I would not say, cars are bad. For me they are the cells that bring the oxygen, to use another analogy.
What is missing is organization to avoid clogging. And i dislike the noise and the danger one has. This can be done all better.
But i like cars. I like my bike also.
And after all, i like technology. :)
And then there is also the question of the environment on that public transport. IME "good enough that complaints remain manageable" seems to be the target here unlike a car where you can have private entertainment and air conditioning (not to mention sufficient ventilation) to whatever level you wish.
And even for relatively frequent public transit routes you end up wasting quite a bit of time waiting. Even more so if your start and destination don't happen to be close to the same route.
All of this is a matter of how you design your cities. Some have been designed so you have no choice but to use a car, others have been designed so you don't need a car at all. I know you don't control the design of your city, but others do. They could be making different decisions.
> And even for relatively frequent public transit routes you end up wasting quite a bit of time waiting.
The same is true for busy car routes.
Either rent a van or pay a moving company. Its not like you do this every week and it will still be cheaper if you do this every few years than paying for your own car.
> or even larger amounts of groceries that are infinitely harder without a car.
In high density cities this just doesnt exist. Grocery shops are at worst a few blocks away, you can just go more often or just use your own shopping cart (or equivalent)
> And then there is also the question of the environment on that public transport. IME "good enough that complaints remain manageable" seems to be the target here unlike a car where you can have private entertainment and air conditioning (not to mention sufficient ventilation) to whatever level you wish.
I get air conditioning in my cities bus/light rail/subways and its on a acceptable average level
And imo "entertainment" is a lot better in public transit where i can not only listen to music but also watch videos/read books/play games. When you are driving you shouldnt even be listening to an audio book since you could become distracted while operating your heavy machinery that can easily kill.
> And even for relatively frequent public transit routes you end up wasting quite a bit of time waiting.
Here subways/light rails comes every three to 10 minutes, this is not a problem.
The biggest danger here is not terribly clear. Somewhere in the intersection of people cluelessly walking into the bike lane and bicyclists hitting the clueless.
Looks like bicyclists are the clueless...bordering on criminal:
And you can see here "normal" bikes clocked at 36 Km:
https://youtu.be/FdoViT8-s5I?t=47
you get hit by one of these silent missiles, with an 80kg passenger on it, you spend weeks in hospital...you are older person, its life threatening...
Amsterdam bikes are terrifying :-))
These bikes are not going at 36 km/h, whatever device she is using to measure it is incorrectly calibrated or simply not made to measure people on bikes.
That's not a bicycle, that's a motorbike.
"Cyclist" and "someone on an illegal e-bike" are not one and the same thing.
> And you can see here "normal" bikes clocked at 36 Km:
No, those people freewheeling on a regular city bike on relatively flat ground are not doing 36 km/h. That's around 20 km/h by my somewhat well tuned eyeballs. Have you never been on a bike and measured your speed?
You're not going to be seeing cyclists going 36 km/h beyond significant downhills or sporty people on drop bar bikes putting in significant effort.
Have you tried biking at 60km/h? Even on a very good bike with a gigantic gear ratio I don't think you'd manage to get close to it on flat ground.
Quick edit: just to give you some figures, if the bike + cyclist weighs in total about 80kg the cyclist needs to sustain an output of about 1000W (on an aggressive position down on the drops) without wind to ride at 60km/h on flat ground. Very few people on Earth can do that...
Most "cyclists" are now actually drivers of light electric motorcycles. A $1500 Chinese ebike will do that easily.
Riding at 60km/h on a bike consumes a lot of power, aerodynamics are a bitch of a force.
I used to cycle and I don't think I could achieve 60 on flat ground like Amsterdam. That's very solid sprinting that even the best cyclists in the world can only achieve for short periods of time. On narrow Amsterdam streets with cobblestone? Impossible...
In my area, I can’t think of a an example of a road that would be affected by this law change that didn’t already have a 30 km/h posted speed limit.
In Netherland, the speed limit in cities used to be 50, and even in the 1980s, people were complaining that that was too fast. Most residential streets have been 30 (or less; the street I grew up in had a limit of 5 or 10 km/h) for some time, and Amsterdam recently made it the default for all streets with only exceptions for the biggest thoroughfares. They've also experimented with closing some of those thoroughfares.
Cars are bad for cities. It's a simple fact. The big advantage of cities is that everything is within walking or cycling distance, and the density is perfect for dense public transport. The only use for cars is to get out of the city.
Low speed limits make cars safer, but they also encourage safer forms of transportation. It's great to see this insight take hold in more countries.