If it’s cheaper to live in the middle of nowhere, with water and electricity and internet needing to be piped all that way out there, and the gas bills, and the road wear, then the government has failed. High and medium density housing costs the government less in maintenance, stimulates the economy, and is cheaper to build. Any functioning economy would price those homes cheaper. If you’re saving 300,000 by costing the government all that extra money and polluting the environment, someone fucked up on a colossal scale.
“But they’re so expensive, I’m not paying that much for a bike! I’d rather pay 10 times as much for cheap car that’ll sell all my text messages to data scraping companies.”
Sure, but that doesn’t allow me to bring home a family worth of groceries, or let me drive 4-5 hours away to see family for the holidays, or give me a way to drop my partner off at the airport with three suitcases for work conferences, or a way to get my 110lb dog to the vet.
The bike is not a replacement for a car, not even if it’s an expensive e-bike.
If those are your use cases, then you would probably want to get a Dutch bike (>5k); specifically for a big doggo, groceries and suitcases. Unfortunately there are no North American companies currently making cargo bikes as good at replacing cars as the Dutch ones. Though most people do perfectly fine with North American versions, even with children (but not big doggos lol).
The only good reason to drive a car in the situations you listed is driving it to another city, which would very likely not be feasible with an e-bike. Unless that trip is taken up every weekend, the best (and cheapest) way to accomplish that would be to rent a car.
A good e-bike is certainly a good replacement, unless you focus on certain situations like driving 4-5 hours out of town. Everything else it can do just as well and even make it easier and less stressful.
My job is 18 mountainy miles away, and when I show up drenched in bicycle sweat everyone in the office says I smell bad
That’s the downside bike enthusiasts like to gloss over about - and in summer it doesn’t even have to be mountainous.
You can get an E-Bike or other personal electric vehicle if you want. Eco-friendly, inexpensive, fun, and won’t leave you drenched in sweat.
People shouldn’t live that far away from their workplaces. They didn’t used to, before we invented shitboxes.
I would love to live 5 minutes away from my workplace
But I saved about $300,000 on my mortgage when I bought a more rural house that isn’t near the city/my office building
Sold your own future lol.
How so, I have a place to live now
If it’s cheaper to live in the middle of nowhere, with water and electricity and internet needing to be piped all that way out there, and the gas bills, and the road wear, then the government has failed. High and medium density housing costs the government less in maintenance, stimulates the economy, and is cheaper to build. Any functioning economy would price those homes cheaper. If you’re saving 300,000 by costing the government all that extra money and polluting the environment, someone fucked up on a colossal scale.
Welcome to every modern country, but especially North America.
Spoilet alert: someone fucked up on a colossal scale.
You could get a decent e-bike?
“But they’re so expensive, I’m not paying that much for a bike! I’d rather pay 10 times as much for cheap car that’ll sell all my text messages to data scraping companies.”
Bro my car cost $4k, has no radio and manual windows, if this 20 year old civic and sell my data, it’s earned it
Even more reason to get an e-bike lol. Too late I guess since you already decided to pay 4000 dollars for a shitty car. :p
4k for a top of the line e-bike.
3k for a decent e-bike.
Or 5k for the best e-bike in the world.
None of these have radios either. And you don’t have to work up a sweat by rolling down the windows because there’s no windows!
Sure, but that doesn’t allow me to bring home a family worth of groceries, or let me drive 4-5 hours away to see family for the holidays, or give me a way to drop my partner off at the airport with three suitcases for work conferences, or a way to get my 110lb dog to the vet.
The bike is not a replacement for a car, not even if it’s an expensive e-bike.
If those are your use cases, then you would probably want to get a Dutch bike (>5k); specifically for a big doggo, groceries and suitcases. Unfortunately there are no North American companies currently making cargo bikes as good at replacing cars as the Dutch ones. Though most people do perfectly fine with North American versions, even with children (but not big doggos lol).
The only good reason to drive a car in the situations you listed is driving it to another city, which would very likely not be feasible with an e-bike. Unless that trip is taken up every weekend, the best (and cheapest) way to accomplish that would be to rent a car.
A good e-bike is certainly a good replacement, unless you focus on certain situations like driving 4-5 hours out of town. Everything else it can do just as well and even make it easier and less stressful.