• bloodsangre7@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Daily? Because they get trapped in a situation that doesn’t give them options. I live near the bus/light rail in my city, but the best job opportunity I got is 20 miles further out towards the exurbs. Its a 30 minute drive vs a 90 min bus/bike trip. Looking for something much nearer as the commute sucks, but when we build our cities like we do it really limits our citizens’ options sometimes

    • Evkob@lemmy.caOP
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      1 year ago

      Yeah I’m all too aware of North American style city design. The title was more along the lines of “why do we as a society still center our communities around cars when better options such as bikes exist?” and not trying to assign blame to any individual car driver, just to be clear.

      I personally refuse to participate in the folly that is “the commute” but I realize that not everyone has the same flexibility, nor the same priorities. I live 10 minutes walk from my work, but I have a couple of coworkers who drive over 30 minutes to get to work. It’s remarkable how much stress their commute causes them compared to my little stroll.

      • bloodsangre7@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The commute is brutal. I constantly reference it as my least favorite part of the job. While they have done some accommodation by doing a 4/10 week and permissible WFH, it still is something I’m looking to change

    • LearysFlyingSaucer@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      It’s a 30 minute bike commute to my work, and less than 10 minutes to various parks, stores, and resturants but there Zero cycling or even pedestrian infrastructure in my medium sized city, even though i frequently see people walking and biking on the side of busy streets or through grass. It’s so risky with all the giant trucks and SUVs speeding around with murderous intent. So sick of this regressive, segregationist city planning. It’s further wrecking our already poor mental and physical health

      • Evkob@lemmy.caOP
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        1 year ago

        The past few years I’ve really come to notice the embiggening of personal vehicles. I’m a 4-5 inches taller than the average height in my country, and I still see so many vehicles come up to above my shoulders. I feel like I’m gonna die every time I walk down my local stroad to go get groceries, they’re literally bigger than tanks and they can hit over 200km/h.

  • Audacity9961@feddit.ch
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    1 year ago

    I know this just a meme, but literally the answer is infrastructure.

    Where I live there are no separated cycle paths and it is illegal to ride on the footpath. Combine that with a hostile car culture, and it is simply too dangerous at present for me to consider.

    They are building a separated cyclepath near me, however, so once that is in place I’ll be doing most commuting by bike.

  • tate@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    I’m convinced that everyone hates driving, but they don’t understand why. They are innundated by ads showing people who love driving, but those people are always alone on the road. It builds the illusion that it is traffic that is bad, not driving.

    Driving is really exciting the first several times you do it as a teenager. But I’m unconvinced that anyone could continue to enjoy it if they did it for an hour a day for decades. Even if there was no traffic at all.

  • sin_free_for_00_days@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    I had a really bad anal fissure years back. Ended up having to have 2 separate surgeries. Now if I do any type of sitting down activity, biking, rowing, etc. I get hugely swollen and sore in the entire area around my taint. Would love to bike again, but it’s just not going to happen for me.

    • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Hang in there! I had my entire rectum removed and couldn’t fathum the thought of riding a bike.

      But 10 years later I decided to give it a shot and now I bike all the time… Thousands of kilometers this past year!

      Healing did take years, so don’t give up. In the interim, I did get an e-scooter so I didn’t have to sit 👌

      • sin_free_for_00_days@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        I’ve thought about getting an e-scooter. I have a regular (well adult-sized) push scooter that I use just about daily, but it’s not great for longish trips.

        • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          I have a regular (well adult-sized) push scooter that I use just about daily, but it’s not great for longish trips.

          You might even want to consider a “kick bike”, which is a kick scooter with larger (bike-sized) tires. I had one several years ago and it was awesome! Should be easier to get around on compared to the one you have now, and I know a guy who went across Canada on one!

    • emcon_delta@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      And heat. Particularly with workplaces with no end of trip facilities. It’s 106 F with the heat index and humid where I live currently. My last workplace had lockers and showers, and so I rode even in the rain and heat, but my current job has no bike facilities whatsoever. I only ride in when the weather is good enough that I can ride in without worrying about changing more than my pants and shoes and freshening up.

      • unceme@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        Heat is the real killer. As someone else said with fenders and a raincoat the former is very manageable but there’s nothing you can do when the heat index is in the high 90s/early 100s every day from late May through the end of October.

      • itchy_lizard
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, we definitely need the government to offer grants and tax breaks to companies to build and provide better bicycle-commuting facilities to their workers, including ample indoor bicycle parking and showers

        It’s absurd to me how the US’s “Infrastructure Bill” dealt mostly with cars, and the press coverage of this was horrible. Where was the news coverage pointing-out the lack of investment in train and bicycle infrastructure? Fuck cars.

          • itchy_lizard
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            1 year ago

            I won’t. Where I went to Uni the outdoor bicycle parking was placed right next to the sprinklers, and it would water the bicycles 🤦 That’s not acceptable. We need to treat these machines with the respect they deserve.

            • emcon_delta@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              That’s just the university buildings and grounds dept not adjusting the sprinklers properly/using poor sprinkler design. Bikes should ideally go inside, but they’re beautifully simple to maintain machines and can tolerate the outdoors if maintained.

              • itchy_lizard
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                1 year ago

                I saw same grounds department driving a golf cart intentionally smash into a bicycle that was parked in same bicycle parking rack as they passed it.

                See also Hostile Architecture:

                It takes serious investment and education campaigns to fix cultural bigotry.

                • emcon_delta@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Definitely a buildings and grounds dept issue then and these things will only be resolved if complaints are lodged with the university.

  • unceme@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    Bikes are wonderful and amazing and awesome but I was a full-time bike commuter in my southeastern US city for two years and I can’t blame anyone here who doesn’t.

    In the summer you get so hot that you need to expect to have somewhere to change or ideally shower wherever you go if you’re gonna be there for a long time. There’s very few dedicated bike lanes and a lot of roads may not even have sidewalks so you need to be able to bike on the open road sharing space with cars, which means you need to have an athletic ability to be able to maintain a decent pace on the road.

    Even still you’ll end up having dozens of close calls from reckless cars and maybe even an accident or two which if you’ll be lucky are minor. I got hit by a Jeep that blew through a stop sign ironically on a bike path. I was okay but my bike had considerable damage. Another time I almost got sideswiped by a car that pulled through to parking on the other side of a bike lane without looking.

    In short unless very significant infrastructure improvements are made (which are not expensive and are not really difficult to implement technically), biking is inaccessible as a regular form of transportation for most people in most parts of the United States. Which is very unfortunate, because biking is awesome.

  • miss_quiz_mis@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    In places with good bike infrastructure like amsterdam and copenhagen, lots of people do! Still too many drive there as well, but winning a war takes many battles

        • knfrmity@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          There’s probably plenty of maintenance to be done if it’s old. Bearings get worn out or at least need to be cleaned and greased. Chains stretch and cassettes wear. Brakes fall out of adjustment and pads wear out. I don’t know about you but I find riding a cared for and silent bike to be such a joy. I honestly can’t fathom how people manage to ride squeaky rattly inefficient bikes everywhere.

    • itchy_lizard
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      1 year ago

      Don’t store it outside and take it to a bike shop for a tune-up once per year.

      Bicycles are machines that need maintenance, like cars. But unlike cars, they’re very cheap to maintain :)

  • naoseiquemsou@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I never managed to learn to ride a bike due to motor issues :(

    But I don’t have a car either, so it doesn’t matter anyway :D

  • Scribbd@feddit.nl
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    1 year ago

    Every time I sit on a bike, my jeans tear.

    I kid you not. Hired myself a bike after years of wearing the same jeans, and after just 30 minutes I got a new ventilation hole.

    • Habnab@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      What kind of jeans are you wearing? lol

      I’ve never heard of anyone having this issue and certainly never experienced it myself