[CalRobert]

Yes, actually. All of those things can be transported by cargo bike.

There is a place for automobiles, and vans, in cities (ambulances come to mind) - just like there is a place for helicopters, but what we have now is a gross distortion that came as a result of more or less legalizing killing people with your car (as long as it was an accident) and giving people ample free asphalt and parking.

[IshKebab]

A sofa can't be transported by bike. Especially not up hills, don't be an idiot.

A better solution would be to restrict traffic to commercial vehicles and only at certain times.

[IkmoIkmo]

Haha I've done it, the Dutch are a bit crazy but yeah... we transport furniture on what essentially is a (frontloaded) trailer-bike.

That having been said, I think it's a silly solution to expect bicycles to take over logistics. I think we can all agree however that if the only vehicles on the roads were for logistics and public benefit (e.g. ambulance) that'd be a massive improvement already.

[CalRobert]

They already have in some of the most appropriate circumstances. Article is 2017 but these are still up and running.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/container...

[CalRobert]

It will please you to know that gears are fitted as standard on many bicycles.

Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_advantage

Honestly trying to convince people that a full life can be lived with a bicycle feels a lot like the problem of the cave.

There's a whole world outside the parking lots, but too many people have never even seen it; just pictures of it on travel blogs about Amsterdam, and don't really think it's real.

Edit:

In addition to gears, batteries and motors are a thing.

[TomMarius]

What do you mean, free asphalt and parking? I'm paying huge taxes and this stuff is built from taxes.

Edit: To the people downvoting: We're talking about Europe. The US apparently works differently, but that's not how it's in the EU.

[CalRobert]

Speak for yourself. I'm referring to both, having spent most of my life in California and half a decade in Europe (ish - Ireland is peripheral in more than one sense).

There are some differences wrt property taxes, etc. but for the most part, roads are an all you can drive buffet, if you're in a car that is, so of course people use them without regard to cost. My taxes pay for roads but I only get a sliver of them as a bike lane on some of the thoroughfares in the city. Even the motorway tolls are laughably low; a few Euro at most barring one tunnel.

As always you can find exceptions. French motorways begin to cost enough to matter. Demand-priced parking and Express lanes in California have brought something resembling sanity to space allocation where it was obviously desperately needed. But for the most part my point stands.

[adrianN]

You don't pay enough taxes to cover the cost of land in a big city. See for example this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/business/economy/15view.ht...

[majewsky]

Grandparent probably doesn't mean "free", but "sunk cost".

[CalRobert]

I mean free at point of delivery. People using them don't necessarily pay for them (if I drive from SF to San Diego, I pay nothing to LA for the use of their roads, which doesn't really seem fair, though admittedly most of that drive would be on Interstate) I'd have no problem with tolled roads. Funny enough I would _love_ tolled bike paths - I'd pay several grand a year for them willingly - if I could even get them.

But I can't because we give roads to cars for free and that can't be questioned.

For that matter I'd love to lease some of the park and ride spots near transit so I could build an apartment on them (they're nearly free) but apparently I'm not allowed to do that. I can't even use them to park a mobile home permanently. How is that fair?

[inetknght]

I disagree with the concept of toll roads, at least insomuch as they're effectively double-taxing us: we pay taxes for roads already. Now you want me to pay again to use the road?

But really, if roads were not free in the first place, toll roads would basically stop being a thing and the roads themselves would become the toll.

[Tyrek]

It's a double tax because you're not paying enough for the road in the first place. I understand that there's this huge resistance to paying tolls for roads, but there's a valid reason for them for a variety of policy reasons (decongestion of city centers, insufficient funding to build out the road without private participation/tolls) that make it a valid tool for governments to lean on. In fact, the tolls allow for a more focused alignment of price vs usage (insofar as non-users of the toll road aren't tolled), which is a reasonable approach to take as a mixed pricing (taxes + tolls) model.

[CalRobert]

I think most roads should be paid for by tolls and taxes reduced accordingly. This is because roads tend to have a huge number of negative externalities.

In some cases the very act of having to pay increases the utility of the road to the user - see congestion charging. This ensures people who gain the most economic benefit from using the road are the ones using this precious resource.

Of course, your point could be applied to any government-provided service where there is a fee. The tram receives public funding but I still have to buy a ticket, after all.