Ha! I'm even of the opinion that most urban environments should actively work to dissuade automobiles except for delivery vehicles and taxis. They should be walkable, public transport and biking meccas. So I sympathize that they aren't. But the discussion is also about "why don't more people bike to work" and the consensus seems to be "we need more bike lanes!" and I'm simply pointing out that that won't solve the issue.
> the consensus seems to be "we need more bike lanes!" and I'm simply pointing out that that won't solve the issue.
I really don't think that adding more bike lanes would get everyone biking or "solve the issue" entirely. That isn't a reasonable position. But nonetheless, we need more bike lanes. We need more separated, safe bike lanes. We need them in every city, except maybe for those who have got there already - i.e. Amsterdam, Copenhagen and very few others.
Survey after survey where I am shows that the main thing preventing higher (not universal, just higher) uptake of cycling to work is not the distance, or the weather, it's the fear factor, i.e the lack of safe facilities like bike lanes.
I don't disagree that we need more bike lanes. I'm a big supporter of more bike lanes because it usually comes attached to other efforts that make environments more livable for everybody.
But I've yet to see a discussion that talks about the "rest of the ride." Even with bike lanes, biking isn't feasible for most people for a wide variety of reasons. I've attempted to provide those reasons here, and I'm fortunate enough to have buckets of karma to shed because as you can see, nobody wants to concern themselves with prerequisite issues that are probably more important to biking (i.e. if they aren't solved, no amount of bike lanes will make a substantial difference).
The HN community suffers from a religious myopia at times that the living conditions and lifestyle of a single 20-something males in Silicon Valley represents the accumulated averages for the rest of the world and should be the model for everybody else. The community is shocked and disgusted when dissenting voices try to provide insight as to why most people are not single 20-something males in Silicon Valley. TBH, I don't think a discussion about bike lanes belongs on HN except that it brings up this demographic discussion. As you can see, the HN hive-mind is not receptive to people of different demographic groups, even if those groups might be better representative of the rest of the country or world.
I don't doubt the community myopia, but better bike lanes are relevant to not just "single 20-something males in Silicon Valley", but rather HN readers 20-50, any gender or relationship status, in New York, London, Berlin, etc. It's not everyone but it's not that narrow either.
