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grumble11 t1_j642ht2 wrote

Amsterdam (and the bulk of the Netherlands) is almost perfectly flat, so biking is easy, the cities and towns are older, so densely built which makes biking convenient, and the weather is milder, without extended periods of heavy snowfall. Does rain and does get cold, but people in Copenhagen are crazy like that and will bike through it.

For this to happen elsewhere like in NA you need an urban redesign to cram a lot of people into much smaller spaces. Which I’m somewhat game for

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komt20 t1_j64gspp wrote

I love the seamless transition from Amsterdam to Copenhagen (the capital of Denmark)

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grumble11 t1_j64gxf7 wrote

both cities are known for biking but only one is known for bad biking weather!

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azimir t1_j64i222 wrote

> Amsterdam (and the bulk of the Netherlands) is almost perfectly flat, so biking is easy

Definitely a win for biking there.

> cities and towns are older, so densely built which makes biking convenient

So why don't we build our cities more densely? Often because we've put laws in the US to block it, but those should be changed:
https://youtu.be/bnKIVX968PQ

> and the weather is milder, without extended periods of heavy snowfall.

True, but Finland still manages to ride bikes all year in many places:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU

> Does rain and does get cold, but people in Copenhagen are crazy like that and will bike through it

More often because the bike infrastructure is cleared and is built for bikes (not cars where there's a snowplow'd pile of snow in a bike gutter).

>For this to happen elsewhere like in NA you need an urban redesign to cram a lot of people into much smaller spaces.

Yes. Our cities have a much too large footprint to be sustainable. They're essentially all insolvent and they shall all eventually have to shrink their square miles by abandoning the sprawl. The economics of our post WWII city designs just don't work once you start having to do maintenance on the car infrastructure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_SXXTBypIg&list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6OGLN69ehUTVa

The Strong Towns book lays it out reasonably clearly. We're going to have to shrink our car infrastructure, build denser cities, and construct serious public transportation to serve the core, not stroad-based big box stores and low density suburbs.

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AftyOfTheUK t1_j64p3gm wrote

>We're going to have to shrink our car infrastructure, build denser cities, and construct serious public transportation to serve the core, not stroad-based big box stores and low density suburbs.

I would have agreed with you a few decades ago, but with the advent of all-electric self driving cars, many of the negatives associated with high levels of driving will not be of concern anymore. Being driven is more relaxing, less susceptible to whether, more productive (you can take calls, work or read while on the move) and more private.

America's poor choices for the latter part of last century and the early part of this century are about to be partially undone. There will still be heat islands and lack of biodiversity because of the larger amounts of concrete, but over time that can be reduced as cars don't need to park (like a taxi, they just move to the next job) and fewer lanes will be needed (because the cars themselves can safely travel more quickly, and in more dense road-trains)

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superstrijder16 t1_j66j8n4 wrote

The main costs in his link are from building lots of asphalt and longer eg. Sewer lines because of the extra space use, not the actual cars

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alc4pwned t1_j64j4lx wrote

> For this to happen elsewhere like in NA you need an urban redesign to cram a lot of people into much smaller spaces. Which I’m somewhat game for

I think the vast majority don't want to give up their personal space.

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DeTrotseTuinkabouter t1_j6871iu wrote

Our new towns, cities and neighborhoods also have great biking infrastructure. So nothing to do with being old.

As for happening elsewhere: it doesn't have to happen everywhere. But there are tons of places in the world that are perfectly suitable for biking and have very lacking infrastructure. Heck: even if it is just for the months without snow.

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