[danhor]

If you look at other countries with a lot of bike infrastructure, you can see that your point doesn't really hold up to reality. First, reducing road usage so only those who can't use a bike (for whatever reason) helps everyone, since it allows more efficient transportation and encourages a denser city (see the linked post). (this partially handles time, in dense city centers bikes can be often faster already)

Most people can use an electric bike (this checks the energy part) and with electrical cargo bikes can transport a lot without a lot of physical exertion.

And, last but not least, for those who truly can't use anything bike-like the fan-favorite netherlands allows the use Canta, very small microcars, on bike lanes. These are way cheaper than cars and need less skills to drive, so elderly can drive them as well.

Way better than requiring everyone to drive couple tons worth tens of thousands of dollars after absolving an expensive and time consuming course on how to use them without injuring anybody or worse.

PS. I don't know many children that can drive a lot on roads without a bicycle. That's a very weird example. I don't think many people advocate removing sidewalks in favor of bike lanes.

[sempron64]

It’s unfair to consider electric bikes as most bike lanes are explicitly not designed for them. They operate at a higher speed than regular pedal bikes and are more dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists. We may as well suggest that everyone use electric motorbikes and then car lanes will carry much more traffic.

Also, obviously children are not driving cars. But they still use the road as passengers. It is much less common and mostly not possible to have children too large for a baby seat but too young to travel on their own (4-12 years old or so) using a high traffic bike lane.

[eynsham]

> They operate at a higher speed than regular pedal bikes

They can, but don’t have to. Strange would be the market were bicycles only capable of going at 20mph or 0mph were used.

> We may as well suggest that everyone use electric motorbikes and then car lanes will carry much more traffic.

Good idea!

> It is much less common and mostly not possible to have children too large for a baby seat but too young to travel on their own (4-12 years old or so) using a high traffic bike lane.

There are all sorts of ways around this: e.g. https://www.cyclinguk.org/article/how-transport-children-bik.... And they’re not dangerous when everyone’s on a bike (in a cycle lane): see e.g. Dutch road layouts.

[sempron64]

Most parents are not physically capable of operating such a contraption regularly. I would hate my life if I needed to lug my kids in that contraption when I want to take them to the park, doctor, grocery store, or any life activities. In a bike lane with e-bikes and racing bikes overtaking me constantly

Hmm, maybe it would help if I added an electric motor. But my kids are still at risk of injury if I’m hit by irresponsible cyclist, it will be a horrible tangle of metal and limbs. So maybe we should be in some kind of enclosure…

[sudosysgen]

The idea is that in such a city you don't need to lug around your children unlesd they're quite young. Children as young as 8 are fully capable of going to school, park, etc... on their own.

With some physical aptitude you can easily go 25-30km/h on a bog standard Walmart bike. On my unrestricted ebike I never pass 32 on a bike lane (if I'm going faster I just go into a car lane). So an ebike limited at 32 is no more or less dangerous than a normal bike. No need to build a car.

Anyways cyclist on cyclist injuries are much less severe in general than car on car.

[manwe150]

In terms of traffic flow, I notice that there is a big difference in how terrain affects manual vs powered bikes. I am an avid cyclist, so I say this just to point out that humans tend to be power-limited, while machines tend to be speed-limited. I’ve observed, when my friend and I are out together, that we need to keep more space between us if we are on different modes of power, to account for the abrupt changes is our relative speeds when the terrain shifts abruptly.

Is the injury stat a guess or a fact? I wouldn’t have intuitively been willing to hazard a guess either way myself.

[eynsham]

And when everyone adds enclosures i.e. ends up in a car, you’re at much more risk than you were before and have all the harms of car-centric urban planning.

The physical ability of people is historically specific and if people were to generally cycle most would be able to ‘operat[e] such a contraption’.

It is possible to regulate cycle lanes so that people don’t just zoom around irresponsibly. Curiously you don’t seem to consider equivalent risks from cars (can’t drivers act irresponsibly? is it preferable that they have several orders of magnitude more mass with which to injure people?)

[aqme28]

Look at childhood independence (or childhood mobility) in car-centric cities vs bike+transit cities. The argument that children are more mobile in cars does not hold up to any real-world scrutiny.

[imtringued]

I'm an adult and I am dependent on a car. The idea that adults are more mobile in cars doesn't hold up to any real world scrutiny.

Sure, they might reach more destinations in their car but the humans themselves? They can't reach anything, their mobility was reduced to nothing.

[Broken_Hippo]

It’s unfair to consider electric bikes as most bike lanes are explicitly not designed for them.

Where do you get this information? Sure they can go faster, but most folks here are decent about things and they sure help going uphill. It means more people can use the bike lanes - notably, people without the strength to go uphill.

an 8 year old is not too young to travel on their own to limited places. If your bike lanes are actually safe, it is safe for them. And realistically, most places let actual children ride on the sidewalk.

Kids too large for a baby seat can generally sit in a pull-behind wagon.

[bobthepanda]

In several locations in the US electric bikes are speed-limited to 20-25mph (32-40 km/h). There's no reason you couldn't set the speed governor much lower to match human speeds.

At least where I live (Seattle) if I were to take up biking I'd need a electric assist, since the hills are absolutely massive and steep.

[ygra]

At least in Germany most electric bicycles are limited to about 25 km/h, which is about what normal cyclists manage on straight roads, anyway. It's definitely not unreasonably fast.

There's also the category of electric bicycles limited to 40 km/h, which are handled pretty much identical to motor scooters (require insurance, cannot use normal bike lanes, unless specified, etc.).

[detaro]

In the EU electric-assist bikes (which are the ones allowed in bike lanes) are limited at 25 km/h. Sporty normal bike commuters regularly are faster than people on them.

[sudosysgen]

Electric light motorcycles replacing cars would be an absolute benefit to everyone. The biggest issue for those is range (density) and getting killed by a car.

[pharmakom]

Also imagine how much money it would save for people, particularly those for whom car maintenance is a significant % of income!