So the thing for me isn’t the temperature nor the depth of the snow. It’s sharing space with cars and contending with the very real possibility of falling and getting my head crushed like a grape.

I quite liked using my fat bike in the park through the snow. But on a road with cars on ice? There’s a reason I sold it.

Also, I would literally sweat going downhill on that thing.

Cars perform even worse in snow.

That’s not a sad thing as that never happened, it’s a huge positive as we got the opposite.

the freedom to be stuck in traffic because everyone else got a car too

Cars are faster, cover long distances which are just infeasible for bikes, are more comfortable, can be used in bad weather, and are needed for people with disabilities.

In many cases the long distances were created by cars. Cities worked fine before cars. But cars demand so much space that cities became spread out.

A solution to this problem is to repopulate city centers around the country by replacing parking lots with mixed use buildings.

This comment made me sad, because it’s a reminder of just how bad a shithole most of the United States is: You need a car to go 300 miles at a whim because transit is bad or non-existent, and driving sucks. I know people who refuse to do that distance in one day. You need a car to go longer distances to bars, stores, restaurants, because racism zoning makes everything far away and a pain and a half to access.

You need a secluded, personal space to eat lunch or take a quick nap because the U.S. hates homeless people so much that there’s nowhere to do either of those things in public, and you’ll get abused by the police if you try. A car is a less-than-ideal spot to do either of those things comfortably; a picnic table or a park shelter would be better.

The best protection from threats is crowds, the “eyes on the street” principle. In fact, a lot of assaults happen in parking lots because there’s nobody around to intervene. But Americans are scared shitless of each other for no reason, and our society is collapsing because of it.

Oh, also, a car isn’t even a good place to eat or nap if you’re poor. The cops will hassle you to no end if you look like you don’t belong. (Hence, the prevalence of setting up a van for stealth camping.) It’s not a source of empowerment, if you’re poor. I would never have dreamed of jumping in my car and driving 300 miles on a whim when I worked retail. If the car broke down, or got damaged, I would’ve been supremely fucked, unable to pay to repair it, and without access to any alternative transportation.

But, frankly, I think that’s the point: Car dependency is supposed to hurt poor people, by physically excluding them, and providing a social marker of affluence so the not-quite-so-poor can feel good about themselves. (Why else bro dozers?)

Yeah, the main advantage of cars is that they do a lot of things (kinda badly.) We need to do a lot of work to replace cars, and that work definitely doesn’t start with ignoring why cars are so prevalent. We need to empower people through other avenues a lot before most people will switch over.

Merely owning a car has cost me an average of $2000 a year. Insurance, tires, oil and other maintenance costs brings that up to $3000. Just to own the car, that doesn’t include gas to actually use it

My daily rider set me back 75€. A second hand omafiets, very well built by a local company, aluminum frame, a super comfy seat, hub dynamo, a rear wheel lock built into the frame + a fairly good chain, fresh-ish tires, a spacious basket at the front and an attachment point for another basket at the back. Perfect city bike. And it was such in great shape that all I had to do was make some adjustments to its shifter and that was basically all the maintenance it required for a good while.

Obviously I count myself EXTREMELY lucky for having stumbled upon this listing at my local second hand marketplace, but my point stands. There are a ton of very reasonably priced second hand bikes that are perfect for daily use as primary transports.