to ride a bike if you are dtermined enough. If people are saying that they cant bike places because its too cold or too rainy or too far, I am going to give them solutions, I am not going to just say that our infrastructure is too awful to support that choice in the first place. The best way to get people advocating for safe cycling infrastructure is to get more people on bikes. Im sorry that you’ve given up on change.
You misunderstand, what you said was rude enough on its own to warrant animosity. You fundamentally do not understand what you are talking about because you lack the basic empathy and systemic knowledge to even identify the problem; you have presumed that by the grace of god you have divine answers and never questioned why you think what you think. Who benefits from such a shallow narrative?
“Personally I think an hour long commute by bike would be much more pleasant.”
I know that may come as a shock to you, people are not just dumber than you. Most people do in fact make good decisions based on what resources they have available to them, and time is extremely limited for us poor peasants who have to work for a living. It does not matter if you think infrastructure is the only reasonable barrier and most people are just big lazy dumdums, because infrastructure is not getting fixed in most places in this country. As with many Canadians, I do not live in a place where it is safe or practical to use a bike regularly, that is a fact. The closest grocery stores to me are about forty minutes round trip by bike and would require me to traverse a six lane highway to access, that is not acceptable when it is a ten minute drive with nearly zero risk to my body. Yes, that is too much time because again, this may be shocking to you, people with work and responsibilities also have significantly limited energy in their day that would be expended not only by the biking itself, but the stress of risking your life to make the trip. People who work fucking forty to sixty hours a week on swing shifts with kids are not obligated give up whatever time and energy they have to maintain their health and home to force the use of a bicycle to make up for being forced to have a car. It is pointless.
Your comfort is irrelevant, I do not give a shit if this reality makes the world more incomprehensible to you. Grow up, not everyone has your resources and you’ve been privileged enough to get what you’ve had.
Unreal level of pompous douchebag energy here, I will not be paying attention to you and I will not read whatever bullshit response you cobble together.
The only person making assumptions her is you who seems to believe im some wealthy city-dwelling socialite who doesn’t work for a living. I ride my bike because its less stressful and cheaper than owning a car. I could hardly afford a car if I even wanted to.
You give all these reasons why you cant ride a bike and that’s fine, those are your reasons. But you act like everyone else is in the exact same position as you and everyone just simply is not able to ride a bike even if they wanted to. That simply is not true, lots of people are in a position where they can bike but choose not to. Im tired of people acting like the reason they make these decisions is because they have no choice. Maybe thats true sometimes, but most of the times I think its just that people dont want to and we would all be better off if people were up front about it.
OP suggested we focus on bicycles instead of cars and a bunch of people come out saying “well bicycles dont work for me or anybody else” and I have been saying they can work for a lot of people if they just made the effort. This is apparently a privileged position? I didn’t realize living in the most populated city in the country makes me a privileged elite but apparently that’s all it takes.
How about instead of riding a bike you walk? Or are the evil capitalists attacking sidewalks now too?
It is absolutely your choice on how you decide to live, and you can find an extra three hours in a day to use transit, bike, or walk. Start by cutting out any screen time over an hour in a day and you will likely find an extra 5.
I’m not sure if you just couldn’t understand my statement and attempted sarcasm here or if this is a genuinely bad response that unironically blames the bike. I’m clearly pointing to culture as the root cause of this, particularly the predominance of neoliberal politics and settler-colonial relationships with the land, so I assume it’s the former but that doesn’t apply.
Canada should not be doing business with either country. When we can, we should decouple from both entirely.
No need to make nice with hostile dictatorships. Especially when those hostile dictatorships are constantly attacking our country and citizens on a regular basis.
Buy a bike. Electric cars are not the answer.
Right, a bike. That’s going to help me bring all those groceries home, it’ll be an okay form of transport when it’s raining or -30°C, when I need to go across the city on an errand or appointment, when I need to give someone a lift, when I’m visiting a relative who lives the next city over, and so forth and so on.
This comment went much longer than I expected, and in general I don’t think it useful to beat anyone over the head about riding a bike. Doubly so on a post than ostensibly has nothing to do with bike riding.
Enjoy the read.
It’s always a fun read to see groceries as the prime excuse for taking the car. Is the trolley used for the initial collection of the foods closer in size to a car than it is a bicycle? Perhaps a Smart ForTwo.
Oulu, in Finland, has the same population density as London, Ontario. Three quarters of the population in Oulu rides a bike on a regular basis, with a quarter of all trips being by bicycle. About 40% ride through the winter, even though Oulu is consistently colder than Toronto through the entire winter. Just about every child rides their bike to school all year round. If an elementary student in Finland can do it, a grown adult in Canada certainly can.
Despite worse conditions in winter, Oulu citizens (Oluans?) cycle circles around Canadians. The reason is pretty straight forward. Oulu has more dedicated cycling pathway than Ontario has Highway 401, at nearly 1,000 kilometres. More importantly, Oulu has its most frequented cycle pathways plowed inside 3 hours of a 2cm snowfall with a guarantee that snow won’t accumulate more than 4cm. In comparison, Toronto doesn’t even start plowing their roads until 5cm of snowfall.
When the infrastructure is in place, and the snow is properly managed, people can go about their day just as they would otherwise. Oulu does snow management so well, people there don’t even use studded bicycle tires.
“When your only exposure to winter is the walk across the parking lot to your car, you never get used to the weather, and you get an exaggerated sense of how cold it gets.” - some guy
I have 4 kids. Comments telling me to put their groceries and hockey gear in a basket are hilarious.
And glossing over the weather with “wear a raincoat” or “wear warm clothing”, too. People are aware this is the canada@lemmy.ca community, yes? A lot of Canadian cities get weather where it’s downright deadly to be outside for extended periods.
If you enjoy biking and you can make it work for you in your personal circumstances, sure, by all means go ahead and bike. But don’t car-shame those who don’t.
I lived in Northern Canada for most of my life. -40 to -50 without a wind chill was normal. We put on warm clothes to go outside for extended periods.
I will car shame anyone in a major city with a vehicle. Mass transit exists.
Well bully for you. My time, safety, and comfort are worth a couple of dollars’ of gasoline to me.
Your refusal to understand or accept that other people have different priorities and circumstances than you do doesn’t help you win any debates.
I am not here to debate you or anyone else. If you wish to choose to use something for your convenience that damages the environment, costs more than its worth, and pretend like you are safe behind the wheel that is absolutely your choice.
Just know you are being judged because you are a huge part of the problem, and seemingly joyfully so.
Take care.
<Proceeds to make a comment full of criticisms of positions you disagree with and insulting those who hold them>
Yeah, good job at not-debating.
He did not say he was not here to judge
If I were to debate you it would go something like this:
Internal combustion engines are the largest contributors to man made climate change, and ceasing there use entirely would immediately drop the output of pollution to more sustainable and manageable levels.
Evidence of this was seen during COVID lock down.
“During the current COVID-19 pandemic (CP), human activities, which are considered as major sources of various pollutants, were stopped partially to completely almost globally, resulting in reduced pollution levels (Zambrano-Monserrate et al. 2020; Muhammad et al. 2020; Saadat et al. 2020; Gautam 2020b). Community mobility reports (https://www.google.com/covid19/mobility/) depict that human mobility decreased by 90% between 23 February 2020 to 05 April 2020, specifically in European countries (Muhammad et al. 2020). During the same time, a sharp decline in air pollution was noticed worldwide. Climatologists predicted that greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (NO) emissions declined to levels not observed since World War II (Global Carbon Project 2020; Zambrano-Monserrate et al. 2020). Some recent studies have shown that atmospheric emission of multiple pollutants such as NO2, CO2, CO, SO2, PM10, and PM2.5 significantly decreased (ESA 2020; Saadat et al. 2020; Dantas et al. 2020; Mahato et al. 2020; Quéré et al. 2020; Ju et al. 2021; Mostafa et al. 2021). Scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) revealed the reduction in NO2 pollution near Wuhan and the trend continued across China (NASA 2020; Dutheil et al. 2020).”
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8819204/
Individuals can make this happen again by simply taking extra time and effort to not use internal combustion engines. If every person with a non commercial vehicle gave it up where possible (Like living in major cities) we could see a turning point in Climate change.
Unfortunately due to a feeling of privilege, intense propaganda, and in many cases sheer laziness people generally do not want to put in any effort to make a difference regarding their personal carbon footprint.
Giving up the internal combustion engine would also allow for a complete redesign of urban environments. Another big factor in the warming planet: Concrete and Asphalt. Removing roads in cities, parking lots, and replacing them with walking paths and more trees, would immediately help cool the planet as there is less heat stored on the surface.
Another wonderful option is storing that heat as energy for use later, like Iceland does with their roads.
In conclusion, the use of personal vehicles and the required infrastructure is incredibly damaging to the environment and removing both variables would see an immediate net positive in regards to climate change. Those who choose not to do their part are a major problem, and saying that is not “insulting those who hold” such an irresponsible, unscientific, and damaging opinion.
Enjoy your toys while you have them.
Take care.
What? D: You don’t have $7,000 to spend on a bakfiets that couldn’t even fit all your stuff anyway?
Easy solutions to all of these complaints:
Panniers, baskets, racks, cargo bikes if you have very large grocery runs
Wear a rain coat, put fenders on the bike
Wear warm clothes
Go for a bike ride with your friend, or call them a cab if they are not capable of it
Rent a car, take a bus or train, or if you are feeling frisky, do an extra long bike ride there and stay overnight
All your concerns are very easily addressed, but still glosses over the fact that nobody has said that you should sell your car and do everything by bike. Replace the trips you can with bike rides and you will have more joy in your life while also helping the environment.
That only works in the most urban locations. There is no way I am getting anywhere with a bike where I live. Even my horse would be a better choice but also that is impossible.
If you truly live in an area too remote to access any shops or services by bicycle or e-bike, then my post is not meant for you. Most people in Canada live in urban areas and are capable of replacing some car trips with bicycle trips.
Ages ago I used to live downtown. I was biking even less. It’s not safe most of the time. Let alone when hauling stuff. Very few people would actually be able to (mostly) replace a car with a bike. There are also many issues (time, physical abilities etc.) with actual meaningful use of bikes. I am not talking the odd bike ride to get a new book or so. Our country, climate, society and city design isn’t made for lots of biking. Should you bike as much as you can? Sure but it’s not a viable sub for cars.
I do agree we need more bicycle infrastructure but commuting and shopping by bike are very doable for many different kinds of people. I know this because I do it and I see others do it every day.
Most car trips are under 5 km. That is a distance that could be easily covered by bike in about 15 to 20 minutes. I think a lot of people could replace a lot of car trips with bike trips without much issue at all.
You clearly have not ever ridden a bike in winter.
I ride my bike every winter, it’s really not a big deal if you wear warm clothes. The biggest issues arise when cities dont plow bike paths
I do have a both a bike and a car. Basically everything I do is better done with the car. Cheaper, easier, faster, more comfortable.
Its cheaper to drive than ride a bike? I highly doubt that. Perhaps you should try an e-buke though. You may find that far easier, faster, and more comfortable than a regular bicycle and depending on where you live, it may be faster than a car too.
Regardless, the point isn’t necessarily to be doing the thing that is always the most convenient and most comfortable, the point is making choices that are good for the environment and good for both mental and physical health.
The comment I’m responding to said:
In this scenario I have both a car and a bike on hand. The car’s been paid for. The insurance is being paid for regardless of whether I’m using it at any given moment. So the only expense is gas.
“That’s still more expensive than driving a bike!” You might respond. To which I counter: is your personal time and effort worthless? How much is an extra hour of your time spent pedalling a bike worth to you? It’s worth a lot more to me than the cost of the gas I’d spend making the trip an hour quicker.
The point is people making choices for me.
You go ahead and ride a bike around if you want to. Don’t make the choice for me. You don’t know me, you don’t know my circumstances and priorities and preferences.
Nobody is making choices for you. You make your own choices to drive, I am just saying that you can make another choice that would be better for the environment, better for your health, and far cheaper than buying an EV.
I find the time and effort spent riding a bike to get places pretty enjoyable and I think a lot of other people too do. Plus it means less time needed at the gym. I dont know where you live, but most people live within 5 km of grocery stores, shops, etc. Which is maybe a 15 to 20 minute bike ride, not an hour. I somehow doubt an extra ten or fifteen minutes to go somewhere is going to ruin your day.
The story is literally about tariffs on cars.
Of course I can. I could choose to walk everywhere barefoot. I’m not going to, though, for the reasons I’ve explained.
I don’t spend time in a gym anyway. I am fit enough and I have better uses of my time and money. Most people don’t go to a gym.
In other comments in this thread I’ve mentioned there’s a grocery store very close to where I live, it’s about 5 minutes to bike there. But I don’t, because even when the weather is nice I still need to haul groceries.
So its not a time issue for you? You just dont want to carry groceries on your bike?
And worse for your health.
You don’t know me. I spend an hour each day walking my dog, I get plenty of exercise.
The rural parts of Canada would like to have a word. A bike ain’t gonna cut it unless your young and single and living in a city.
I had a bike living in the rural parts of Canada, and used it to get everywhere within the 50-100 kms I needed to go.
in Winter?
Yes. With snow tires.
did not know that was possible
Honestly a massive game changer if one uses a bike for transportation.
And even then a lot of cities aren’t set up to make bike travel easy.
Years ago, in the before times, the office I worked at was within biking distance of my house and I routinely biked there. It was nice. Then they moved the office downtown and it was either a half-hour commute by car, an hour long commute by bus, and I-don’t-know-how-long-by-bike-because-fuck-that-epic-journey commute by bike. I bussed a lot, but that meant I was wasting an hour of my time each day. I wasn’t fond of that. I hadn’t entirely settled on which approach was better overall before Covid hit and I never went back to that office again by either route.
There happens to be a grocery store within biking distance of my house. I drive a car there anyway, because even living solo I still like to get several weeks worth of groceries when I go shopping. No way am I hauling cargo like that on a bike even if I had a trailer for it.
Not even a joke, someone on a bike was struck by a car and killed just a few blocks away from me this very morning; fourth one in the past few years in this area.
“Buy a bike,” is such privileged shit, dude. Most people in Canada do not live in a place where bikes are a viable option. I don’t have an extra three hours in my day that also puts me at substantially higher risk of bodily harm. If they’re not affluent hobbyist the most common bike rider is someone who cannot afford the expense of a vehicle and are exploited much more heavily by our public transport system.
Car dependency is certainly an existential issue that manifests in Canada’s city planning, cost of living, and environmental footprint. What you just said, that people’s choices are the problem, is exactly the narrative the state and capitalists would like you to subscribe to. It is a systemic issue remedied only by decades of consistent advocacy and action.
Why don’t you take a look at the authorities in Canadian territory that have fought tooth and nail to defend system we have for the better part of the last century?
Infrastructure is not the best for cyclists I agree and I dont blame you for feeling unsafe for riding your bike. Everyone has a different threat model though and most Canadians live in large urban areas with large and expanding bike networks that they can take advantage of. That might not mean commuting to work by bike but maybe trips like going to the grocery store or the dentist can be replaced by bike trips.
I do agree that safe cycling infrastructure is one of the largest barriers to getting people on bikes, but let’s not pretend that there is some big modern day conspiracy against bike lanes. It’s everyday people who fight tooth and nail against every bike lane that is proposed because they will take away parking or driving lanes. Doug Ford might have a personal vendetta against bike lanes but many many people support this vendetta and support Ford because he is trying to remove them.
I’m so tired of privileged people in the city talking down to everyone else like we don’t know how cities work (“different threat models” fuck outta here with that bullshit). I’ve lived in cities ranging from 200k to 700k and guess what? There isn’t bike infrastructure; you share the road and there’s some adequate bike-lanes in affluent neighbourhoods that I don’t give a shit about. In the city I’m currently in, bike-lanes share a merge with turning lanes f so nooooobody uses them because they don’t want to get nailed by some douchebag in a light truck who can’t even see past the steering wheel. Nobody is talking about a conspiracy, this is the reality of neoliberal politics and the ruins of suburban sprawl. When I say, “authorities” I’m referring to the systems of power that operate in opposition to workers and the land that relegates decisions for infrastructure to affluent land-owners who couldn’t give a shit less about sustainability or accessibility. I also saw you put “wear warm clothes” as a response to someone saying that dangerous winter weather makes bikes impractical like you’re on some Marie Antoinette shit. Don’t talk to me like you understand any of this when it’s obvious you haven’t actually had to live in different places in this country.
Regardless of that, car-dependency makes biking distances prohibitively expensive in the one way that you clearly have never had to think about: time. I do not have the fucking time to bike to my dentist or grocery store – even if I had a backfiets that could actually carry groceries – when everything is spaced out to accomodate cars. It’s nice that you have time for that, most people have work and responsibilites that puts their time at a premium and that makes biking a very low priority on how to live sustainably. I cannot afford to bike. Everything you’ve said speaks from the distorition that individual choice is a primary vector for change when we know that systemic causes for decisions, like driving instead of biking, provide more effective explanations and paths to real change. You subscribe to the very narratives that are used to reproduce this unsustainable way of life and have the gall to sit there and act like you know better than others. -
Im confused by your animosity when I mostly agree with you, but nothing I’ve said is wrong. Different people are comfortable with different levels of risk when biking but that does not mean it can’t be done. Cold weather biking is very doable in cities with warm clothing and if needed, studded tires. People go outside in cold weather to walk and for recreation all the time, biking is not some bizarre activity that is impossible to do in the cold. I’ve biked in places with cold snowy winters and places with mild slushy winters, if theres been a lot of snow that hasn’t been cleared yet, I usually opt for transit on those days. If I am not comfortable riding a bike in those conditions though, I certainly wont be comfortable driving.
This is an argument that I find surprising. Maybe Im not as good at scheduling as other people but if a 5 minute car ride turns into a 15 or 20 minute bike ride, is that really that much extra time? Is your whole day going to be ruined? Or a 15 minute car commute turns into a 30 or 40 minute bike commute, is that extra time really not worth the cost savings? Not to mention the time you dont have to spend at the gym now. There are loads of people that choose to live somewhere where they have to spend over an hour commuting to and from work by car. Personally I think an hour long commute by bike would be much more pleasant.
I see a lot of lame excuses as to why people cant ride their bikes. But most of these are solvable problems. Safe infrastructure is, in my opinion, the only factor that needs to be addressed to get people on bikes. Unfortunately we have administrations that are actively adversarial against this sort of change. Rather than tell people that it is hopeless to try to ride a bike in our society, I am telling people that it is very much possible to make the choice to ride a bike if you are dtermined enough. If people are saying that they cant bike places because its too cold or too rainy or too far, I am going to give them solutions, I am not going to just say that our infrastructure is too awful to support that choice in the first place. The best way to get people advocating for safe cycling infrastructure is to get more people on bikes. Im sorry that you’ve given up on change.
You misunderstand, what you said was rude enough on its own to warrant animosity. You fundamentally do not understand what you are talking about because you lack the basic empathy and systemic knowledge to even identify the problem; you have presumed that by the grace of god you have divine answers and never questioned why you think what you think. Who benefits from such a shallow narrative?
“Personally I think an hour long commute by bike would be much more pleasant.”
I know that may come as a shock to you, people are not just dumber than you. Most people do in fact make good decisions based on what resources they have available to them, and time is extremely limited for us poor peasants who have to work for a living. It does not matter if you think infrastructure is the only reasonable barrier and most people are just big lazy dumdums, because infrastructure is not getting fixed in most places in this country. As with many Canadians, I do not live in a place where it is safe or practical to use a bike regularly, that is a fact. The closest grocery stores to me are about forty minutes round trip by bike and would require me to traverse a six lane highway to access, that is not acceptable when it is a ten minute drive with nearly zero risk to my body. Yes, that is too much time because again, this may be shocking to you, people with work and responsibilities also have significantly limited energy in their day that would be expended not only by the biking itself, but the stress of risking your life to make the trip. People who work fucking forty to sixty hours a week on swing shifts with kids are not obligated give up whatever time and energy they have to maintain their health and home to force the use of a bicycle to make up for being forced to have a car. It is pointless.
Your comfort is irrelevant, I do not give a shit if this reality makes the world more incomprehensible to you. Grow up, not everyone has your resources and you’ve been privileged enough to get what you’ve had.
Unreal level of pompous douchebag energy here, I will not be paying attention to you and I will not read whatever bullshit response you cobble together.
The only person making assumptions her is you who seems to believe im some wealthy city-dwelling socialite who doesn’t work for a living. I ride my bike because its less stressful and cheaper than owning a car. I could hardly afford a car if I even wanted to.
You give all these reasons why you cant ride a bike and that’s fine, those are your reasons. But you act like everyone else is in the exact same position as you and everyone just simply is not able to ride a bike even if they wanted to. That simply is not true, lots of people are in a position where they can bike but choose not to. Im tired of people acting like the reason they make these decisions is because they have no choice. Maybe thats true sometimes, but most of the times I think its just that people dont want to and we would all be better off if people were up front about it.
OP suggested we focus on bicycles instead of cars and a bunch of people come out saying “well bicycles dont work for me or anybody else” and I have been saying they can work for a lot of people if they just made the effort. This is apparently a privileged position? I didn’t realize living in the most populated city in the country makes me a privileged elite but apparently that’s all it takes.
How about instead of riding a bike you walk? Or are the evil capitalists attacking sidewalks now too?
It is absolutely your choice on how you decide to live, and you can find an extra three hours in a day to use transit, bike, or walk. Start by cutting out any screen time over an hour in a day and you will likely find an extra 5.
Take care.
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It’s is bike’s fault. Not culture’s fault.
I’m not sure if you just couldn’t understand my statement and attempted sarcasm here or if this is a genuinely bad response that unironically blames the bike. I’m clearly pointing to culture as the root cause of this, particularly the predominance of neoliberal politics and settler-colonial relationships with the land, so I assume it’s the former but that doesn’t apply.
Both economies are too big for that to be feasible.
yeah right… bikes are awesome in the 6 months winter most of us have to survive yearly in Canada
I agree. They are pretty awesome in the winter, especially with snow tires on.