"Studies have shown that a mere 10% shift from car drivers to bike riders has resulted in a 40% reduction in traffic congestion. Even if you never touch an e-bike, you would benefit from supporting their increased use."
https://electrek.co/2023/08/22/electric-bike-craze-future-of-transportation/
@TheWarOnCars if you need a little help here is a search for "e-bike" in NYT. Discuss.
@ymasumac @TheWarOnCars e-bikes endangering pedestrians, e-bikes taking over bike lanes, illegally modified e-bikes, exploding e-bikes to name a few. Read the comments in this article. NY'ers universally hate these e-bikes, except entities that have financial interest like GrubHub and I suspect "war on cars".
https://www.nytimes.com/article/ebike-laws-nyc.html#commentsContainer
@TheWarOnCars I was curious about the study being referenced and it actually talks about motorcycles, not necessarily ebikes.
"If 10% of all private cars are replaced by motorcycles, the total time loss for all vehicles decreases by 40%."
https://www.tmleuven.be/en/project/motorcyclesandcommuting#!%23collapseOne
@tk @TheWarOnCars @tylerb it sounds like the key is this is simulated and assumes that when cars are dead stopped that motorcycles will all lane split and that then they will have zero impact on traffic congestion.
Plus they have less density than a car and tend to travel closer to the vehicle in front of them (in the simulation).
All added up to the gains reported.
@tk @TheWarOnCars @tylerb that’s a factor, though I don’t know if that was part of the simulation.
I think ultimately the 10% change generates a 40% benefit is more about reducing traffic below a tipping point.
This was in 2011 so I wonder if 12 years later if this has been reproduced with other more advanced simulations or other field studies.
@tylerb @tk @TheWarOnCars 1) yes 2) also yes, but the author basically says “when congestion happens, these vehicles disappear” which would mean the numbers hold up for any actions that remove a car from the road. I think it’s actually plausible that a “bike model” would expect to see larger gains.
10% -> 40% is still a fairly large claim and the paper didn’t (unless I missed it in my skim) devote much room to explaining where that seemingly outsized impact could come from.
@TheWarOnCars
I was going to boost this, but that 10%/40% study seems sketchy. Apparently there was some sort of study, it was in Belgium in 2012, it seems to have involved motorcycles not e-bikes, but anyhow, following endless links kept turning up 404s.
BTW, I find the conclusion easy to believe. But I’d be careful of quoting this until there’s an actual verifiable source.
@michaelgemar @timbray @TheWarOnCars
In NYC it does involve fewer lanes for cars. In many places, "shared lanes," because they just don't have the ability to dedicate a lane to cycles only.
I can only speak of NYC but sure the problem is the same in other major cities. You can't just add bike lanes. That space has to come from somewhere, be it a vehicle lane or sidewalk.
Modifying existing infrastructure is going to affect *someone*. If designing from the start likely a hell of a lot easier.
"building streets that are bike compliant" is a great phrase
From the perspective of an old man, years ago coexistence was possible because of the lower number of cars, more acceptance of biking for everyone (my 90 year old relatives would bike, had no car).
As car density (and probably drivers attitudes) changed and driving kids to school was normalised, there were decades of ignoring investment in cycling.
Now, everbody complains about the cost of catching up
@TheWarOnCars I was curious what the mechanism for reduction was so I clicked through the links it landed me on this article https://www.webbikeworld.com/motorcycles-ignored-traffic-planning/ with no link to the quote but said this:
“Maybe he hasn’t heard of the oft-quoted Belgian study that found that if 10% of all private cars were replaced by motorcycles”
So sounds like “bikes” is actually “motorcycles? Anyone have a link to the “oft-quoted” study?
@[email protected] I was curious about the study being referenced and it actually talks about motorcycles, not necessarily ebikes. "If 10% of all private cars are replaced by motorcycles, the total time loss for all vehicles decreases by 40%." https://www.tmleuven.be/en/project/motorcyclesandcommuting#!%23collapseOne
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