I know the demographics around here, so I know everyone’s just going to put “nothing lol”, but please understand what I’m asking first.
I’m physically incapable of driving a car. I stand to gain immeasurably from a world that didn’t assume everyone owned one. Having loved-ones with respiratory issues aggravated by car exhaust has made me very aware of the health issues surrounding the burning of fossil fuels, and having to navigate sidewalkless suburban stroads on a regular basis and juggle poorly funded public transit has made it very clear to me that pedestrians are second class citizens. I could go on and on about the mess cars have made of urban planning, and the number of jobs I couldn’t take because they required driving, but I digress.
In short, I hate cars just as much as the rest of you. But I’m also conscious that a lot of other people feel differently. What does widespread car ownership enable that would be difficult or impossible otherwise?
As an American I’m familiar with the cultural aura that surrounds the automobile. One of the early episodes of Mythbusters explained this pretty well while digging into the folklore surrounding a particular car-related urban legend. Cars represent freedom and self determination, two qualities highly prized in American society. You can go where you want when you want, without relying on schedules and routes mandated by public transit[1].
Looking at more tangible things, I suppose hauling a bunch of stuff from point A to point B would be hard without a car.
But what else am I missing?
Ignoring the fact you can only go where there are roads, and someone has to build and maintain those roads. ↩︎
I started biking again 2 years ago, honestly partly pushed by various city planning/car rejection media when I realized I could start being the change I want to see in the world. I’d done some strength training during the pandemic but holy crap was I not in shape enough to be biking. It took me a full year of biking nearly every day to be able to bike my kids to school in a trailer (about 2 miles round trip)
Even now where I finished last summer biking over 22 very hilly miles, I struggled to bike to a haircut just a mile away after just 3 months of winter hibernation, and now that it’s early spring I got up to 5 miles so far within a few bike rides.
Point is, for the average adult, biking is an option but it takes a ton of time and work to build up your strength. Ebikes completely change the game because anyone can ride 10-20 miles on those, and if you have balance issues or other health issues you can get an etrike! They’re such incredible life changing machines!
Just because you are able to bike long distances on a normal bike doesn’t mean everyone (or dare I say the average adult) can. Many people simply do not have this dormant physical athleticism.
You should probably reread my comment because that was literally what I said
I’m saying no it’s not an option. Not everyone (sigh, dare I say the average adult) has this dormant physical athleticism.
And if you finish reading, he talks about ebikes and trikes helping to fill that gap
That’s not what he was referring to with the part I quoted.
He was replying to a comment about e bikes, and concluded his comment talking about them. The whole comment was building up to that fact. Just because every sentence didn’t explicitly mention e-bikes doesn’t mean that they weren’t the point of the entire comment.
He spent a couple paragraphs talking about his own struggles building up to riding a regular bike and then concluded by basically saying “or you can skip all of that hard work and get an e bike”
Maybe for you I highlighted the wrong part.
For the average adult (because that’s what he said) I’m saying no, regular biking is not an option. For the average adult. The average adult does not have this dormant physical athleticism. He said the average adult can, and I disagree and say the average adult does not have this dormant physical athleticism.
Alright. If that’s what you want to nitpick here
The average adult (in the US) can ride a bike, whether or not they ever actually do is a different matter, but the majority of us learned how to at some point, and there’s a reason “it’s like riding a bike” is a saying.
From being able to ride a bike to being able to ride it a reasonably long distance just takes time and work to build up to it, which is what he said.
Now a lot of people won’t put in that kind of work, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t.
I’m fat, I won’t sugar-coat that. In a couple weeks when it warms up a bit I’ll hop on my bike, and I’ll probably manage around 5 miles, and by the end of the summer I’ll probably work my way up to around 15 miles, and I’ll still be fat. I do this pretty much every year (and worth noting, I didn’t even learn to ride a bike until I was in my 30s)
There are parts of the world where damn-near everyone gets around on bikes, they don’t have some sort of unattainable genetic advantage because they grew up in Amsterdam or whatever that gives them some “dormant athleticism” that Americans don’t have, they just ride bikes.
The average adult can ride a bike. They just don’t or won’t.