[jodrellblank]

"Accept a bad solution because otherwise I'll threaten your children with a worse one" might be a convincing argument, but it's not a good argument.

Designing things around bikes, and then everyone needs a bike, is a worse option than designing everything around humans (instead of some kind of vehicle).

[dahart]

Neither of those sentences is living in reality. Nobody's threatening children with a worse solution, we already have the worse solution, our children are already inhaling the pollution. You can choose to keep it or choose to lessen the pollution. As far as pollution goes, there's little difference between bikes and whatever alternative you're proposing (walking?). Walking doesn't pollute, bikes don't pollute, cars do pollute heavily. Bikes aren't a bad solution to pollution, they are a perfectly good solution. One of many.

> Designing things around bikes, and then everyone needs a bike, is a worse option than designing everything around humans (instead of some kind of vehicle).

I'd fully agree we should design things around humans, but where are people designing cities primarily around bikes? And what, exactly, are the problems we actually have with bikes? Not the fear-mongering made-up FUD, but real problems that exist already. Bike parking space is not an actual problem today. What is?

What does it mean - exactly - to design around humans? You could argue the problems we have are because we designed around human convenience already, and allowed our walking space to be paved and prioritized for cars.

Your arguments are vassellating between comparing to cars and then not comparing to cars. What's the goal post here? Are you demanding something perfect, or do you want to improve considerably over the crappy position we're in with cars? Is removing all vehicles entirely a realistic goal? Is redesigning all the largest cities on earth, and getting everyone to work within a mile of where they live realistic? Why are you trying so hard to lump non-motorized vehicles together with motorized vehicles? There is a large difference between having a gas-consuming engine and not having one, don't you agree?

[jodrellblank]

> bikes don't pollute,

The making of bikes, and the concrete for them to ride on, involves pollution and externalised costs. Bike tyre dust pollutes, abandoned rusting decomposing bikes pollute. Less than cars, no question. "they don't" - not true.

> And what, exactly, are the problems we actually have with bikes? Not the fear-mongering made-up FUD, but real problems that exist already.

They aren't good enough to replace cars. They aren't a good improvement over not needing to own transport. They aren't a good improvement over walking in most dimensions, and the ones they are are dimensions that would be better eliminated than papered over with bikes.

> What does it mean - exactly - to design around humans?

Design around what the human body can do (mostly) unaided. Glasses bring your eyesight back up to human norms, we don't design imformational screens so everyone needs magnifying lenses to be able to read them. Hearing aids bring your hearing back to human norms, we don't make important announcements quietly enough that everyone needs a hearing aid to be able to partake in society. Walking sticks aid balance for the disabled, we don't make waterbed rolling walkways so everyone needs an extra third point of stability to avoid falling over. If it's too far to comfortably walk every day, it's too far. If that can't be helped, mass transit. Personal transport should be a thing people don't need, but the 2% of people who ride bikes today can be the 2% who ride bikes tomorrow if they want.

> Is removing all vehicles entirely a realistic goal? Is redesigning all the largest cities on earth, and getting everyone to work within a mile of where they live realistic?

Is preventing catastrophic global climate change realistic? Is ignoring mass transit so you can strawman that everone needs to work within a mile of their home instead of everyone having work or train station within a mile of their home, reasonable?

> Why are you trying so hard to lump non-motorized vehicles together with motorized vehicles?

Because that's where they belong. The only way bikes are going to become as popular as they need to be to satisfy the pro-bike agenda is when they become motorized. They will approach "electric cars" closer and closer.

> where are people designing cities primarily around bikes?

Good question. If bikes are so great and the answer to pollution and the future, where are people designing cities primarily around bikes? Nowhere? It's old places designed around walking, and new places designed around driving, and occasional neighbourhoods redesigned around walking. Bikes are incidental in both approaches, like nobody is redesigning cities around skateboards, unicycles, Segways, hoverboards, Kangaroo boots, rollerskates, rollerblades, monowheels, pogo sticks, velocipedes, stilts, or spacewalkers. Bikes belong in the category of those things. Fine where they are, not a thing to promote for daily commuting and mass transit of world populations.