> Bike infrastructure can be used for walking.

Please, no more of this. Bicycles should be on their own dedicated right of way, mixing them with cars is dangerous for cyclists, but mixing bikes with pedestrians is dangerous for pedestrians.

Multi-use paths are fine for recreation, but they are not transit infrastructure and should not be treated as such.

As both a cyclist and pedestrian, I definitely prefer bikes off the sidewalk. Even conscientious cyclists who call “on your left” or whatever routinely underestimate the necessary reaction time and overestimate how far their voice will carry. Even if they get both of those right, they’ve frequently terrified my pup by just being faster and louder and larger than anything on foot she’s ever met. I’ve had to return home and restart our entire morning/evening because of this countless times.

I don’t feel as strongly about separated bike infrastructure, mainly because my experience with it is that it’s more dangerous than riding in auto lanes, and that it creates an illusion of separation that both heightens that danger and heightens the dangerous attitudes of drivers trying to navigate it. I’m sure it’s better where the infrastructure is better, but where I live I choose to ride my bike away from those accommodations and right in traffic with the cars and drivers who flow together with me.

> Even conscientious cyclists who call “on your left” or whatever routinely underestimate the necessary reaction time and overestimate how far their voice will carry.

You are absolutely right. As a cyclist there isn’t really any good way to reliably avoid startling a pedestrian in a mixed environment. Even if you do the even more conscientious thing and you slow all the way down to match speed with them, and then “walk” with their speed for seconds and softly anounce your presence with an “excuse me” there are still some who get startled. I have had people act after all of that as if I tried to murder them. And I totally understand them! From their perspective they were all alone and “all of a sudden” a cyclist poped into existence behind them. And in their subjective reality they have just avoided a collision by jumping out of the way of some “crazy speeding biker”, but that biker only exists in their imagination. An outside observer would see a bike slowly catching up and matching speed with them, with zero chance of collision no matter what they might do, but that is not what they seem to experience.

I used to encounter this back when I would ride kick scooters on sidewalks. Startling is instinctual and the verbalization of offense at one's existence(which often follows DARVO dynamics) happens in the process of catching up. But I've had success not getting negativity with urban biking more recently.

I rarely try to overtake pedestrians directly when off marked multiuse paths. Instead I stop pedaling and walk the bike while saying nothing. The persistent tick-tick noise activates their awareness after a few seconds, but I have to wait for a sign, and sometimes none appears so I will walk the whole block and overtake at the intersection. Regardless, they like that noise much more than a voice or a bell, because it's a bike that isn't imminently bearing down on them, so it primes their expectations.

This is facilitated by defaulting to the lowest gear, setting the saddle position low, and letting yourself cruise slow most of the time. Everyone, whether car, bike, or pedestrian, wants to default to "never stop, always be moving". But sometimes you have to explicitly yield and the adjustments away from efficient road cycling help with doing so.

> As a cyclist there isn’t really any good way to reliably avoid startling a pedestrian in a mixed environment.

A loud freewheel is probably as close as it gets. I'd guess a loud freehub could work too, but I like my bikes old, so no freehubs. Maybe some sort of jetsons noise generator.

Where do you guys live? Here in Sweden we have a small bell on the steering you ring when you want to pass.

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&channel=iphone_b...

I have a Cricket bell, which can be rung normally, and can also be clicked down to act as a cowbell, gently ringing as i ride along (especially if i give the handlebar a quick wobble):

https://granite-design.com/products/cricket-bell

I use this when i ride along a shared-use path.

It makes no difference. Either people are walking in a group and talking, so they don't hear it, or they have earphones in, so they don't hear it.

Wide paths with a modest number of bikes are usually OK. But I've definitely been on narrower paths and trails where cyclists are expecting you to step off to the side every two minutes because you're in their way. I don't mind every now and then when I'm walking but it can get to the point where you can't really mix modes.

The problem with bells is that people tend to act very unpredictable; you never know whether they freeze or jump left or right.

They will freeze for a moment, then jump left, then right.

That's also possible.

Such bells are worse than useless when the pedestrian is a small child. A three-year-old moves into the traveling bicycle's path on the sidewalk when it looks at the source of the curious sound.

This sadly has become less useful with the increase in headphone usage by pedestrians.

A pedestrian with headphones needs to ensure that he can hear any relevant traffic noise, e.g. my bell or an approaching car. Noise-blocking headphones or loud music impeding the hearing of a pedestrian are a traffic offense.

In that case a loud freewheel wouldn't do much either though.

Yep, anything audio, like a whistle, shouting "ahoy there!", has less use these days and with tiny airpods being a thing now, it's not even possible to guess from a distance if someone is listening to music.

Possibly some kind of laser beam thing that sweeps the ground in front of you might work?

> Possibly some kind of laser beam thing that sweeps the ground in front of you might work?

That's what the TFL bikes in London do[0]:

"The Blaze Laserlight is fixed to the cycle frame and projects a green cycle-shaped image onto the ground around 6 metres ahead of the cycle."

[0] https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/cycling/santander-cycles/blaze-lase...

I don't really get the AirPod proliferation. Even if I'm in the woods by myself, much less on a busy path, I can't stand the disconnection from my environment.

Do you drive a lot? Drivers are very used to the audio disconnect.

Before I did my licence I was a firm believer in "no earbuds on the road", but after a few driving lessons I got so used to taking in the traffic situation with eyes only that I quickly converted to an earbuds all the time cyclist. A few years later I stopped driving so much and my cycling reverted to ears-always-open without me even noticing.

I drive regularly. Yes, there is some degree of audio disconnect in a car. I also have various mirrors and sensors of various types. And I'm hopefully paying more attention than if I'm just walking around.

You are also a lot less squishy inside of a car.

Indeed; here it's mandated by law to have a bell on your bike (together with lights and reflectors back and front). I would expect that's the case in many European countries.

There are cheap bells that you mount on the handlebar but they tend to break easily (and don't produce much sound; typically just one ting). Decent bikes have a more sturdy design, see for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_bicycle#/media/File:Du... (it's on the left, wrapped around the handlebar next to your hand). These tend to produce more sound.

I'm in the US near Seattle. I don't have a bell, and I've got too much junk on my bars already to add one. When I've seen bells in use, they tends to spook the pedestrians anyway. Obviously it helps if they're ubiquitous.

I'm in Finland and most bikes come with a bell attached to them. To me they kind of feel like a thing every bicycle should have, like cars have horns.

They're a legal requirement in Denmark. Some take them off, especially the Tour de France LARPers that go in groups in the countryside, and just shout at you instead. Everyone hates them.

Plenty of them do have bells, ring them a lot and only start shouting after the bell is repeatedly ignored. Stop pretending to be deaf and all will be fine.

Some people are deaf or hard of hearing.

In my experience, though, the worst sidewalk speeders are on skateboards or scooters. (I'm not saying you shouldn't skate; rather, when there was a close call or a collision, that's what they were barreling by on.)

a bell as well, but it sometimes scares the crap out of people.

The least bad way seems to be giving them plenty of opportunity to "notice the cyclist on their own". "Look how polite I am" vs "how dare they order me aside!"

My usual approach sequence is bell first (very early/far, only to soothe my nerves when the walker later starts that "should have used a bell!" tirade - sometimes a dog hears and understands that early bell and notifies its human) then generous freehub noise (first stage of "notice on their own"), then more bell and when I'm close, already effectively at walking speed, a short burst of blocking the rear brake. Unsurprisingly, people who appeared completely deaf to the bell right behind them a second earlier seem to hear even the tiniest scratch of a tire loud and clear...

> As a cyclist there isn’t really any good way to reliably avoid startling a pedestrian in a mixed environment.

Why couldn't you just ask (or require) bicyclists to use bells or horns of some sort? Pedestrians would get used to the noise after a while.

As an example; That has worked fine for at least a century since bells were introduced as a requirement on bicycles in the 1900's around here (yes that is no typo). Pedestrians are usually annoyed but do notices the cyclist and that's what you want to achieve.

I don’t understand the facination with the bell. In what way would it help with the situation as described? Do you think it would startle the pedestrians less than the human voice?

Bells have zero effect on pedestrians. Bells are required where I live and I repeat that experiment a lot.

> I don’t feel as strongly about separated bike infrastructure, mainly because my experience with it is that it’s more dangerous than riding in auto lanes, and that it creates an illusion of separation that both heightens that danger and heightens the dangerous attitudes of drivers trying to navigate it.

That's why I specifically said "dedicated infrastructure", painted bicycle gutters are NOT proper bicycle infrastructure either. Bicycles should be at grade with pedestrians, but on dedicated cycling pathways so there's no conflict between the medium-speed traffic from bikes and the low-speed pedestrian traffic (even though they may often run parallel with each other).

Ultimately I call it "bike infrastructure", but really it's better to think about it this way - we have three different speed classes that need dedicated rights of way to make sure everyone is safe.

High speed / automobiles - It's not just cars and trucks, motorcycles and high end electric scooters belong here as well (I don't share space with bikes when I'm going 40MPH on my eScooter, it's unsafe for cyclists and dangerous for me as well - so I take normal travel lanes because I'm going the speed of traffic anyway).

Medium speed / bikes / eBikes / lower end electric scooters / EUCs / etc - Things that have a top speed of 20-30MPH generally speaking. Doesn't need wide lanes, and ideally should have more direct routes with fewer stops to conserve momentum.

Low speed / pedestrians / mobility scooters / etc - Obvious, you're going 5-6MPH max here even if you're out taking a run.

> painted bicycle gutters are NOT proper bicycle infrastructure either

To be clear, where I live there are recently installed “dedicated” bike routes which are separated from car traffic by concrete barriers and curbs, and also separated from pedestrian traffic by curbs and intermittent heavy ceramic planters. The problem is that the separations are interrupted to allow turns and deliveries. All of the separation is partial. I feel a ton safer in a painted gutter, and much safer still in the middle of a car-wide lane.

To make matters worse, the particular “dedicated” infrastructure I’m thinking of is on the left side of a one-way street and introduced complicated signal timings that surprise even regular riders and drivers. I’ve posted this before here and elsewhere: when I have to go somewhere in that part of the city and have to brave even a stretch of the route, I deliberately choose to be in car traffic even with drivers irrationally yelling at me to get in the bike lane and trying to run me off the road with their cars, because it feels safer than being in the bike space.

The theory of dedicated bike infrastructure is interesting to me, but what I’ve seen in practice where I live mostly motivates me to ride on roads with sharrows right in the middle of the road clearly indicating that I’m allowed to be there even if every single driver forgot their driving instruction.

Growing pains will be around for decades, unfortunately. Cycling needs to reach a critical mass before cities and regions decide to start de-prioritizing cars to alleviate exactly the issues you have with improved infrastructure. The Netherlands has been working on their infrastructure for over 40 years and keep finding new and unexpected problems that you simply don't discover until you have more bicycles than cars, like parking (when you start down this path you just imagine putting posts everywhere for people to lock up to, eventually you need dedicated parking facilities just to keep bikes from littering the streets like cars already do)!

We'll get there someday, every great journey begins with the first step, so until we catch up I wouldn't fault you for continuing to take a travel lane.

> Growing pains will be around for decades, unfortunately. Cycling needs to reach a critical mass before cities and regions decide to start de-prioritizing cars to alleviate exactly the issues you have with improved infrastructure.

No, we’ve been through those growing pains. Riding almost anywhere in the city is delightful and I have no issues with drivers or pedestrians. Walking is only an issue when cyclists take the sidewalk to avoid construction.

Literally the only place I fear for my safety riding in Seattle is in or beside the “dedicated” bike lanes which are poorly designed and dangerous. Several steps were taken before I could say this, I’m sure you’re correct that other places need to take them too. But in my city the steps which they took to make shared traffic routes safer have been much more effective at least for my own sense of safety than the hazardous steps they’ve taken getting dedicated infrastructure wrong.

I'm pretty sure you're considering "bad" dedicated infra. In the Netherlands cars don't cut into the bike lane for turns.

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-needs-follow-dutch...

Yes, exactly, my point is that the dedicated infrastructure in my city is designed poorly and that it’s worse than not having it. I’d love a well designed system, but I’m not going to celebrate one which “only almost got killed two times today” is how I’ve most often described it. In contrast, I’ve only almost been killed three times riding in shared bike/car traffic. Once my fault, once road maintenance, once an impatient driver.

That video doesn’t load for me, but I found a direct link: https://youtu.be/5HDN9fUlqU8

I’d love to avoid cutting into the bike lane (required for right turns in most of the US), but some of those intersections are massive and the rest (1:18 in the video) replace the sidewalk with a bike lane. I don’t think either of those will be popular in American cities.

> separated bike infrastructure

> drivers trying to navigate it

Well, there's your problem - it's not actually separated.

If you have a T junction, either you're going to have the car path going through the bike path, or you'll need a bridge or tunnel.

And the best places for cycle commuting have high density - meaning more T junctions per mile.

'Truly separated' bike infrastructure isn't easy.

Yep, that is exactly my problem.

bikes honestly should follow pedestrians, a bike is not a car and the person who will be the most amount of injured will be the person on the bike over the person of the car. so maybe have both car and bike be able to see each other in bike lanes, and keep the sidewalks to the cars. there really should be an initiative to expand the shoulders in rural america. lost of places in america are not even walking friendly. america decided to be different and make cars the main focus which is killing us (toxic gas fumes everywhere)

Just take a look at countries where they have a working bike infrastructure like Denmark or the Netherlands and adapt it your your country. (Also, separated bike lanes)

In the Netherlands bicycle paths are also walking paths when there is no dedicated walking path (which is quite common).

Yes, outside the cities and villages, where the number of pedestrians is low and that of cyclists often not large either. In those situations sharing infrastructure generally isn't an issue.

Inside cities and villages, I don't think I've seen roads with a bike path, but without a pedestrian path. Maybe I've seen one in an industrial park or so.

>Inside cities and villages, I don't think I've seen roads with a bike path, but without a pedestrian path.

I see this situation all the time. Does every single bicycle underpass under the motorway have a full sidewalk alongside it? I can point to many situations in the Hague, Utrecht and Rotterdam where the bicycle path is the only option for pedestrians getting from point to point. I also know of tunnels that have bicycle paths but no pedestrian path. The only way to get across as a pedestrian is to use the bicycle path.

Yes that is true, but most of the time this happens in places where only a few pedestrians are likely to use it. I can count on one hand the amount of times in the last few years that I have needed to walk on a bike path as a pedestrian while working in Amsterdam and visiting many other cities and towns.

It happens I agree, but as far as I can tell there are few places in the Netherlands where more than the occasional pedestrian need to walk on the bike path for more than a few meters.

Combined walking- and biking-paths are the norm here in Sweden. Granted maybe we don't have enough big cities for it to be a problem, but Ive never really heard complaints about it. These "roads" are generally fairly wide, so its not really a problem with 4 "lanes": pedestrians and bikes going each direction.

This is true, but to OP’s point, biking infrastructure is way more pedestrian friendly than car infrastructure.

And this is especially true for 30mph ebikes. Those really don't mix with pedestrians.

E-bikes in the EU are limited to 25km/h, 16mph.

Faster vehicles exist, but they are no longer considered bicycles. In Copenhagen these vehicles (petrol or electric) are forbidden from the more pedestrian-proximate paths, like those going through parks.

Were they just limited to that, they also must be pedelecs, and 300W or less.

There are higher ebike classes, but many countries sit on that legislation.

It's a bit crazy that in many places the electric scooters may go faster than ebikes, despite having worse brakes.

Unassisted bicycles that are ridden faster than that certainly are bicycles. Which points out a huge problem with certain approaches to bike infrastructure: if you force everybody down to the speed of the slowest ones (usually small children) because there are no opportunities for safe passing, then bikes can't compete with cars for any distance beyond walking. having to go 12 km/h when you would do 30 is worse for your commute duration than having to go 25 when you would go 50.

It's not a problem in Copenhagen. Most bike paths are wide enough to allow overtaking, and even the fastest cyclists are respectful enough of small children to slow down as they pass. (Many fast cyclists will be parents, after all.)

Those are electric motorcycles and should be treated as such, the pedals are largely irrelevant. They have no place on dedicated bike infrastructure either.

Agreed. Cheap and nasty shared pavements for bikes and people in the UK are a nightmare.

Especially if people are suggesting bikes traveling at 30mph that also contain the heft needed for pedal assistance.

Nothing should be going 30mph on pedestrian infrastructure. If you want to go 30mph, you're going on real roads with real cars. I own an eBike, love it, and use it to commute, but 20mph is already too much around pedestrians.

Fwiw typical bike speeds are about 12mph Which is the speed of a marathon runner and I wouldn’t want one of those running into me either.

https://www.fetcheveryone.com/blog/3/2022/8/454264

> EVs are much heavier than their equivalent ICE vehicles.

This is not true. The Tesla Model 3 is the same weight as a BMW 3 series (~3,600-4,100lbs depending on trim level). Yes EVs carry a half ton of batteries, but they get rid of the engine block, transmission, starter motor, fuel tank, alternator, exhaust system, and many other parts. Also many combustion vehicles made today are hybrids, meaning they also carry batteries and large electric motors (though not as large as a pure EV).

You're comparing a single EV that's light for it's class with a single gas car that's heavy for it's class.

Why not compare the 3 series (1800kg) with the electric 3 series (2200kg)? Or compare the Corsa (1094kg) with the electric Corsa-e (1455kg)

Ok.

  Nissan Juke - 3000 lbs  
  Honda Civic - 3000 lbs  
  Nissan Leaf - 3300-3400 lbs
  Honda e - 3400 lbs
  Chevy Bolt - 3600 lbs  
  Volkswagen ID.3 - 4000+ lbs

Both of your comparisons suffer from the fact that neither of those BEVs are built on a platform designed from the ground up for a BEV, but rather an ICE platform with a battery shoe-horned into it.

I thought EVs still had a 12v battery. Is that not charged via an alternator?

I admit it seems more sensible to charge it direct from the battery pack, but then it seems more sensible to me to do away with the 12v battery all together. So if you're going to have a 12v battery it may aswell be completely independent of the main battery pack.

> Is that not charged via an alternator?

No, it's generally directly from main battery pack when the car is turned on, or when the car is charging. I would guses some models can also charge it now and then when the car is off, since some models are always connected to a cellular network.

> but then it seems more sensible to me to do away with the 12v battery all together.

No, no, no.. You need 12V when the car is off (for talking to key fob at the very least), but you probably don't want a DC-DC converter running from the main battery all the time. If you have trouble getting power from the main battery, it'll be hard to diagnose when none of the electronics work anymore. Having a redundant battery is a very good idea.

It's also a redundancy in case of emergency (some cars have buttons you can press to call emergency services).

I seem to remember Elon talking about removing it (of course), but they haven't yet, and I doubt they ever will.

>but you probably don't want a DC-DC converter running from the main battery all the time. If you have trouble getting power from the main battery, it'll be hard to diagnose.

I don't get this. If the converter stops working the 12v battery dies and your car stops working. I don't get why it would be easier to diagnose if it only charges when on. I assume you're talking about the converter charging the 12v battery? Even if you aren't it would still be simple enough to have some 12v points to supply external power.

Further is it redundancy or doubling the chances of failure? You now have a 12v charger that could stop working, and a 12v battery that could stop working. Both of those break the car. If the main battery goes that's basically bricking the car and you aren't going anywhere anyway

Hyundai already removed it (kind of) from some of their hybrid ICE cars! I say kind of because they just combined it with the traction battery and designed it to last the life of the car (using lithium instead of lead acid).

They do but it is typically smaller or even a LiFe battery which is nearly as light as lithium but has most of the high crank and 12v nominal application power needs, with larger charge windows and equal or higher discharge cycles.

The parent was talking about saving the weight of the alternator. That's what I was asking about rather than the battery.

Why would you need high crank for an ev???

A 30 mph ebike under $2k is absolutely doable. That's the top speed of mine, built with a Craigslist hardtail MTB and a $200 hub motor kit, powered by an electric lawn mower battery I found in an ewaste bin (14s, 7.5ah Samsung 25R cells). This battery can propel me about 8-10 miles (depending on wind, hills, etc.) at full throttle without much pedaling.

The problem is 60 miles range @ 30 mph needs a lot of battery. You can't really pedal fast enough to add a meaningful amount of leg power here, and even if you could, the extra wind resistance compared to tucking your legs in is a wash at best.

There's certainly room for efficiency improvements on my bike, but either way, enough battery to do 60 miles at 30mph SHOULD cost at least $1200-1500. Now if you want to go 20 mph that's a different story.

Enclosed suggests fairings which suggests better aero.

Aero drag really kicks in at 20+ mph so I would have thought it would be doable.

Plus capable of 30mph and actually doing that all the time are 2 separate things. There's still going to be the slow pootling. So you can still peddle then. Plus you could hear it to actually pedal at 30mph

Agree - eBikes solve so many problems if we could only create there infra for them. Aside from co2, which is partially offset by the emissions from materials and manufacture, the only thing EVs really have going for them is less brake dust. However even that may be offset by the additional tire wear due to their weight and which contributes more to poor air quality than ice engines do these days. EVs being heavier also means more road maintenance required.

Basically EVs are just kicking the can down the road a little bit, within the confines of our culture and infrastructure, but do not solve our structural problems.

You have to be very careful when talking about relative pollutant emissions. Yes, the average EV is heavier and results in more tire wear and tire dust, but note that these particles are much larger (pm10 or larger) than most ICE particulates (~pm2.5). Heavier particles fall out of the air much faster and don't get stuck in the bottom of lungs. Overall pm2.5 particles are far more harmful to human health once inhaled as well. Regarding maintenance, road wear is a high order function with axle weight - so trucks and weathering contribute the vast majority of wear. So light duty cars getting a bit heavier won't make much difference, and regulations already bound axle weights, so it won't be increasing for EV heavy duty vehicles.

This all being said, the average American city and suburb suck and totally need to be reorganized around literally anything except the automobile. Visiting the Netherlands just made me sad...thinking this is how nice cities can be. I imagine the mental health benefits of such city planning could even outweigh the environmental ones.

We have a $400 (when on sale) ebike, it came with a shelf, a basket or panniers cost us $30. This is enough for a few days of groceries, or to get to work

We live between 2 minor state highways (4, 6 lanes) but the grocery is the in-between for us where roads have speed bumps to discourage through use.

We can go grocery shopping at 2 different grocery stores, we're a quick bike away from a light rail station.

We don't ride on sidewalks.

We live near Atlanta, in an area where 8/10 would say it's too dangerous to bike.

> Ideally we'd just begin to phase out cars

Won't happen, if anything we'll have more cars due to the rebound effect.

It was a major chance to restructure everything and downscale our vehicles and associated infrastructures, we did the exact opposite, they're bigger, heavier, faster, harder to fix/work on, &c.

Don't forget "but there will be more bicycles" is a much stupider and easier to call out excuse for trying to prevent affordable housing than "it will make traffic worse"

Also vehicles that are easier to stop are far better for small business owners and local economies.

Also keep in mind traffic speed is usually somewhere south of 20mph. You can get places quicker at 18mph non stop than you can at 30 or 50 with congestion caused by traffic control that has lower throughput on a 4 lane each way intersection than a single bike lane with no control.

30mph vehicles are LEVs not bicycles and should be treated as motorscooters or whichever similar law framework is available and not allowed on bike paths or shared paths. That said, I fully support LEV only zones possibly where bicycles are allowed in a similar vein to how they are allowed on roads and possibly before bike only zones in less urban areas)

I'm surprised more people didn't reply to the enclosed part of your suggestion. One of the biggest advantages of a car for me is climate control: from wind, heat, cold, rain, snow, etc. Not just for me but also the items I'm carrying with me.

I really just want an enclosed electric bike/motorcycle with climate control. I liked Arcimoto for a while until they stopped focusing on the full climate control and decided to charge $18k and above.

So yes, please, an electric bicycle with climate control.

more than $2000, but https://www.litmotors.com/ was trying to do an enclosed self-balancing two-wheeler for a decade (their Founder/CEO has a pretty bad injury a few years ago) - supposedly they're reforming but we'll see.

Every few years I checkin to see how they’re doing, really would love to have one of these.

With the way cars and SUVs are growing though I feel like more mass and crumple zones are necessary for a safe driving experience though

Yikes for the side impact collision...

That kind of safety is not in the mind of any cyclist. How could it be?

There are a bunch of these four-wheel bikes (https://vokbikes.com/) rolling around where I live. They're meant for commercial use and are slow enough for sidewalks and they do have a roof covering the rider. Cost more than $2000 though.

Four wheel bikes are technically illegal in some places. Texas, for example, considers anything with three or more wheels a motorcycle or car and requires that it be registered.

A good next step to transition vehicles to reasonable energy economy would be to start regulating down their mass and size, and update accident liability to heavily favour small vehicles. like emissions have been so far. This would enable sanely sized vehicles to safely coexist in traffic.

Renault Twizy was quite popular for short distances here in Europe.

I see the Renault Ami much better for this use.

  - It's bigger (seats two tall people very comfortably. Or one plus your shopping.)  
  - It's half the price (12K€ for the Twizy vs 7K€ for the Ami)  
  - It has windows :P  
  - There's a "cargo" version (it substitutes the second seat for a cargo space).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb9-pbLk3Go

What is an enclosed bicycle?? Maybe you could use a golf cart. You could get pretty close to 30 MPH and 60 Miles travel time for under $2k.

Velomobiles exist. The rotovelo is probably the closest to being designed for massproductio , but it's still about 3x that target.

But 30mph is too much for dedicated bike infrastructure and is just turning them into roads (although I support LEVs and LEV only zones, they're still not bicycles). 15-20mph is a human scaled speed limit where interactions are far less likely to cause accidents and impact energy is low enough to rarely cause major injury. It also makes enough battery for range trivial and makes the vehicles that become status quo far lighter and less dangerous.

A golf cart has to travel on the same roads as a car, except it's slower and less safe. No advantage really.

Anything travelling 30mph has to travel on the roads. Class 3 ebike owners who ride on shared use trails are a menace and a serious threat - to pedestrians, to other cyclists, and to any goodwill cycling has in the community.

Heck, I get sometimes overtaken by people riding illegal (in EU) ebikes on a bike path. Mine is heavy duty enough that it can maybe do 30 kph with leg power. Theirs do 45 kph and it's getting dangerous.

Mostly delivery people use those. The lanes are narrow, so if there's oncoming they would likely crash...

I am currently living in a seaside town where golf carts are a normal means of transportation. You see them out and about every day. On the main highway through town, they drive on the shoulder; everywhere else, they take a lane just like cars do. The people here clearly believe they have some advantage.

Slower is safer for pedestrians. It's safer alternative for (?) elders than a full featured car.

Changing lanes will be pretty difficult if the golf cart is much slower than general traffic.

Yeah it's pain as a car driver. There's no ideal solution.

> That being said I wish someone would make an enclosed bicycle/motorcycle that costs less than $2000. Something like that which can go 30mph and had space for 2 days of groceries would be enough for me to eliminate my car all together.

You can already get exactly that kind of vehicle for relatively cheap, though not as cheap as you're proposing... it's called an electric golf cart or, for the upscale versions, an "electrified low-speed vehicle". They start at about $5,000 from US manufacturers, but you can cut that down to around $3,500-$4,000 (including shipping) if you're willing to order off Aliexpress.

LSVs have basically all of the disadvantages of cars without any of the advantages considering used beaters are a thing imho.

Or a used smart car

The Organic Transit ELF and the BetterBike PEBL are enclosed electric trikes (two wheels in front, one in back) but are more expensive than your wish.

Both are currently out of production for engineering improvements with plans for assembly lines to reduce the cost and prices.

Organic Transit channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/OTvehicles

BetterBike channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC59bSWio0f0eSPd5MPpEPAg

Came hear to mention the ELF and PBLE.

It's shocking to me that someone would expect an enclosed battery-electric vehicle to cost anywhere close to $2k unless their mental image is a cheap electric bike with a rain cape or something?

The ELF and PEBL start(ed) at $10k and while I could imagine that coming down a couple thousand dollars at high volumes I have trouble imagining what corners you could cut to hit a $2k or even $4k price point.

In a similar bucket is the Aptera I'd say, but also more expensive.

that being said, I'm wondering why companies don't double down on the BMW i3 model vs. the tesla X/Y/big SUV model? The i3 is 3000 lbs or less, and when it was discontinued, it had a bigger battery pack, and plenty of range and room for a family. In my mind, it's ideal...and it wasn't like there wasn't a market for it, as demand apparently was growing right up until end of production

I otherwise agree that American cities and suburbs need a healthy injection of bicycling adoption, infrastructure and design.

i3 is one of the vehicles that designers thought end user is a "eco freak" vs "normal person". It's pleasant to drive, but extremely ugly.

I was actually talking to a Volvo designer at a talk here - I am a huge Polestar One/Volvo Concept Coupe/P1800 design fan and wanted to ask him about continuing that line of design. his point was, that body shape, the classical "beautiful" profile - long hood, cabin all the way back, was really that way in order to accommodate large V8/V10 racing engines, large transmissions, etc. With EV's, no need to accommodate such things, and they could better economize the use of space.

When the i3 first came out, I would be inclined to agree with you - it's the opposite of the E9 or the E46. But the late-generation models have been growing on me, once the context for which they were designed became more clear.

The i3 interior is fantastic, though

I don’t know why you’re being downvoted. The i3 styling was clearly distinguished from other BMWs and not in a good way.

>The i3 is 3000 lbs or less, and when it was discontinued, it had a bigger battery pack

Wikipedia says that the i3 had at best a 42 kWh battery pack. The smallest battery that Tesla will ship you inside a car these days is 60 kWh (Model 3 Standard Range).

I think that was the point of a recent article - Niedermayer, I think - most of the driving I do is commuting, and I don't really need more than the 150 mile range that 42 kWh pack gives you...

The flip side is the smallest Tesla is 3700 lbs or so, vs i3 is a hair under 3000

Technologies evolve, though, so I feel like the next (potential) revolution is to use a light CFRP chassis like the i3 w/ next gen batteries.

Taking advantage of bike lanes in cities is a huge advantage for a battery/motor assisted bicycle, but I do most of what you describe with a Yamaha XT250. Just don't go out if it looks like rain. You have your helmet and pack a raincoat in case you get unlucky. To carry some groceries you could easily rig a small rack on the back where you can attach/detach a grated plastic crate. Then put some in a backpack.

I don't do all of that but I could easily do it. I'm at the stage of my life where owning a small truck like a Tacoma or Maverick makes a lot of sense due to the utility. You have a lot of good ideas. On your negatives for EVs, I'd say walking infrastructure can't really occur without living in a dense city. Pipedream otherwise. Acceleration is less of a problem rather than people not paying attention at all, smartphones. As far as the weight, that will go down over time as solid state batteries come around.

I wouldn't trade my motorcycle for an EV motorcycle without significant advances, I also don't see interstate towing being overtaken by EVs anytime soon. You just can't beat a diesel for that whether it be in a pickup, van, or semi, and it will be tough to do so. Yet EVs in general are definitely inevitable as they are already better for countywide travel.

XT250 IMO is not very convenient for shopping.

Something like Majesty 400 is much better, or even old 2T 100cc Neo's if you can find one. It's amazing how much stuff fits in under the saddle. And I once moved a full-size ironing board on the latter, just duct-taped it to a rear handle and the front. Can't go that crazy on a proper motorcycle.

I agree. It’s not the best choice probably but it’s what I have. I’m a dual sport fan, enjoying trail rides. There’s definitely better grocery getters.

I did have a Yamaha moped years ago and it is surprising how much fits under those seats. They’re just so slippery on rocks and sand due to the small wheels on scooters. I remember taking a spill going around a corner just on pavement a couple times.

Well, yes, there is that. Although when you get at or above 12" wheels it's much better.

Still, we have a local saying here - if you ride you fall at least once a year. If you didn't fall - you're not riding, you're pretending to.

> This additional housing will increase density, making bikes only more viable

It will also increase the tax revenue per infrastructure spend ratio, since denser areas have more tax revenue generated from multiple households and businesses, for nearly the same amount of sewage, roads, electricity etc.

> Ideally we'd just begin to phase out cars ideally, as opposed to transition to EVs from ICE, but I suppose baby steps are warranted here.

Moving to electrified cars is an enormous step. It might look babyish now it's happening, but it wasn't even on the table 15 years ago.

Rain isn't really a problem with the appropriate clothing. (Speaking as someone that rides year round for transportation in Wisconsin.) The only problem I've had is downpours can soak your shoes but I just have an extra pair of shoes at work and at home.

Rain is definitely a problem for a vehicle which depends on lateral tilt to turn and which depends on inertia to stay upright. Speaking as someone who has ridden many years round in Seattle, where the roads lean along with the hills even where the hills aren’t that steep. Those turns are a mistake or an unexpected cross vehicle away from a crash on our driest days, but the rain really amplifies that danger.

Rain wouldn't be such a problem if we had dedicated biking infrastructure ala The Netherlands. We need to rethink the design of our cities to move away from this car-dependent box we've put ourselves in, because just adopting EVs isn't enough.

I've driven in Seattle in the rain, and some streets (especially near Pike Place Market) are so steep that once my wheels lost their grip and slipped and rolled downhill a little at an intersection. I'm not sure why it's even safe to design an intersection on a very steep road that's difficult to stop at.

Water and slopes are not a good combination for road safety even for four-wheelers.

> I'm not sure why it's even safe to design an intersection on a very steep road that's difficult to stop at.

If you want to know the alternative, cross reference the Denny regrade (for historical precedent of making the hills safer to scale) and the West Seattle Bridge (for current frame of reference of how a relatively small infrastructure project has a huge impact). Nearly all of the roads heading east out of downtown have a high grade somewhere uphill that drivers struggle with even on dry days. Gratefully most of the worst car routes aren’t major bike routes.

Dedicated infrastructure and sane speeds solve this problem neatly.

I agree that rain isn't really a huge problem (though I still consider it a problem), but without enclosure you're unlikely to take random trips as you might not be able to change.

What are you wearing to keep your head from turning into a block of ice? We always end staying off the bike for the coldest months of the year.

You could switch to a ski helmet, those have removeable insulation pads. Otherwise a tight fitting thermal cap should do if you are huffing and puffing.

> Something like that which can go 30mph and had space for 2 days of groceries

This kind of thing already exists outside the USA. Here's a $1200 "car" you can order off Alibaba: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBz9zLFEa70

And some people are trying to make more stylish "apple-esque" versions to appeal to Americans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpiH-Y-HOvE

The fact you even suggest that phasing out cars is possible, I cannot take your comment seriously.

Outside if big cities this is not even a remote possibility, most people there travel big distances in various weather conditions on a daily basis.

Even in big cities this seems unrealistic. Thinking for example of NYC, many folks travel fir work from the outer boroughs to Manhattan, from areas where public transit isn't readily available, and just taking the bike is not even realistic.

I would guess some fraction of that cardiovascular issue is due to urban air pollution, which EVs (and renewables) will improve to the extent that people will be able to draw a causal link by looking at areas that switched to EVs at different times.

But cycling is great, more people should do it. And this is why I like the idea of 'gas tax' being replaced with something that accounts for all the remaining externalities of urban driving.

There's this but it's $9995 and 20mph.

https://veemo.ca/

In Europe there's a whole class of vehicles that are just enclosed quadricycles. They're limited to 45km/h and have some sort of weight limit, but they're great "city cars".

A lot of electric ones have been popping up, although many of them are closer to the $5000-9000 price point.

> - EVs are much heavier than their equivalent ICE vehicles.

Extra:

- more tire and road particulates pollution

- more road wear (someone said something like road wear is the power of 4 of the weight of the vehicle, which makes extra weight particularly awful), ergo higher infra expenses

Further benefits: biking with proper infrastructure without cars is possible for children as well and for those who can't afford a car or (as eBike or tricycle) for the elder who don't want to drive anymore. This gives mobility to large groups of society.

It might come. People are buying bike cargo nowadays. A weathered electric powered would make sense.

"Ideally we'd just begin to phase out cars ideally"

I likely cycled more km, than I drove by car and I do not intend to change that, but for long distance trips with the whole family, a car is hard to beat or replace.

Try a VanMoof, it costs slightly more but is worth it.

Maybe the Smart EQ Fortwo? Hard to get in the US and out of your price point, but if you're more interested in the vehicle than the price.

Funny that you mention that, I had a Smart Fortwo EV. Got destroyed by a Ford truck. I loved that little car.

Bloody hell. Well I'm glad you're okay.

No idea if it is past vaporware but there is Elio motors

Also, heavier cars mean more tire dust.

Thoughts on LSVs?

Helps with the accidents but otherwise has most of the same disadvantages as a car.

As a long time daily biker I don't understand the trend of heftier more powerful ebikes. Instead of bulking a bike up to me it makes more sense to slim cars down.

I've been trying to find tiny electric two seater cars, but I've been disappointed in the lack of anything in the US, they're more available in europe and Japan.

Actually now that I typed this comment out I think I understand the trend of heftier ebikes, it's a way to skirt the regulations around making a "street legal" vehicle, which is what prevents any innovation in the <$10k tiny car segment.

> Actually now that I typed this comment out I think I understand the trend of heftier ebikes, it's a way to skirt the regulations around making a "street legal" vehicle, which is what prevents any innovation in the <$10k tiny car segment.

Yeah. American regulations call monster trucks cars, they don't have cars and they call LEVs bicycles.

> I love EVs. That being said I wish someone would make an enclosed bicycle/motorcycle that costs less than $2000.

I don't love EVs yet, but I would love a reasonably priced electric motorcycle. I'm not even sure if overall they are greener with the current grid.

Look into the sondors meta cycle. Around $6500.

I live 3 miles from work but I'd risk my life if I tired walking. There is a highway between us and the ONLY bridge over has no sidewalk, a big hill and 1,000 of idiots late for work who hate cyclests for some reason.

Cities like Columbus Ohio are just terrible places to live unless you live car culture.

> EVs are much heavier than their equivalent ICE vehicles. Hopefully this doesn't result in EV accidents being more likely to have a fatality

This isn't a matter of hope.

Heavier things traveling the same speed have more momentum..

Momentum kills

> Momentum kills

I'd say it's somewhere in between momentum and energy. A motorbike doing 300km/h is more dangerous than a car doing 35km/h or a concrete truck at walking pace.