Stability, slippage, being exposed to freezing cold and wet, the lack of an engine assist, no heat, two fewer wheels, and did I mention cold?
Just throw in the same effort that you do to keep car lanes open, and you’ll be fine.
Open for a car and open for a bike are different. You can drive through some snow, slush and ice, but I hate biking on ice and slush. In addition to the safety factor, it a miserable experience. It’s also not unheard of for roads to get too bad for cars, never mind bikes.
All in all I’m sort of disappointed that the reaction to raising obvious drawbacks is weapons-grade denial. Trying to sell people on a less safe, less comfortable, less reliable, means of transportation by throwing infrastructure projects at it is a problem, and why so many people are sick and tired of bike evangelists. Never mind the fact that a lot of people have disabilities that prevent that kind of hard work, have families and long commutes (please don’t throw another infrastructure project at that), are too old or infirm to bike through a Colorado summer, never mind winter, and so on.
It’s really a form of quiet elitism dressed up as environmentalism and social consciousness at worst, and a lack of understanding of just how huge the US is at best. Bikes probably do make more sense if a majority of your population lives in one or two cities, otherwise it just doesn’t.
Doesn't seem true where I live. Maybe you have a study to support this claim?\
> Bikes probably do make more sense if a majority of your population lives in one or two cities, otherwise it just doesn’t.
Cities in general seem to be conducive to bikes. Not sure why the whole country needs to live in just one or two cities or how that could logically follow.
Nationwide, you’re more than twice as likely to die while riding a bike than riding in a car, per trip, according to a 2007 study led by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention epidemiologist Laurie Beck. Bike riding is also about 500 times more fatal than riding in a bus. Though Beck didn’t run numbers on subway and commuter rail systems, they may be the safest form of transportation of all. Despite a series of well-publicized accidents and maintenance issues, Metrorail and Metrobus reported just two injuries per million riders in 2015.
per trip
exposure rates such as the number of trips, distance,
or hours walked and cycled [...] are crucial in
measuring the safety of these 2 nonmotorized modes.
No one is trying to force the elderly, the pregnant and the handicapped to ride bikes. They can still use their cars, taxis and buses while the city is plowing the bike lanes for us healthy adults that like to ride our bikes to work.
Do note that while I say that harsh winters pose no problems to biking in general, I’ve found my self taking the bush in the worst winter weathers in Reykjavík. Which brings the point home that bike infrastructure is not mutually exclusive to other transportation.
I've done many cold winters with a bicycle, and with a car, and there's no clear winner. For me it comes down to how far I'm going, what I need to carry with me, the quality of the roads and drivers, whether there's a bus route, and availability of bicycle storage versus car parking. I've never found traction to be a serious issue. If it's bad enough to avoid the bike, it's bad enough to avoid the car, too, and I'll walk or take the (chained) bus.
Still, the feeling of well-being that comes from moderate exercise and the joy of seeing the world in another way makes up for it. Most drivers are smart enough and courteous enough that I would recommend it to anyone.