[hawkinspeter]

From: https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/bikes-not-self-driving-cars-are-the-technological-gateway-to-progress

[quote]It took a whole lot of noise from activists and campaigners for bicycles to be taken seriously at last year’s COP26 summit in Glasgow, and for active travel to be added to the declaration on accelerating the decarbonisation of road transport.

Beyond the serious lobbying from automotive industries, there seems to be a psychological block that prevents the bicycle from being accepted as a central technology when imagining the future of cities.[/quote]

Topic

[ktache]

I believe it was in Singapore

I believe it was in Singapore, but I may be very wrong. But there was an emoped hire system, personal vehicle, and when needing a charge you go to a charging hub remove the flattish battery and shove in a fully charged one. Allowed for living in high rise apartments.

[hawkinspeter]

ktache wrote:

ktache wrote:

And won’t they have to park to charge somewhere?

That’s another problem with using a big and heavy vehicle. Smaller e-scooters/e-bikes can use much smaller battery packs that can be swapped out with fully charged ones. That means that a much smaller space is required as only the battery needs to be taken to a charging location.

[ktache]

I love your optimism on this

I love your optimism on this one Rich, but at the moment the concept of very few having a personal vehicle seems more like a hope. Very untested, and seemingly to add to the positives column when lobbying for legal go ahead for testing of autonomous vehicles.

And won’t they have to park to charge somewhere?

 

[hawkinspeter]

Fully autonomous cars seem to

Fully autonomous cars seem to be a lot more difficult to achieve than previously thought, so I’d consider that increased enforcement is the way to remove the worst drivers. The alternative is to build decent separated infrastructure, but that costs money and the UK seems to be allergic to designing for cyclists’ requirements, so I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that.

The big problem with autonomous cars is the form factor – why use a big and heavy metal cage when two wheels are clearly better for higher density transit. Of course, people would still want a car shape for travelling in numbers too big for bikes and too small for buses, but that should be a minority of journeys.

[Rich_cb]

I see self driving cars as an
I see self driving cars as an ‘enabling technology’ that will allow cycling to flourish more quickly than it would in their absence.

If we could eliminate all illegal driving behaviour our roads would be infinitely more pleasant to cycle on and more people would do so.

Eliminating huge numbers of cars and their associated parking spaces would also free up enormous amounts of urban real estate for high quality segregated infrastructure.

If roads became much safer and the amount of segregated infrastructure increased significantly then fewer people would find themselves dependent on their cars and fewer people would opt to own one.

Not owning a car would become entirely normal and non car owners would be an increasingly important political bloc. Politicians would seek to court said bloc and funding and infrastructure would continue to improve accordingly creating an increasingly virtuous circle.

[Author]

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