Also, there was a recent episode by the YT channel "Not Just Bikes" that really opened my mind to the possibility of 80% of these situations being comfortable accommodated by cargo bikes. They're really amazing and a bike-centric future in cities is actually pretty realistic.

As someone who bikes everywhere, I'd say 80% of these situations don't even need a cargo bike. The cargo bike covers maybe another 15%, and the rest you can deal with by renting a van once or twice a year.

I agree with this - unless you have a single item that almost fills the cargo bucket, panniers are fine. Most cargo bikes I've seen don't have any more carrying capacity than a regular one laden with panniers. It's like truck vs. estate or something - sure there's some added convenience, and it's easier for single big things, but is it worth the specialised vehicle if you have/otherwise need (people capacity, maneuverability, whatever) the other one anyway?

Cargo bikes are far too expensive for this to work.

That is maybe the most ridiculous comment I've ever heard when comparing cargo bikes to cars.

Cargo bikes cost between $2k and $5k, can be easily stolen, take as much space to park as a car, and carries one person.

Cars carry 5 people and can cost between $5k and $10k.

So cargo bikes are really no match.

You're comparing brand new cargo bikes to used cars. The real comparision would be a new cargo bike (2-5k) vs a new car (>40k).

You're making the assumption that the cargo bike seats only one person, when a parent could easily seat two children on a cargo bike.

You're making the assumption that everyone would be using the cargo bike as their primary day-to-day transportation, when the cargo bike is mostly useful for either transporting young children, or when transporting cargo. At other times a more reasonable choice would be to use a regular bicycle.

You're making the assumption that cargo bikes take up as much space as cars which is just downright false.

New cars don't cost $40k in the real world.

Also, there is close to no second hand cargo bike volume so it is absolutely a fair comparison.

If I want to buy a vehicle I don't care if second hand cargo bikes are available or not. I know that second hand cars so exist though.

It is much better to view cars as a yearly cost, or a per mile cost.

Most people don't pay $40k up front, instead they pay $4k to $10k per year for a new car.

So let us assume 2 adults and 3 kids.

$5k for a _very nice_ cargo bike capable of transporting 1-2 kids too young to cycle on their own.

$4k for _nice_ bikes for each adult. ($2k x 2)

$3k for _good_ bikes for each kid as they grow out of the cargo bike. ($1k x 3)

$1k a year on maintenance for the bikes if you don't want to do it yourself.

$1k for locks and a crash course on how to lock your bicycles to stuff making it too much of a pain to steal.

That's $15k, or the cost of your lower end for a car for 3 years.

So between year 3 and 4 you can start either just replacing the bicycles with new nice ones because you like brand new, get yourself even more expensive electrified bikes, or spend it on other stuff.

And all the while here you could also settle for just "decent" bicycles which cost way less.

What kind of math is that?

That car will last you 10 years something you can hardly say about the cargo bikes.

You don't need a new car every year.

Are you seriously comparing a $5k car to a brand new, high quality cargo bicycle?

The equivalent cargo bike to a $5k car is below $500 and kids bicycles are below $100.

Edit: As for why I calculated like that? It is quite normal for a car to cost $5k per year. You have insurance, maintenance, repairs, taxes, financing, depreciation and fuel to pay for.

If you _only_ spend $5k on a car you're either going to skimp on a lot of those costs or pay it in maintenance, repair, and fuel... or you should compare it to the same tier of bicycles. Used bicycles you fix up yourself.

You think a 5k car is going to last you 10 years?

> take as much space to park as a car

They really don't.

I'm not sure why you need 5 people for the things listed above, like carrying groceries?

> can cost between $5k and $10k.

And how much per year in insurance/tax/maintenance?

Most cargo bikes cost quite a bit less than a car though.

Not if you account the price per capita.

I can't even piece together how this could be true.

A family probably only needs one cargo bike. An brand new _expensive_ cargo bike costs around the same as the yearly cost of a car.

If you think your car costs less, calculate your TCO.

And the other 3 members of the family are walking?

For what a single car costs in taxes, insurance, fuel, and maintenance for a year your could get 5 used bicycles and a nice cargo bike trailer off amazon.

Then why do people buy cars? You can also manage without running water, people did it for most of human existence, but it doesn't mean it's what we want to do. Money talks - when they afford it, a supermajority of people prefer to own a vehicle. And we're on the cusp of making it non-polluting, cheap and sustainable. Let's not blow it because "trains are marginally more energy efficient".

> And we're on the cusp of making it non-polluting, cheap and sustainable

Electric cars? They're not really any of these things. They're just not quite as bad as gas vehicles.

I kinda hate this kind of semantics. Paper cups are polluting, using this definition. Literally everything in human civilization is polluting.

I practical terms, when using words to actually mean something as opposed to bash opponents over the head with them, EVs take away something which is burning gas exactly in the places with the most population density and replaces them with something which is not burning oil in the places with the most population density. What's left in terms of local pollution? Break pads? Still less than gas vehicles, due to regenerative breaking. Microparticles from tires? Yeah, that's about it.

If you also want to count pollution from manufacture and energy generation, then you kinda have to also count pretty much every activity humans engage in, including hiking in the woods because your backpack is manufactured somewhere, using energy.

The effects of car pollution for human health are 99% burning fuel. EVs take this away. I think it's fair to call them non-polluting, and not play word games with this.

Local air pollution of newish cars is primarily from tyres and brakes, as is the effect of vehicles on waterways. What is from burning is mostly trucks (which are better replaced with trains for about 70% of use cases in a sanely designed area). An EV with decent range will also take until well after it is bricked by a remote software update to break even with keeping a small capacity hatchback running.

Producing an EV and building and maintaining car infrastructure uses massive amounts of fossil fuels and entails horrifically destructive mining of large quantities of rare elements such as cobalt and niobium.

All for the end result of wasting vast amounts of time, space, and tax money in any urban area to force a suburban lifestyle that is even more destructive, economically unsustainable, and wasteful.

EVs are much more efficient than ICE.

If you want to disincentivise congestion, or car accidents, or road wear, or suburban sprawl fine.

But don't just spout climate change denier talking points about EVs.

EV busses are a hot trend right now, they make public transport cheaper, safer and greener.

Do you really want people to believe that they are environmentally worse than the ICE vehicles they are replacing? What about urban delivery trucks going EV? How does spreading that fiction help?

Battery busses are much worse than trolley busses or rail. They're also significantly more expensive than all other options.

Their only upside is nimbys might let you have a transit system if you suggest them.

Are there any studies to back that claim the EV busses make public transport safer?

Yes, it's mostly air pollution from the engine and braking that is reduced:

https://www.transportenvironment.org/wp-content/uploads/2021...

Oh, so the busses are not safer in terms of collisions or pedestrian fatalities.

How do you account for dangers of battery production and disposal? Are injured EMTs and mechanics, due to high voltages, also considered? How do you account for pollution of installing upgraded transformers and lines to the bus depot for charging batteries?

To be fair, a sanely designed bus system (ie. RBT or busses that aren't useless because they're stuck behind a car) is just is safe as light rail...but then you can just build light rail because it's cheaper.

I usually expect the people doing Lifecycle Cost Analysis to think of these things and quantify them.

Have they all missed these deaths that you've uncovered? Enough death and destruction to overwhelm the well studied impacts of air pollution?

I bought my first vehicule at 32, when I moved to the US.

Prior to that I was relying on public transportation, renting something for vacation, and coordinating with others.

In the US that was not sustainable.

The US is absolutely massive - and in some places, this is absolutely not true and you can use public transport for everything AND it's better than driving. And in other places, the nearest public transport is hours away (by car!!).

Yeah, we have cities too.

It’s just that there is trains between them. Or buses that are not greyhound. By « we » I mean Europe. It’s small, but large enough.

And yeah, density, yadada …

It’s fine. Différents place, different organizations. You guys also have a massive army so you will end up being right.

There are also a whole lot of places places in the US that no one would call a city or even a town. And a whole awful lot of people live in those places! Rural in the US often means living an hour or more drive from the nearest place with a real grocery store.

That’s totally doable in a big city such as NYC. Been in here for 20 years and never owned a car. I do drive occasionally and rent a car for a few days to a week. Always works out for me and my non glamorous lifestyle.

Owning a car gives you a lot of freedom and flexibility but you either live in a place that requires a car every day, or one where you need it less.

If your neighborhood is well planned, with good access to public transportation, groceries, daycare, etc. then renting a car becomes viable for the cases bikes don't cover.

Trains, trams, buses and bicycles don't need to cover every case.

And I could totally do all those things just need to work a couple hours less a day, have more reliable child care and maybe fix the deranged hobo problem so my grocery and body make it home safely after most trips