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Comment by mateo1 | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, right. Study after study can prove whatever the author wants, but the facts of life are that nobody is going shopping on a bike. On a bus, sure, but a bike? I've lived in 2 cities with beautiful, wide bike lanes that nobody parks in (because of fear, not respect). In one they were never used, I've driven countless miles queuing in traffic next to them only to see 1 person per day (while seeing thousands of cars in the same period).

The only realistic use case was with part of the bike lane being next to a park, so it was used recreationally during weekends, mostly by spandex bros but also a wider audience when the weather was good.

People might say they want to bike more, and they would only if xyz, but actions speak louder than words, so perhaps it's time to accept we're wasting public space and money with all these projects that end up being good for nothing.

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Counterpoint: I live in Montréal, and the city tracks cycling usage via (infrared?) counters on major bike paths.

Last year there were 1.5 _million_ trips on a single section of a dedicated cycling path that runs through a very commercial part of town. We have so much bike traffic that there are bike-only traffic jams and long queues at stop lights (again, all on the dedicated/separated bike path). And you better believe that a lot of people shop on their bikes, myself included.

The linked-to piece isn't only about bikes, but also improved pedestrian use.

> The results show that making streets friendlier for bikes — and sidewalks friendlier for pedestrians — is actually good for business. The rise of “complete streets” and “road diets,” as urban planners call them, has been a huge boon to businesses in cities.

What were the two cities you refer to?

In general, people tend to see the "spandex bros", but not the poorer people who bike due to economic necessity. If we know what cities you refer to we might be able to dig up the relevant traffic studies.

> nobody is going shopping on a bike

I regularly go shopping on my bicycle - as much as I can, in fact.

I hope you're not one of those people who get angry when they're stuck behind me on a 35mph road without a shoulder or a bike lane.

Try an electric cargo bike, they're very fun and you can carry lots of stuff on them.

> but the facts of life are that nobody is going shopping on a bike.

I do 99% of my shopping on a bike, even some smaller IKEA/furniture stuff I carry biking, just with a Chrome Cargo backpack.

I think you are extremely biased to your locality... Probably have never lived in a well designed city where biking is not dangerous, is encourage through good urban design, and where cars are also penalised and discouraged by good urban planning.

Like, that's ok, but this take just shows an extreme blidness to how things can be. Just visit the Netherlands, any medium to large city there, and you will be surprised about all the things people can and actually do on a bike.

Also, cargo bikes are a thing. You can carry a lot in one. It's much cheaper to buy and maintain than any car you could imagine.

Is this sarcasm?

There's a lot of precedent for people living lives mostly on bike, where I live in the Northeast US the car ownership rate is about 50% among my peer group. I own a car but find it easier to do most errands by bike.

I suspect that there are other issues with your environment that prevent people from successfully using cycling as a normal transit mode, assuming you're from the US or Canada, it's likely that distances are too great, or that despite bike lanes, common trips require biking along highway speed traffic.

I'm nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there's a pair of us — don't tell! They'd banish us, you know.

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