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Comment by electricEmu | Hacker News Reader

Seattle? Portland? Minneapolis/St. Paul? You might consider bicycling while you travel more. In Seattle alone, OFO, LimeBike, and Spin are all competing.

American bicycle infrastructure is behind, but it exists. I don't own a car. I get around those cities on bike without issue. It's as fast or faster than a car in many cases and I'm peddling the old fashioned way (with legs).

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Minneapolis? As someone who commuted via bike "before it was cool" in Minneapolis I want to ask what you're smoking :)

The density simply isn't there, and the infrastructure is pretty horrible aside from some exceedingly small areas of the city proper, and of course the amazing bike paths (which typically are not useful for anything other than leisure). If that's what you consider a high bar for "bike infrastructure" in the US, I think the situation is pretty dire.

I moved to Chicago largely due to transit-related reasons, and the bike commute here isn't exactly stellar - but it's at least night and day compared to the average suburban-oriented city in the US.

That said, spending significant time in the Netherlands may have raised the bar too far for me to really think of any US bike infrastructure as being much more than an afterthought at best.

Not sure who you are but I bet we were friends. Left MPLS for SF. MPLS is "the best city" for nearly anything if you ask a local. Too bad they wasted the Non-Motorized Transportation Pilot $20M on shitty latex paint bike lanes at $75,000 per block.

What do you think they should have spent that on?

They treated it like a slush-fund with no accountability. All of the projects were late and gave a feeling of "a little paint cost how much?" Now they're spending more money to make better bike lanes they could have built in the first place. That's a MPLS thing though. They're always trying to reinvent the wheel instead of using the good infrastructure that's been tried other places.

I don't understand biking in Chicago or Minneapolis. What do you do when it rains, or snows, which is like 2/3 of the year? And after that it's 95 degrees and 98% humidity. There are probably no more than 30 to 45 days a year where it's really decent biking weather.

LOL. There are probably 15 days a year that a truly inhospitable to biking in Minneapolis. On those days the hardcore riders go out anyway, and the rest work from home or catch the bus. Snow isn't a big deal except immediately after it falls, because the city does a damn good job cleaning it up, at least on the major streets. Your pants will get filthy, so plan to change them (or wear snowpants). These are things people in the North deal with even when not biking; have you tried scraping the windshield of a car that's completely covered in half-frozen puddle slush? When it's falling you can bike too, just need to take it slow (same as motorists do) and maybe pick an alternate route that's more secluded from car traffic. I actually think it's kind of fun to slip around in the fresh snow and fall on my ass, while I never much enjoyed spinning the tires on my car. I may just be weird though.

There's nothing out-of-ordinary about the amount of rainfall in Minneapolis or Chicago so not sure where you're coming from with that one, but you just wear a rain jacket and, again, have a dry change of clothes if you're going somewhere that demands formal dress. In Chicago I've found the wind has a much bigger impact on my biking than precipitation.

Well, in Chicago you pretty much bike on the good days. The infrastructure isn't great (like noted by OP in his followup to me) - but the density of the city makes it pretty workable if not entirely enjoyable. You can typically get around on bike on the good weather days faster than most other forms of transit - largely because you're only a few miles from anywhere you need to be.

So in Chicago the typical bicycle commuter commutes on the nice days (maybe half the year?) and will take public transit the rest.

In Minneapolis I commuted via bike for financial reasons so it was mostly a "suck it up, buttercup" sort of deal. You brought changes of clothes, outfitted your bike for the weather, and otherwise just made do. Honestly summer was worse than winter because I sweat a lot in heat. I cannot imagine living in that area without a car voluntarily. You just cut yourself off from far too much - but I suppose this was pre-Uber so the situation is a little bit more tenable.

Public transit in Minneapolis is basically for poor folks or those with DUIs - so it's not exactly stellar and usually not an option for most folks living in the metro area.

Edit: The follow up of "maybe 15 bad days" you had is for what most would call hardcore riders. The number of days the casual fair-weather bicycle commuter rides is far, far, less. I feel pretty comfortable saying this considering my family was known as crazies because we'd bike throughout the winter no matter the weather.

> Public transit in Minneapolis is basically for poor folks or those with DUIs

What? No.

I'm in Minneapolis. I live downtown. I find using the bus and light rail far more convenient and easy then a car. Let alone the baggage a car brings such as maintenance, insurance, upfront costs, and not to mention parking.

I bike here in Scandinavia through all fall and winter, not really sure what's stopping you except from proper clothing and gear.

Is this using a properly sorted MTB (switching to fat snow tyres in the winter months)?

Or the heavy Boris bikes or the small wheeled shopper style that a lot of these bike share companies use and most of these bikes are probably badly maintained.

Maybe you need to visit to check up on the state of affairs in the 'cool' era. I biked as primary transit in Minneapolis 2007-2014. The city is commonly ranked in the top ten for bike infrastructure in the U.S. (as you pointed out, admittedly a low bar).[1][2] I've been biking in Chicago for 5 years now and if you're going between any two points that don't happen to be connected by one of the non-deathtrap segments of lakefront, the cycle infrastructure here is at least a decade behind where Minneapolis is at. Most of it due to generally dismal road maintenance which impacts cyclists much harder than motorists, but lots of tremendously unsafe shared road conditions, too.

1. https://www.outsideonline.com/1930411/10-best-bike-cities-no...

2. https://www.travelchannel.com/interests/outdoors-and-adventu...

I think your experience in the Netherlands is coloring your opinion a bit. Minneapolis is consistently ranked one of the best cities for biking in the US.

Regarding Seattle and Portland, while it's true there are bike share programs, I don't see them used very often. The few who are using the bikes are either tourists (minority) or the homeless on stolen bikes. Additionally, just about half the limebikes that I see are abandoned under bridges or broken and unusable.

Portland itself is a very bikeable city and a lot of time/energy is spent to improve and grow this infrastructure. Traffic is getting to the point where cycling is faster for inner-city trips, but as I live outside of the city it's a non-starter because public transportation from my end of town is severely limited.

Seattle doesn't seem nearly as bike friendly, and while it's certainly faster to bike or walk during rush hour, it doesn't seem nearly as safe as Portland. I certainly have no interest in cycling in Seattle, driving is bad enough.

I rode up Capitol Hill at 4:30PM every day last spring/summer, took me 10-15 minutes to get home from 2nd & Seneca and never had any safety issues. Drivers in Seattle are fairly aware of their surroundings with everyone walking randomly at all times and the city is adding new bike lanes often.

Going up the hill on a Lime, Spin, or Ofo...no way -- you see those at the bottom of every hill.

I'm in Seattle as well, I have to disagree. Drivers here are mostly clueless. I know many who bike or ride motorcycles, and they have many stories to tell about the cluelessness of Seattle drivers. It's a dangerous city to ride a bike.

I would argue it's fairly safe, especially comparing to rural areas. I now live south a few miles outside of the normal Seattle walking/biking and I've already experienced a few near-death situations, but didn't have any problems in my two years downtown. This is just a personal anecdote, but I still do feel people driving Seattle downtown & on the hill are fairly aware of bikers and people walking at any time they want.

Every biker in every North American city has stories about clueless drivers and close encounters, if not full impacts.

Seattle is probably in the top 5 cities for driver awareness, but it has room for improvement.

If you live on the Burke Gilman trail, biking in Seattle can be pretty good. And they even have a bike lane over 520 now for those hardcore Microsoft bike commuters.

For most trips in Seattle more than half a mile and less than 5 miles in distance biking is the fastest way to travel. It stays competitive for east-west travel and places without mandatory parking minimums for longer distances.

Washington, DC is a big bike commuting city. Jump bikes are everywhere here.

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