I’ve tried getting around through cycling where I am but it’s extremely dangerous here. There is little thought put into the roads and traffic flow, and even less so for cyclists. If I didn’t have to drive to get around I wouldn’t
If towns/cities had decent bike lanes, ppl could actually drive, or decent public transit I’d agree but there are towns in the US you’re signing your life away riding a bike.
We tried here. Everyone went mental about driving. Now I sit back and count how many more pennies I have to afford rent etc.
Even accounting for a 5.5x higher likelihood of a fatal collision on a bike, you still more than make up that life expectancy from exercise.
Here’s an in-depth study from the NIH: https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/full/10.1289/ehp.0901747
The ratio of life years gained to lost was 8.4 for persons < 40 years of age, 8.6 for persons 40–64 years of age, and 10.8 for persons ≥ 65 years of age.
My first job as an intern was in a suburban office park. There wasn’t anything of significance within walking distance and our office didn’t have anything in the way of food/snacks. So a few of us would group up and attempt to cross the street to get to the gas station on occasion. It was a nightmare. Not a far walk at all, but it took forever to wait for traffic. And even when it cleared, you had to be super attentive as people in the burbs aren’t used to people trying to cross the street. I hated it and I’m glad I don’t work there anymore, but I had little say in where I worked at the time.
I’ll accept that the status quo might not support non-car travel. But this doesn’t mean it’s okay. What are people DOING about it? If they’re lobbying for change and pushing politicians, fine. But they’re not, are they? They’re buying pickup trucks
My idiot coworker drives a pickup truck to work. Always complains about gas prices, traffic, and assholes in the street. His truck is his whole personality.
Ask him if he really needs his emotional support truck. When he tells you all the great things trucks can do, ask when the last time he did any of those things was.
big oil
The average American commutes 20.5 miles each way to work 🙃
Why do y’all work so far away?
The distance the average American lives from their workplace has soared from 10 miles in 2019 to 27 miles at the end of 2023, per new data from Gusto.
https://www.axios.com/2024/03/11/remote-work-commute
On the upside it looks like median and mode haven’t gone up too much.
In a word: Zoning
In two indirect but perhaps more comprehensive words: racism and capitalism
White supremacy, labor exploitation, rapid expansion, and extreme wealth inequality have been hallmarks of America’s development.
That manifests physically in the shape of our cities.
Land Value Tax would fix this.
In 2020, many people suddenly got to work from home, and while many have been unnecessarily forced to resume commuting, I’m curious what the numbers look like if you ignore workers who work from home? If I’m not required to be onsite for my job, why would I choose to live near my workplace? I read the linked article, and it kinda alludes to it, but doesn’t explicitly answer my question.
Luckily, I’m dragging that down as I commute 20ft down the hallway to my office.
*American
Here in the UK its 2-6 miles. 🤷♂️ Also beware of outliers that throw data away from the median.
Well yes, but also some areas have made walking or biking nearly impossible. There are places with no sidewalks, places where there’s a giant road sitting between you and your destination with no way for pedestrians to get across it, etc. So yes, there are people who needlessly drive short distances, but often the problem is that an area was built in a way that makes non-driving travel methods hard, dangerous, or impossible
I dont disagree. But this is more aimed at Little Englander types. Hence the bit in there about driving 2 miles. 🤷♂️ It common here for these to be the loudest whingers here.
Yeah, pretty much this. I live two miles from a light rail system that gets me straight to work in 20 minutes, and my job pays for public transit. I can drive two miles and park at the rail station and be there in five minutes, or take a bus that adds 50 minutes. Biking the direct route would put me on a narrow road with trees right up to the lane with cars speeding way over. Biking a safer route would detour me a fair bit.
At my spouse’s last job they would drive just over half a mile to work each day, complain about traffic and all the dents and dings the car was getting over time, and nothing I did could convince them to walk. Blows my mind
Cars make people entitled.
They never even tried the 10 minute walk??
They did a couple times and hated it said the walk hurt their hips, but also they go like hiking and stuff 🤷♀️ Anyway we’re getting a divorce soon
I wouldnt blame anyone for choosing not to walk next to a busy and dangerous road. If they hike then they must not have an issue with the exercise, but likely with the noisy and unpleasant environment. Many areas ive lived in either have no sidewalk or a tiny one right next to 50mph cars.
Ooooooooh I finally got a job that justifies getting an electric bike! (I live rural so that’s a big ask, actually - we don’t have bike infrastructure at all, everything is dispersed, and tons of drunk driving)
It’s part time but a few shifts will cover the pre-spend… I’m in an intentional period of not working because fuck capitalism, and I planned this period to last at least 2 years (if my spend is responsible, that’s my lower boundary), but then climate-change-based storms happened, and now I need to pay for shit that I hadn’t planned for… so I might as well get an ebike to get there and not waste my car on it…
Is it possible to calculate how much cheaper fuel would be had the SUV/Pickup truck craze never caught on and most people were still daily driving mid-sized sedans?
Honestly probably about the same because OPEC.
Yes, easy. (SUV MPG/car MPG) gives you the multiplier for how much more people are paying on every trip
I think they meant who much cheaper fuel would be had the demand not increased thanks to big vehicles
That only works at the individual level. At macroscale, the change in fuel demand could have market-wide impacts.
It’d imagine it’s pretty difficult to estimate since oil is also subject to a supply cartel
Take the number of cars on the market by type.
Find fuel consumption delta between SUV/truck and compact/midsize.
Multiply fuel delta by number of SUV/trucks.
Multiply by average number of miles per year.
That’s the total fuel consumption delta.
Fuel price is trickier since there are supply side concerns as well.
My favourite is the guy with the f350 thats always shiny, empty bed, never tows anything and they complain how awful gas prices are, blame their government and refuse to reflect on their decisions.
We have those too. They used to be m3 owners …now huge SUV style is their norm.
Yeah, but there was this one time i went to ikea to pick up a couch!!! Cant do that with a bike, you pinko commies!
I see three bikes, not a bike. 😌
Skill issue, just be the chad carrying a fridge on a bike.
rides bike on top of fridge, using the wheels to roll the fridge along
Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!
![[meme] I thought a cycling meme would work best here, oddly.](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/f117a2d6-c08d-4bf9-8aaf-f4dfce4534ae.jpeg){kind=link}