If this argument was in favor of cars, for me it would be the same: Where am I supposed to park? You expect me to pay $400 a month just to park a car at home and another $400 to park it at the office? Cars are fun, but not very practical.
It all depends on the environment you are in, which is not a static unchangeable monolith. You have choices. Maybe living somewhere where biking is practical would involve making choices that go against your priorities, but those are your priorities.
I don't really disagree with your points, but your usecase is nowhere near the norm where I live or how I live.
I'm perfectly fine with city dwellers having more bikes (if they so choose), whatever helps the traffic and parking in the cities.
My point still stands that in no way is a bike a replacement for all the utilities of a vehicle, whether you're offloading that by renting, borrowing, etc.
I'll drive my vehicle, you can ride your bike. The power of choice! No conflict needed.
I think the best kept secret of cycling is the convenience of it. Never have to find a place to park, the ride itself is exercise so no need to go to the gym, the ride itself is refreshing and can help with your mental health, no metal cage to isolate you from your environment, so you have a chance to actually connect with your community.
Too cold, windy, and wet? You invest in some proper clothes, and you change when you get somewhere.
Cars are expensive. What I think of when I think of the inconvenience of cars is their cost, and how that translates into how many hours of my life I give up to pay for them.
If riding a bike all year also meant getting two months off every year from work every year (or just pocket/invest in the money you saved with car ownership/upkeep/taxes/gas), would you do it?
I agree, cars are only more practical and efficient since we designed the infrastructure around them. We have immense highways, fairly available and relatively inexpensive parking, even in major cities. Without this infrastructure it would be extremely impractical to get around with a car, see for example some old European cities. For example, I remember being in Toledo, Spain and my rental car that I needed for the countryside was completely useless, I left it parked in an expensive lot the whole time and walked everywhere. Even the compact hatchback could barely fit down the narrow cobblestone streets and there was certainly no parking in the areas around the shops or restaurants. Compare that to Oakland, CA where I live now and there are massive freeways going right through the center of the city, in fact, I can use one for my 5mi commute to work when I drive, this is the only reason that its about 1-2min faster to drive than to bike.
Many people also claim its not safe to bike in the city but this is also a symptom of designing the system around cars. If we simply dedicated all the roads to biking and only a few sporadic car-lanes it would be much safer to bike.
The environmental angle is only one part of the story for bikes vs cars.
1. Cars make you fat. Or at least, they certainly don't help. A bicycle (or transit) commute serves double duty as a commute and as exercise.
2. Cars are damned deadly. Drivers kill an absurd number of people for absurd reasons. You'd have to be exceptionally unlucky to be killed by a bicyclist.
3. Cars are expensive. For everyone. Even electric cars. Roads don't maintain themselves and asphalt's durability doesn't have a difference between a 1 ton Tesla and a 1 ton Ford. Also, you need a lot more asphalt to handle the same capacity. And that's just the public cost.
4. Cars are still expensive. Amortize out the up front cost, the interest, excise taxes, registration fees, repairs, fluids/filters/brakes. Even electric cars have a significant annual cost.
That specific bikes-vs-cars example is actually pretty good, IMO. When I was in graduate school I spent all day in a classroom or in front of a computer, but I was still in good physical shape because I biked to and from the campus each day. I would have had to go into debt to buy a car.
My officemate and fellow grad student had car payments and paid for a gym membership to offset his similarly sedentary day. I used to laugh at that. I laugh a little less now, knowing how much risk cyclists are exposed to from cars, but that problem itself is a symptom of American cities that are built in an excessively car-dependent, car-first way.
The point that might be missed is that it is more fun and more healthy and more convenient to live in a bike culture city. Driving and parking kind of sucks—there is such a wonderful flow in bike transportation.
In other words, it isn’t a personal trade-off for sustainability; rather, it is a win-win.
I don't agree about the way you assess value, and I don't think it's so much about fashion as you pretend.
Mobility choices are lifestyle choices. Buying a bicycle means getting rid of parking issue and exercising everyday by default, without the cost of having to decide to do it. Despite road violence coming from car drivers, it's less stressful because it keeps you connected to your environment. The value of a bike compared to a car is like the value of a lower paying job that has less pressure, in a lower cost of living area, a shorter commute, and better offices and colleagues. You can't compare them easily.
This reeks of suburban provincialism. Bikes are more useful in an urban context. On an individual level they are faster because they don’t get stuck in traffic and you don’t have to pay for parking. On a macro level cars are fundamentally incompatible with density because there is literally not enough space in a city for everyone to store and drive their cars.
Cars provide much freedom and flexibility and protection from the elements. Bikes are fine if you are young, fit person transporting only yourself and going a short distance, in nice weather, but there are many other kinds of trips. If the Democratic senators told voters "Drive less, we'll give you free bikes" that would be unpopular.
Cars are usually more expensive than bycicles and inconvenience people too.
Don't get me wrong, I've got both a car and a bicycle, not 100% for road cycling but count it as if it was (it's a gravel bike.)
For me cycling beats running 100-0. I can easily pedal 100+ km but I can't run 100 meters, too tiresome. Furthermore I see 100 km of the world vs a small area around my home.
Ultimately it's all subjective. Each of us likes something different and it's OK.
Bikes are awesome. For a month or two worth of gas, or probably less than a month of expenses (amortized, all-things-considered) you can buy a used bike. It's not as convenient, and is harder work, and it sucks going uphill unless you're in great shape, but on the other hand you can completely total your bike twice a year and still come out hundreds of dollars ahead compared to driving.
(What sucks about bikes is the infrastructure, at least in the US. "Bike friendly" means the city gives you a lane right next to the parking lane, and expects you to run headfirst into opening car doors and cars turning across your lane.)
Respectfully, I think your analysis is overly simplistic. You ignored the elephant in the room: the geography of the US.
Cycling makes a ton of sense if you live in and around an urban area---particularly when most of your interactions with other people are in that same small area. Despite my love for driving, if I fit that mold, I'd happily adopt cycling as my main mode of transportation. But there are a couple of very common scenarios in the US that maybe aren't so common in other countries:
* Living in a suburb/rural area that is more than a half-hour drive from your place of work (in no traffic). There's a high price to pay in terms of time that cycling would entail.
* Traveling throughout the US. And I don't just mean across the country where trains or buses are appropriate---I mean visiting your friend several towns over. For instance, my friend that I frequently visit is about 30 minutes away by car but is about 100 minutes away by bicycle (back-roads, no traffic, data from Google Maps). Similarly for my parents.
I think both of these scenarios strongly militate toward owning a car in favor of a bicycle. I also think tons of people in the US fit this mold---certainly more so than smaller countries with a much denser overall population. Most of the people in the US live in cities---but the overall population density of the US is much lower than most other countries, which suggests that even if you live in or around a city, you have a much higher chance of having connections with people who live in more suburban or rural areas (than similar folks in denser countries). When that happens, a car is typically the most sensible form of transportation.
Of course, it's certainly plausible that we could own cars that we rarely use but cycle to work every day, for example. But I think that's a more complex dynamic and I don't think I have the tools to properly analyze it.
I also find your enthusiasm for passing laws to legislate your cost/benefit analysis on everyone else to be deeply disturbing, but I'll leave that one be.
It's a funny list considering bikes were described as a compromise with floor space. As it's possible to park 10 bikes for one car.
As for the rest, I lube my chains rarely and they are rusty on extreme occasions only and stand in the rain often. Belt drives also require no lube at all. A bike can be dried up in 5 seconds or you can use a seat cover which costs around 50 cents on average unless you get it for free. You take it off and the seat is dry and ready to go.
And you don't have to drive around three blocks for 10 minutes looking for a parking space. Or longer if you don't find it and drive home and ride a bike instead. So cars are a compromise with mental health and bikes are a breeze. I haven't had to worry about anything or make any compromise with them in so 12 years I've been riding daily. Because even a rusty chain can be replaced for 10-20$. They are basically worry free and almost maintenance free. To call them a compromise is an insult to common sense.
The cost of keeping a car legal to drive (insurance, registration) for a year is enough to buy a fairly nice bicycle. That doesn't count the fuel and maintenance costs if you actually drive the car nor the cost of buying the car. In many areas, parking is very limited, but there's usually something sturdy to lock a bike to or the option of bringing it inside. There's also the bit where a commute is also a workout.
It all depends on the environment you are in, which is not a static unchangeable monolith. You have choices. Maybe living somewhere where biking is practical would involve making choices that go against your priorities, but those are your priorities.
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