How do you do this with kids? Suppose you're taking three kids to an event or a climbing gym or whatever and it's further than walking distance. Can biking be made safe enough, or if it's further, is it reasonable for them to bring them on the metro? What if it's three kids ages 5 and under?
This is an honest question. I live in a city with public transport now and I much prefer it for myself, but when I think of how I was brought up it's hard to imagine that working without a car.
I have two little kids (I know that's not three) and public transit or biking (I can fit both on my bike) is great for outings. It turns the journey into an experience itself. Driving with the kids strapped into car seats the whole time is much less fun. I live in a very bikable town within walking distance to light rail, but that was by design. We bought our house by drawing 1/2 mile circles around parks, rail stops, and grocery stores. Bought the first place that intersected all three. I was just thinking recently about how my kids likely be autonomous much earlier. By age 11 or 12 they'll be able to go all around the city on their own.
Starting with elementary school, they can just take the public transport on their own. Used to do this as a kid in Vienna.
For younger kids, cars are defenitely an advantage but I'm seeing more and more parents with their kids on a bike. Either on a childrens backseat, in the front part of a carrier bycicle, or by accompanying them on their own bike.
What happens if/when you have kids. I’ve seen many people biking around Amsterdam with their kids in protective bike high seats. But this is unheard of in many US cities. Minivans are the usual solution. Would you teach them to take public transport or try to live within walking distance of everything?
Obvs doesn’t apply if u don’t plan on it, but curious if anyone has found a solution in US cities.
As someone who raised three children in Manhattan, walking and public transit are fine with small children. Biking, while a great source of recreation, is simply not an option for transportation with small children. And the ability to fall back on a cabs or Uber on rare occasions is also sometimes necessary.
That being said, at an older age, I never had to take my children anywhere. Like you said, they walked, rode or took public transport.
Finally in my experience, city kids are just as prone to underage drinking as their suburban counterparts, possibly moreso because of the increased opportunity. What they don't do however, is drink and drive.
So it's safe to walk and ride your bike, but you have nothing close by worth biking or walking to? Sounds counter productive. What do you do, bike in circles?
Or my guess: you have to drive everywhere. Hence no autonomy for the kids.
In many places kids are able to walk, bike or take public transit themselves to get around. So parents don't have to spend all their time driving kids between activities.
I have two kids, not three, but we have never had a car, always taken the kids everywhere on public transport. I’m not going to say every trip was a joyful experience, but imho you are making a way bigger deal out of this than the reality. Although to be fair it depends a lot on the quality of the public options in your metro region.
Downside of kids that always travel by public transport: on the rare occasions that they do travel by car, they puke nearly every time. For us public transport is a lot less stressful than traveling by car.
I do that all the time. Works well if you know how, which you do if you live in a city. We tend to use our transporter bike for short trips with the smallest child, long trips are usually a combination of bike and public transport and sometimes we’ll take a cab, car club or rent a car if there’s a specific need (such as when we go camping). Yes we have been on family camping trips where we get the train to the coast with all of our gear and a cab to the campsite from the nearest station. Yes we’ve also done trips where we rented a van. All of this was orders of magnitude cheaper than owning a car. It is also faster. A regular trip I do via bike + public transport takes 50 mins on a good day, 2.5 hours on a very good day by car. (I’ve done both multiple times)
I have three kids. The eldest is 15. I’ve never owned a car. I probably never will.
If you've got 4 kids all under 4yo, you're kind of screwed no matter what vehicle you drive. For biking, you'd probably be looking at a Bakfiets with electric assist plus a trailer.
Presuming we've sufficiently eliminated car traffic and the roads are safe for kids, it's also likely that at least one of those kids can bike themselves to the store with you.
Families is not a counterpoint. I have had three kids in my bike. Now my kids ride their own bikes but we meet parents with all their kids in their bikes every day. There are homes for the elderly around here that put two elders in a bike to get them out for a ride. You didn't mention shopping, but I did put all my shopping in that same bike I had my kids in.
Guess what the biggest obstacle to my kids getting around on their own is? Cars! You don't have to exclude cars from cities, just make them be there in a way that also allows children to safely get around.
I have two kids (now 8 and 4 years old). I don't own a car. We never had any issue bringing them with us in public transport (bus, metro or train). We live in Barcelona.
Cor, if people started doing that in my city, forget about kids going out to have fun, school attendance would drop like a stone on account of it becoming de facto illegal for you to let your kids transport themselves to school.
That sounds more to me like a thing that happens in the suburbs, where kids need to be chauffeured around in cars everywhere and the streets are too fast and too packed with cars for bikes to be safe, so parents don't even get the opportunity to contemplate letting their kids out of their sight.
I have a 1.5 year old child, and I must disagree. Car-centric places are horrible with a child (or really anyone who isn’t a healthy ~20–65 year old adult who can afford a car). To get anywhere you need to pack all your stuff into a car, get the child in and out of a carseat, unpark and park, walk around in a big parking lot, etc. Every trip has huge overhead. It gets even worse when there are multiple kids involved.
Living in a walkable neighborhood with access to transit is so much nicer. I just pick the kid up in my arms and go out the door, and many destinations are a few minutes walk, all of which is time spent actively moving and being part of the outside world. In a couple years, if I need to drop him off somewhere within bike distance (but far enough away that walking is less practical), it would be great to use a child seat or little cart attached to a bike.
It’s going to be an even bigger difference when the kid is older, and can walk around and take transit and engage with the city by himself, instead of being completely isolated and dependent and needing to be chauffeured and chaperoned by an adult on every trip.
Kids can use bicycles from when they are very young, and until then you can put them into a little thing you can drag behind your bicycle.
If you are doing longer travel, using the train is actually awesome. Those trains have actual places for children to play in.
If you cities and that goes for small cities as well are properly designed its very possible. Its just that in the US cities are literally designed so as to make it impossible.
I assume this depends on where you live. Around here, it's very doable. I see a lot of ebikes with 1 or 2 child seats, and carriages for up to 3 extra children or groceries.
I have 1 kid, and we always went to the daycare by bike. Last year, age almost 5, I bought a followme, and it works great. He's 6 now. When we bike more than a few km or when it rains, he gets connected to the followme, otherwise he bikes by himself. My ebike did 2500km in what's now almost a year, easily paying itself by the gas we didn't buy. The car is mostly used for big groceries every 2 weeks.
Most roads have bike paths. On the way to school, 1.5km away, there are still 2 places where we have to cross unsafe car roads. Ironically, one is the school entrance. I think 1 parent in 3 or 4 still come by car, and their driving makes it harder for the others.
This is an honest question. I live in a city with public transport now and I much prefer it for myself, but when I think of how I was brought up it's hard to imagine that working without a car.
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