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Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

Why does it sound good to begin with? Realistically who would trade in their car for a bike? I would imagine it would be young upper middle class urban dwellers. Not people with a family, elderly or people that live in cheaper suburban areas. It sounds like its a wealth transfer from taxpayers to the relatively wealthy.

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Because French cities are now planned to forbid cars inside the center. A lot of cities like Paris or Lyon have already planned dates for it to happen. Plus, old city centers tend to not have any garage and the few parking places are very expensive. Bicycle lanes tend to replace car lanes and circulating in car is nightmarish on design.

After getting lost in a few: « what design? »

For example, in my city, lots of 2-way streets are replaced by 1-way with bicycle lane. As there is more 1-ways, you sometimes have to drive in circles to get somewhere. On the weekends, parts of the city that are normally drivable are closed to cars. There is a highway entrance near my workplace. Some months ago, there was a stoplight on pedestrian demand, now it is mandatory even though there are close to no pedestrian there. The cars have now to wait 2 minutes more to get on the highway. I can't think of more for now but there are surely other examples.

We have 2 kids, no car. Maintenance is ~200-250 year in shop, 60-80 when done yourself. Insurance is around 4-7EUR/mo. Every year we do the 'how much a car for the same use costs' and it's an order of magnitude more. We live in suburbs, long distance (>10km) is mostly by bus or train. Groceries are fun with the cargo.

The most annoying PITA stuff are:

- theft. I worry a lot and have to fix the e-cargo on a fixed point everywhere. It's not always easy to find a good parking spot. But we got a long motorbike chain and you get used to it. Get insured though.

- flat tire, in the middle of nowhere... You gotta be prepared and either have a spare 'flat' tube or do the quick repair on the wheel, cause the back wheel is hell (for me) to handle. After a bad experience, now we have the kit (xiaomi portable compressor for <50eur, some spare tubes, some gluestuff, and the right strategy) always handy.

> Not people with a family, elderly or people that live in cheaper suburban areas.

The dutch manage to do it (minus the elderly). Why is it so strange that a 40 year old dad and a 7 year old kid bike to work/school respectively?

Come to the Netherlands and those people are exactly the people biking. The elderly have more mobility and health this way, a cargo bike is a very popular second car replacement, for groceries and kids. And it's not like maintaining a car is cheap and such a good deal for the poor.

But yes, suburbs make a car required for most people outside of Europe, but we have to start somewhere.

I had a coworker who brought an ebike instead of a second car. Probably others would choose to not replace their car with a new one if an ebike made more sense.

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