Barcelona’s Bicibús: hundreds of families biking to school together (opens in new tab)

Lots of opinions about Barcelona, I see. Somehow I feel I know the city quite well. I moved here more than 20 years ago and I can compare it to others cities I live in or visited.

Barcelona is relatively safe, although, as it's been mentioned, it had several hot spots (I used to live in some of these, actually). Crime is in most of the cases about pickpocketing or, sadly but infrequently, with assault. Still, believe me, it's a relatively safe city.

Anyhow, it's not a city to grow your children. Traffic is high, bike lanes are not safe and there are very few parks. This is the reason people try to move to nearby cities whenever they have kids (my case also).

I didn't know about the centralized vacuum municipal trash collection. I found this short video showing the concept : https://youtu.be/gHmt1GTVlnM

It feels more dystopian than futuristic. There are countries where children don't have to commute in large groups to avoid crime.

Been in Paris two weeks ago as well to visit my girlfriend who's been living there for 11 years.

Scooters are in the process of being banned in Paris because they are too dangerous and in Rome, where I come from, they are going yo be heavily regulated (mandatory helmet, reduced speed, designated pick up and drop locations, etc. ) because they caused a +35% increase of brain traumas to teenagers

Not everything that looks cool on first sight it's an actual improvement.

I honestly can't wait for electric vehicles to become common. No more getting gas attacked when waiting at a traffic stop. Air pollution is a big deal in my country.

In most of European cities the use of electric scooters have skyrocketed, both private bought and as a service (like Lime).

I don't know how is in France, but in Spain there are new regulation, and new ones halfway, to have a regulation where these vehicles are registered, users have to use helmet, and in a near future, even have civil liability/accident insurance to prevent some kind of problem.

At first, there wasn't nay kind of problem, but more and more people keep buying this scooters, they were driving at high speed in the pavement, there was some accidents with scooters involved, and even there was a couple of pedestrian deaths due to misuse, so the government got serious about that.

Climate and terrain aren't that big a deal. Single biggest impediment to cycling is the how likely people are to be maimed or killed by drivers.

For point a, the growing democratization of ebikes really help flatten the terrain.

For point b, the cold in itself is not really a huge deal, if you're dressed appropriately. As for the heat, it really depends on the amount of efforts you have to do.

I see the lack of adequate infrastructure as a much bigger impediment. If you risk getting hurt, you won't cycle, even in the most perfect weather.

Ebikes are more and more common, they already make up half the sales of new bikes in many markets. That's the hills dealt with.

And in regards to cold temperatures, if the only time you daily spend in the cold is the few meters from your house's door to your car's door and then to your work's door, then you just think it is cold because you aren't living it like someone who's active and raises their body temperature in the cold.

Currently I cycle 10km to work and arrive before the sun is barely up, I enjoy those rides, I have good lights on the bike and can use cycling paths on 2/3 of the way. The thing I'm really looking forward to is the snowy days when the world is silenced and cycling though a few centimeters of snow becomes magical.

In my experience the number one thing that is positively correlated with biking adoption is infrastructure. If the population can safely use bicycles and they can be easily accessed/stored/rented then they are more willing to work around other inconveniences.

I agree with other replies: infrastructure is the deciding factor (not climate or terrain).

The way to see and understand "infrastructure" is: what if gov't was cycling-centric instead of car-centric. All the "infrastructure" you see around cars? Do that for cycles. There would be safe, separate, well-maintained, direct routes to all points, all year long, 24-7.

My own belief is that this is not possible in the U.S. without a change of culture. We can't even get respect for pedestrians... in winter here, plows will dump snow right over sidewalks (it will take days for them to be cleared if at all in some places). my 2 cents.

I've been in Barcelona during a summer month during a heat wave. People still biked and walked, many of the streets and paths will be shaded at least on one side by the three to five story buildings on most streets except when the sun is directly overhead, and down the middle of some boulevards there are some very generously wide paths and trees providing shade. It's a very different experience from Houston which is pancake flat by comparison to Barcelona, Barcelona actually has hills.

Someone already linked to Oulu which proves that biking may be unaffected by freezing temps.

On the other end of the spectrum, and unanserwed in the article here—Sevilla might be a great place to study the effect of heat.

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/10/13/best-practices-how-se...

With regards to b. That seems to be true only partially seehttps://www.euronews.com/2021/01/22/meet-the-bike-loving-fin...

Subzero temperatures don't seem to be that much of a problem, as the Finnish city of Oulu shows us:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulu

"Oulu is notable for its transportation network dedicated to non-motor vehicular traffic, including pedestrians and bicycles (termed "light" traffic in Finland). In 2010, the city contained more than 600 kilometres (370 mi) of pathways and more than 100 underpasses and bridges devoted exclusively to light traffic. The network is used year-round. The ratio of light traffic pathways to residents is the highest in Finland and the cycling mode share is 20 percent.[40][41] Oulu is often touted as an excellent city for bicycling."

I agree. Luckily (a) is slowly changing thanks to ebikes (you can even get child ebikes now!)

And the most difficult, practically impossible weather to cycle in, is winter rain. 0-5 degrees celcius and rain, good luck riding your bike. You literally can't dress for it, it's better to even walk because then you can use an umbrella. You have to cover your whole body in specialised clothing that's both warm insulating, and fully waterproof. Your feet, your hands, and even then, your head, your face...

How many places in the world would you get +35 Celsius (95 F) in the morning?

I think you'd be a little surprised. I have a friend in Chicago who's bike commuted year round now for decades.

That's anecdotal for sure but once you are acclimatized to winter I think the gating criteria is more around a secure place to park your bike during the day.

I have another work buddy in Minneapolis who sends me pictures of the temp guage on his Fat-Bike of like -20F training rides in Jan and Feb... yikes!!!!

The truth is that cycling infrastructure is an unnecessary luxury. It's a "good thing" in principle because it's a way of transportation that's good for the environment and gives people exercise, but it's redundant and expensive, you still need full capacity in public transport, because almost no one cycles when the weather is bad. It would only makes sense really if you could dynamically allocate space between cars/bikes basically on a day-by-day basis, and/or convert bike lanes to bus lanes, but I guess you'd need a full fleet of only self driving cars for that to be feasible. Then you could have the luxury of using a bike on days with nice weather, just because it's fun. Until then, it's at the expense of general mobility which is a really big downside in cities that are already crowded and transport is slow. Why should we cycle more? Only one reason is really valid: save the environment. But then again, we have a million comforts and luxuries at the expense of the environment, and people can generally choose, as long as they're not using absurd amount of energy. Why force cycling specifically, I don't understand, just take the bus if you don't want to drive.

> That's all the exercise a child needs in a day.

More like the minimum recommended amount, but it's a good start

Biking is horribly efficient, I think.

I used to overstate my commuting, as well, but when I compare it to running, you need to at least double the duration for equivalency. Both in numbers and feelz. And you really need to push it (lol) to get your heart working. Not a complete replacement for exercise, otherwise. Luckily, I start hunting on a bike naturally, but lots of people seem to not even break a sweat, or really enjoy sitting on their saddle. Exhaust pollution wise, bike commuting seems to be still beneficial, but it’s definitely putting a counterweight in the bowl, too. Tho, that’s supposed to get better, with fewer (my city started converting whole car lanes into bike lanes <3 ) and electric cars.

Anyway, those children grow up riding bikes will likely continue as adults where getting any exercise is better than nothing. And if you’re used to taking your bike everywhere, you may easily make 20-50km/d, which is something. Biking can be more than a mode of transportation. I often get overwhelmingly happy flowing through the city with a breeze on my skin and people in the same room. I wish that bliss onto everyone.

I’ve noticed there are frequent reposts of the same story or very similar stories when it comes to pro-bike/anti-car/urbanist content. I’ve seen several such posts in the last 24 hours, all on the front page. Reposts are supposed to be buried per the HN FAQ but there isn’t a way to report things as dupes seemingly. @dang is flagging the right approach for handling this?

The bike brigade is loose :)

I don't know how a bike-first city would feel, but biking is a serious bonus in one's life (granted you have safe space or a herd around you). So the more the merrier.

organic is great, now we need more of that for all aspects of life, and hopefully some simple large integration of efforts to keep them stable and efficient (after all we have near free computing to communicate, analyse and organize, so why not)

You just uncovered one of the issues in Barcelona: getting a public school place near where you are living, especially in the Eixample district (the one where this initiative is being done) which is super crowded and with very few real estate available for public buildings.

Seemingly low I’d think. On the bike bus they’ve got hundreds of kids and parents around them and a police escort, so it’s not a normal biking situation. Plus parents likely are teaching kids bike safety.

Biking in this bus formation and biking normally are separate enough that it doesn’t seem to be a concern. IMO that’s like asking if kids don’t where seat belts on a normal bus, are they then at risk of not wearing seat belts in normal cars?