People of Mastodon!
I'm researching the growth of ebikes ...
... in cities around the US
I've talked to many people who love them!
But also want to include the perspective of folks who have concerns ...
... i.e. about the speed and weight of ebikes in accidents with pedestrians or other cyclists, and the like
If anyone has thoughts they wanna share, ping me! I'm all ears: [email protected]
Pass this along if you know anyone else with perspective they want to share
Yes, excellent point
I think it's highly contigent on this stuff
Here in NYC, it's heavily infrastructural: There was a noticeable increase in cycling propelled by COVID -- plus the consistent rollout of bikeshare stands -- that has continued to this day; it's made a couple of major bike routes in and out of manhattan surprisingly congested during peak periods ...
... with conflicts between bikes and regular bikes
@clive yeah, I wonder how much some of the concern about "ebikes" is really concern about infrastructure. (I hate having to drive on sidewalks, for example, but sometimes that's far and away the safest thing...)
There's also status quo bias. It drives me nuts the number of SFans who genuinely believe that cyclists in SF are as dangerous to pedestrians as cars, when cars have killed nearly 300 people since the last time a cyclist killed a pedestrian in the city. But those deaths are normalized.
I think these arguments are very heavily propelled by infrastructure yeah
A few years ago I spoke to the folks at Citibike, the bikeshare firm here in NYC
They were talking to the city about the overwhelming popularity of the ebike option in citibike -- only 20% of the bikes are ebikes but they are disproportionately preferred by riders
The city and citibike were realizing, damn, ideally, we need two-by-two bike lanes
One "slow" and one "passing" lane in each direction
No room for that, though, without a more substantive reallocation of streets from ICE vehicles to things-roughly-the-size-of-a-bike-or-smaller
@burritojustice @luis_in_brief
yep yep -- I believe I've seen stats on ebikes having a higher ridership by women than traditional bikes
@clive @luis_in_brief yeah infrastructure is definitely an issue around here. It's getting more and more common while I'm walking around town to have some e-bike come whipping past me on a narrow sidewalk before I even hear them coming...which feels quite dangerous, if I stepped around a pole or hydrant or pile of trash at the wrong moment I suspect that would not go well for either of us...
And I can understand why they don't want to be on the roadway...but the sidewalks are already insufficient too around here (assuming there is a sidewalk at all) so it's just a shit situation all around. They should probably slow down a bit though if they're gonna be on sidewalks...
yikes, bikes of any sort (piloting by adults, at least) shouldn't be ridden on sidewalks at all! Way too dangerous to pedestrian
@clive @luis_in_brief Yeahh, but only a road like this there is really no good place for bikes...or pedestrians...or humans in generally really.
And actually it looks way better in the picture than it usually does in person...can't really see the trash and potholes and other obstacles lol, but yeah especially on the sidewalk on the right side with those massive bushes...and parts of that aren't even paved unless you count the mosaic of broken beer bottles lol
(That building on the left is part of the massive middle school complex...which I usually try to avoid lol...but yeah probably hundreds of kids walk through here every day...)
So yeah...it ain't just bike infrastructure that we need...although that would certainly help...
Damn, that's frustrating design
Clive Thompson
Luis Villa
PalmAndNeedle
Burrito Justice
SlightlyCyberpunk