[wozniacki]

Whether we like it or not some facts:

a) Biking as exists in the U.S. / Canada is a leisure-class demographic activity and not a "bread-and-butter" earning activity. If you did a survey of bicyclists you'd find they are of a certain tax bracket nowhere remotely close to low-income. Study after study shows they skew high income earners / well educated.

b) The average non-wealthy American wants thinks his tax money is going to keeping the road infrastructure in good repair.

c) Outside of well-heeled zip codes we are not going to see bike lane infrastructure be given priority over such more pressing concerns.

d) We could all have great things if we were not warring all the time to get small things passed, much less a luxury ( in the scheme of things ) like bike lane infrastructure.

I'm not even talking about the opposition from businesses here.[1]

[1]

S.F.

Several businesses along Valencia Street have posted signs in their windows that read, “This Bike Lane Is Killing Small Businesses and Our Vibrant Community,” with a QR code for the San Francisco Small Business Coalition. |

https://content.sfstandard.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/in...

San Francisco Valencia Street Bike Lanes Bad for Business?

https://sfstandard.com/2023/12/08/san-francisco-small-busine...

Cambridge, Mass

‘It's a Disaster': Cambridge Store Owners Say Bike Lanes Are Bad for Business

https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/its-a-disaster-cambridg...

[paulgb]

> If you did a survey of bicyclists you'd find they are of a certain tax bracket nowhere remotely close to low-income. Study after study shows they skew high income earners / well educated.

This line of argument reminds me of the red-dots-airplane meme. In places where bad infrastructure makes cycling impractical as anything but a hobby, of course you mostly get lycra-wearing midlife crisis guys who do it as a hobby. In places where the infrastructure is actually good and safe, you get a whole spectrum of people riding.

[graftak]

To add to this; in the Netherlands where I’m from there’s more bikes than people.

Out of all the people I know the only person that does not ride a bike is my middle age father who owns a motorcycle. Even my nearly 90 year old grandma uses a tricycle (for safety) to do her grocery shopping.

[Karrot_Kream]

Hm okay I looked at some facts [1] for the US and biking is fairly uniformly distributed between income brackets. The highest bracket is > $100,000 at 38% but the second highest is < $20,000 at 35%. So I think we're working with different facts here.

[1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1403896/cycling-particip...

[jdietrich]

In cultures where the car is a status symbol, cycling is bimodally distributed by income - people who can't afford a car, and people who very definitely can afford a very nice car. For everyone in the middle, cycling is a status threat unless it's congruent with their identity as e.g. an athlete, an environmentalist or a bohemian.

Successful cycling cultures elevate the status of cycling, but they also denigrate the status of the car; people in these cultures are slightly embarrassed when they drive, because cars are recognised as being somewhat antisocial.

[skulk]

That's people who cycled "once" in the previous year. This discussion so about people who cycle to commute or otherwise regularly and I agree with the vibe that it's only for the rich or otherwise fortunate in the US. I don't have access to that data you linked but the headline suggests that it's more or less irrelevant to this discussion.

[pastage]

Honestly once a year is a good measurement. You want numbers on people who might bicycle. Doing it seldom means there is a chance you will start doing it. My feeling is that bicyclists are one of the most misunderstood groups just because we are so different from each other.

[Karrot_Kream]

Unfortunately I can't agree or argue against vibes so I'm not sure how to properly respond. Do I disagree on vibes?

EDIT: To be a bit more productive about this, I referenced Guerra et al. [1] which shows that cycle commuting seems to be negatively correlated to income in the US and sharply negatively correlated with single vehicle ownership and positively correlated with being male. But this is just commuting and we know that there's more to transportation than just commuting and commuters tend to be more male as a whole anyway.

[1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136192092...

[skulk]

thanks for the link, that article does challenge some of the views I had on cycle commuting and income. Where I live, there is definitely seems to be a positive correlation but reading the "archetypes" from that abstract made me realize that there my city is probably not typical.

[bitbuilder]

People tend to notice the neon clad roadie on an expensive bike taking the lane on a busy thoroughfare.

People don't tend to notice the guy riding his Wal-Mart mountain bike on the sidewalk on his way to work.

And they also don't tend to notice all the sensible, practical, riders who know to take the (relatively) car free residential side streets en route to wherever they need to be.

[the_snooze]

People also don't notice all the single-occupant cars that make up the bulk of road congestion. Drivers should want more people to ride bikes, because each represents approximately one single-occupant car removed from the road.

[watwut]

People tend to see what they want to see. If they want the riders be the rich sports guys, they will notice all the rich sport guys and ignore everyone else.

[ryan_lane]

These things are self-reinforcing because as things stand bikes can't be used for commuting by most people because the infrastructure doesn't exist. Make it easier and safer to bike, and you'll see the demographics shift.

Another part of this problem is affordable housing. People can't live close to where they work. Reduce this problem along with improving biking infrastructure and you'll see an uptick in biking.

"Several businesses along Valencia Street have posted signs in their windows that read[...]"

Sure. Several businesses said the same thing about protected bus lanes, but studies have shown it's increased business for those on the path, because it makes it possible for _more_ customers to actually access their businesses.

Cars are fundamentally worse than public transportation or biking for small businesses as a whole, as they reduce density, and further consolidation, which favors larger businesses and hurts small businesses. The problem is that business owners tend to be drivers and their biases don't line up with reality, which is why you tend to see their personal politics interfere with their business interests.

[wozniacki]

This is one of those things that smacks of HN people thinking the world operates to their whims and fancies.

Go over to Amsterdam and see how little bicycling actually gets done outside of the core that HN loves to throw up as this cycling utopia.

Real people have real world needs. Bicycling meets very few of those. Especially in places that have barely four months of precipitation-free bicycling weather. Please stop thinking the world is like the urban cores of a handful of cities.

[878654Tom]

In the Netherlands around 30% of people cycle to their work. [1]

In Belgium around 32% cycle to their work. [2]

I would think that is a significant amount no?

I cycle to my work every day. It is around 9 KM and takes me around 20 minutes. For rain you have a rain suite, for winter you have a jacket. The amount of times I took the car in rainy Belgium is 4 times in 2023 because of storm conditions.

As more and more people are starting to see the hassle free transportation method of cycling, they also start taking the bike and infrastructure keeps improving.

[1] https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/visualisaties/verkeer-en-vervoer/pe...

[2] https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2024/04/15/ongeveer-32-procent-...

[yareal]

I live in Seattle and have a mid tail cargo bike. I regularly shop at the local nursery, hardware store, or Costco on my bike. My bike configuration can carry about one full but not overflowing shopping cart. Because I don't need to stop at stop signs (wa state law) I make roughly the same time to my destinations within about 5-8 miles. I also never need to worry about parking.

I have a seat that a kid can sit in comfortably for school drop off.

I carry rain pants and a waterproof shell in my cargo pockets on the bike, and my helmet has a magnetically held visor. Once you have a waterproof shell, weather is really not a deterrent until it's physically difficult to move the bike.

So, it's a mode of transport that covers nearly every trip, in nearly every condition, nearly year round.

When I go to the country to visit family, I take my bike. I can navigate just as well, but much slower in rural areas (most people drive faster on rural roads than in urban areas and the distances are longer.)

I'm also (believe it or not) a real person. Bikes absolutely work for real people who live real lives.

[stouset]

> precipitation-free bicycling weather

I cycled daily as a commuter when I lived in Atlanta. You wear a jacket and overpants. It’s just not that big a deal.

Portland is widely known for its cycling culture, and it rains all the time.

[p00dles]

One of the comments in the article says “The times I've visited Munich, the thing that stood out the most was seeing regular-ass working folks in business attire, dresses, whatever, riding every kind of bike you can think of- mostly old, well maintained steel” this has been my experience in various German cities, seeing guys going to work on a construction site riding a bike.

[foco_tubi]

Are you talking about bicycling as it exists in the US / Canada as you previously constrained your post to? or are we now talking about the usefulness of a bicycle globally?

If Amsterdam doesn't do it for you, try Utrecht.

[microtonal]

I live in Groningen, NL and most people I know (of all income brackets) cycle to work if they have a job in or near the city. It’s the default form of transportation in this city (and often much faster than going by car).

woziacki’s income bracket also doesn’t apply here. You can get a decent second-hand bike here for 200-300 Euro (more than an order of magnitude cheaper than a car) and maintenance is much cheaper than a car, plus no vehicle taxes, road insurance, etc.

[mnky9800n]

I love Utrecht. It's a wonderful city to live in and it's what Amsterdam claims to be in the tourist brochure. There are wonderful coffee shops like the village, bicycle shops like repack, microbrewery like de krommerharring, there's a nice collection of restaurants, and I can walk basically everywhere I don't actually need a bike. If you are bored in the weekend you can take a kayak and float around the canals. And when I do ride, it's less than ten minutes before you get out of the city into trails in the forest or roads. And it's only a 60km ride to the beach if that's your sort of thing. Utrecht is a happy place to live.

[athrun]

Maybe you should take a step back, and reconsider whether arguing that people who ride bikes "are not real, or do not have real world needs" makes any sense.

Nothing that you have written is original. These are the usual arguments against micro-mobility. They don't stand scrutiny, and they are actively being disproven across a growing number of locations around the world, small and large.

[mnky9800n]

I'm not sure this is true. It's very common that people cycle in the rain, from towns 15-20+km away, all seasons, in the Netherlands. People further away commonly take the train and take one of the ov fiets for the last bit. I would like to see statistics from the Dutch government before I believe your anecdotes. The bike parking garage at my work in Utrecht seems to be full no matter what is going on outside.

[watwut]

Amsterdam is full if bikers dude. They literally bike in rain over there while smoking cigarettes and carrying shopping bag.

[occz]

Business opposition is completely irrelevant on account of businesses having been proved wrong time after time on the impacts of adding bike lanes/removing parking/etc on their streets. Consistently incorrect.