What advice would you give to a US mayor who wants to promote e-bike use?
I’d answer that e-bike adoption isn’t the right goal; increasing biking overall should be the goal. Quality infrastructure, connected networks and vehicle speed management are all things that enable people to feel more comfortable biking
I’d beg to differ on some of this. Protected Bike lanes are absolutely important. But you could not convince me to bike up miles of steep hills to see family, buy goods, or go to the beach on a normal bike. 14 miles of steep hills in both directions? Fuck that. Especially not multiple trips per week. Only an ebike makes it worth it. I have friends who love to bike but then describe city rides on road bikes with phrases like “that was the worst 30 minutes of my life” and “I almost didn’t make it home.”
Ebikes take all that away. So that you can ditch your car for most stuff, and then be even more fit for downhill mountain biking on the weekends because you are still ebiking everywhere during the week.
You absolutely need protected bike lanes. But ebikes are the key to having normal people think that 45-mile rides are easy and that driving is unnecessary within a decent chunk of city limits.
Amen!
Isn’t that exactly what he says? Promote bike usage and people will buy E-bikes when they need it?
I swear just last year I was hearing about how Europeans didn’t like ebikes, glad to hear I was wrong.
The convenience of an ebike is honestly unbelievable. Steep hills become minor inconveniences and longer trips lose their sting. I live in a fairly bikable city and I really hope ebikes have some sort of explosion in the next few years. They are already pretty common but I think a lot of people would ditch public transportation/driving if they realized how convenient and fun ebikes are, especially in the summer months.
I’ve seen the utility of an ebike in my hilly sprawling US suburbia. I can only imagine those benefits would be 10x greater in an area with better urban design. I imagine this would open up huge swaths of land to non drivers when combined with good trains and possibly flatter terrain. Too bad euro ebikes are extremely speed regulated. :-(
If you want motorbike speeds, get a motorbike with motorbike suspension and brakes etc and appropriate equipment. And ride on routes appropriate to those speeds.
Really, nobody needs to be going faster than 28mph downtown, anyways. The only vehicles that should be going that fast or faster downtown are BRTs, trams, and light+ heavy rail. 18-20 mph is what we should be aiming for for cars, just like we do for active school zones and construction zones. Speed humps and narrow roads to force cars to slow down. That minimizes pedestrian deaths and injuries, and pushes people towards public transit and biking/ebiking.
Agreed, and mode segregated networks so car traffic occurs on a few primary circulators while other streets receive mostly last mile traffic.
