Do the math, how far can you get in a car doing 60 mph in 10 minutes? How far on a bike doing 10mph? Toss in a couple hills.

If there are any people riding bikes on my route I have yet to see them in 7 years.

Except for traffic - I've found that my commute is almost exactly the same time, bike or car, because of traffic (I'm in Silicon Valley).

So how much kilometers is it then? (both for the car trip and the bike trip, depending on the area they can vary). Btw I don't know where you get the 10mph figure, but assuming it applies to you without trying it is starting off on the wrong foot. Depending on age, fitness etc that can easily be 15mph, including hills.

I don't know why you got downvoted. It's a fair question.

https://subsite.kk.dk/sitecore/content/Subsites/CityOfCopenh...

How fast can you travel through town by bike and car? The average travelling speed in Copenhagen is 15.5 km/h for cyclists and 27 km/hour for cars. In places with green wave for cyclist the average speed is 20.72 km/h.

> how far can you get in a car doing 60 mph in 10 minutes?

In the city that I live and work in, at rush hour? Absolutely nowhere.

You'd be amazed at how much of the world isn't a dense urban environment.

Sure. We can't have one-kind-fits-all solutions. Which is appropriate in the context of a discussion about adding bike lanes to dense urban environments mostly designed for cars.

Ha! I'm even of the opinion that most urban environments should actively work to dissuade automobiles except for delivery vehicles and taxis. They should be walkable, public transport and biking meccas. So I sympathize that they aren't. But the discussion is also about "why don't more people bike to work" and the consensus seems to be "we need more bike lanes!" and I'm simply pointing out that that won't solve the issue.

> the consensus seems to be "we need more bike lanes!" and I'm simply pointing out that that won't solve the issue.

I really don't think that adding more bike lanes would get everyone biking or "solve the issue" entirely. That isn't a reasonable position. But nonetheless, we need more bike lanes. We need more separated, safe bike lanes. We need them in every city, except maybe for those who have got there already - i.e. Amsterdam, Copenhagen and very few others.

Survey after survey where I am shows that the main thing preventing higher (not universal, just higher) uptake of cycling to work is not the distance, or the weather, it's the fear factor, i.e the lack of safe facilities like bike lanes.

http://thinkingaboutcycling.com/article-fear-of-cycling/ http://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2013/09/cycling-londo...

I don't disagree that we need more bike lanes. I'm a big supporter of more bike lanes because it usually comes attached to other efforts that make environments more livable for everybody.

But I've yet to see a discussion that talks about the "rest of the ride." Even with bike lanes, biking isn't feasible for most people for a wide variety of reasons. I've attempted to provide those reasons here, and I'm fortunate enough to have buckets of karma to shed because as you can see, nobody wants to concern themselves with prerequisite issues that are probably more important to biking (i.e. if they aren't solved, no amount of bike lanes will make a substantial difference).

The HN community suffers from a religious myopia at times that the living conditions and lifestyle of a single 20-something males in Silicon Valley represents the accumulated averages for the rest of the world and should be the model for everybody else. The community is shocked and disgusted when dissenting voices try to provide insight as to why most people are not single 20-something males in Silicon Valley. TBH, I don't think a discussion about bike lanes belongs on HN except that it brings up this demographic discussion. As you can see, the HN hive-mind is not receptive to people of different demographic groups, even if those groups might be better representative of the rest of the country or world.

I don't doubt the community myopia, but better bike lanes are relevant to not just "single 20-something males in Silicon Valley", but rather HN readers 20-50, any gender or relationship status, in New York, London, Berlin, etc. It's not everyone but it's not that narrow either.

You will also spend more time waiting in traffic with a car. The time to look for a parking space is a lot shorter if you're with a bike.