Why E-Bikes Could Change Everything – Sierra Club (opens in new tab)

(sierraclub.org)

26 pointsmlissner3y ago12 comments

12 comments

8jef3y ago

In an average checkered square North American city, every second street or avenue reserved to any and all personal transportation not larger than a cargo trike, not longer than a tandem bike. From there you can have one ways, two ways, fast lanes, non-powered lanes, longer green lights than cross car streets, overpass, underpass, etc. The Works.

You keep boulevards and any street with speed limitations over 30mph to cars and trucks. You arrange for permanent secured and weatherized personal parking and storage areas on street sides, back alleys, and/or other public places

It's that simple. No change to zoning, no fancy street rebuilding, nothing else different from what already is.

Your street doesn't have cars in it? You park next street. You're disabled and can't walk a hundred feet? Get a trike. Or a folding anything you shove in the trunk of your car. Delivery companies can do cargo trikes.

But hey, let's be real for a moment and acknowledge you'd instantly get giant pickup truck twats ramming into bike lanes for not liking where evolution goes. As always.

blacksmith_tb3y ago

I like the vision, already in many cities I have ridden in here in the US there are attempts to gradually achieve something similar (though I find that bike streets don't announce themselves very well, so I often see new riders on busy/bad roads when there's a much nicer designated alternative just a block or two away, if only they knew). As for the pickup trucks, just removing the subsidies from gas prices will make them fade away pretty quickly I expect.

ItsMonkk3y ago

There's a realization you come to short after you understand what you described as an easy transition to a much better community - the transition from grid streets is much simpler than the transition from suburban streets. All of the suburbs filled with stroad connected cul-de-sac developments might be nearly permanently disfigured that aren't worth the costs to retrofit.

noahtallen3y ago

To be fair, suburb streets aren’t that car unfriendly. Many of the subdevelopments I’ve been to are extremely chill, low traffic, low speed.

The problem is really twofold:

- suburbs are far away from anything worth biking to. Strip malls and chain stores aren’t great destinations. The nice stuff (or bike friendly stuff) is closer to the city and many miles away from the subdevelopments.

- Those connection stroads are dangerous to walk and bike on. On the flip side, the public right of way used to built them is so large, it’d be “easy” to add bike lanes and sidewalks. By easy, I mean it won’t make people’s lives worse. You could remove a lane or a handful of parking spots and it wouldn’t make a huge impact to human life.

But at the end of the day… if there’s nowhere to go, no one would use those modified roads.

So it’s a catch 22, and I doubt it will get better with small local initiatives because the suburb lifestyle is so ingrained in many people’s lives.

tjr2253y ago

I take my child to day care every day with an e-bike. We both love it.

I have a second, more cargo oriented, e-bike on back order. If anyone from rad powered bikes is reading this I think your decision to use proprietary tire sizes for your cargo bikes was insanely stupid.

wpm3y ago

Oh wow I guess I have to knock Radpower off my list, that is indeed insanely stupid.

I snagged last years model of Urban Arrow from a local dealer, one of their last before the long wait for the 2022s to come in from the Netherlands. I absolutely love it. Even without kids or pets it’s great for doing larger shopping runs. Not having to default to car rentals or Ubers for moving big stuff is freeing. I’ve taken it on 50+ mile trips for camping, taken it 30 miles out to the suburbs to visit family, it’s all just so effortless and happy.

I might end up adding a motor to my commuter, I just find the custom e-bike world way too oriented towards hotrodding and going as fast as possible.

bonniemuffin3y ago

There are a lot of plusses to Radpower bikes. Overall I think they're in a real sweet spot for features + affordability for a lot of people.

1 more reply

rasz3y ago

>If anyone from rad powered bikes is reading this I think your decision to use proprietary tire sizes for your cargo bikes was insanely stupid.

Its brilliant business move on paper. Onewheel did the same moving away from standard gokart tires in GT. You become single source for consumables, perpetual $$$.

jagaerglad3y ago

The city of Stockholm has recently started an ebike service where you can have unlimited rides for the eqivalent price of a pizza per _year_! Probably to compete with all the e-scooter companies. It is the best deal ever and I really hope it can reduce the high amounts of car dependency here. I've even stopped buying a bus card since this ends up being about 100x times cheaper per year

crimsoneer3y ago

I really wanted to get an e-bike, but as a Londoner with decent public transport, it's so rarely worth it over tube/bus (and when it is, I'll opt for renting a lime bike instead)

AtlasBarfed3y ago

That's why I think the real big hits in urban transport are slightly more portable versions of the Bird/Lime scooters. Those can fold up and be carried a lot more easily onto a bus or train. They fold a lot more easily and compact. There's no greasy chain or cogwheels.

I think every city government should have active programs for every citizen to have an electric blade scooter with 20-30 mile range, and an e-bike.

One of the big issues with e-bikes is that they can be stolen so easily. The batteries can probably be harvested in chop shops. But blade scooters can be folded up and carried inside easily.

Battery swaps are far easier on these form factors too. So a standardized battery could extend ranges a lot more because you can have a set of kiosks where a battery is swapped (and you can use a longer range one where needed). No recharge wait!

Then of course above e-bikes are traditional e-moped/scooters, motorcycle/trike motorcycle form factors, compact city cars, finally the Asshole American SUV which can at least be EV/PHEV, but should be made prohibitively expensive in the city.

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