In 20 years, I've only worked in one place that had a shower. To me, for practical and obvious reasons, it sounds like no number of bike lanes will get people riding if that isn't solved.
I bet your have a gym within walking distance to your office. If you go to the gym when you get home, just shift your gym time to before work. You ride to your gym, take your shower, walk to work. Bam problem solved.
Answers like this are one of the problems inherent with this issue. One side bases its position on real problems. The other side responds with gross generalizations based on completely uninformed speculation. Then some politician tries to compromise. The average solution between real problem and imaginary solution is worse than the status quo, and everyone loses. The tyranny of the vocal minority brings us all down while everyone else was trying to get on with their lives. Way to go.
You already pay a monthly fee to have a crap drive to work in your car. If only you could be charged for the negative externalities of driving, the actual cost of maintaining the road, to park your car, to fill your gas tank...maybe you'd have a different opinion.
I wouldn't call a 10 minute car ride a 'crop drive'. That's a pretty good commute.
Cost incurred by one car of maintaining the road is essentially negligible. The majority of road damage comes from heavy vehicles or weather. Additionally it's interesting you want to 'charge for externalities' when it's actually the cyclists getting a free ride in this category. License fees and gasoline taxes contribute to road funding. Nothing related to cycling does.
I agree with parking, but only if it costs something. If the office already has it, you not using it will not likely save the company any money by refusing to use it.
The only externality you might not be paying enough for to drive to work is the gas filling (assuming non electric). However, the numbers regarding the impact of CO2 are mostly just made up from sums of imagined future or previous natural disasters that can't be directly linked to CO2 emissions.
You mean the car he can use to go to the store, to visit family, to go on vacation, to drive in bad weather? The car he pays property tax, fuel tax, insurance, license fees, registration fees, etc on? Yeah, all those unrealized externalities...
Give me a break. Gas taxes are suppose to pay for roads don't keep up with inflation. All the savings of deferred maintenance on our highway system could account for that, but maybe not.
When I lived in Berkeley, I used to longboard part of the way and take the BART the rest. This transit experience is unmatched. I had half an hour of guaranteed reading time every day, and another twenty minutes in one of my hobbies.
When I drive, I suddenly realize what a waste of time it is. And it's not really fun because of traffic either.
I actually miss public transport. I also imagine that cyclists do similar things. The trouble in this argument is that maybe the cyclists also enjoy cycling like I did skating. To most people who solely drive to commute, it's a thing they don't particularly enjoy.
No, I don't particularly enjoy driving. I try to go out of my way to avoid it most of the time. I'd much rather walk, public transport, bike to work, but the reality is that, for most of the world, local practical issues make those alternatives far more inconvenient than driving and no amount of bike lanes in the world will change those conditions.
It can be subtly simple things, like, working in a job where you have to go across town to a customer site 3 times a week during the middle of the work day and can't afford to take 2.5 hours out of your day to bike there and bike. Or living in a place with lots of hills, or having no place to clean up once you get to work.
All those issues have to be solved long before bike lanes becomes part of the discussion for biking to become a practical choice. A few people who are really into biking, crazy spandex outfits and all, might be willing to ignore those practical considerations, but if you want to get the average citizen up on a bike like in the Netherlands, you have to solve the rest of the issues.
