We are trying to add more bike lanes to city centers in places in Canada at the cost of existing car lanes.

I use to bike everywhere as a young teen in my rural area but once I had access to a car those days were left behind me.

The issue is many people commute daily in from the suburbs over a hour away (up to 120kms or like up to the distance of Hanko to Helsinki) by highway, other roads, and biking these long distances isn’t as feasible for those that live outside the city cores which so many do. In the East many drive up to 2 hours each way due to traffic conditions.

It’s a huge challenge to rework the suburbian sprawl to the affordable housing in the outlying areas.

In North America we don’t think anything of driving 4 hours for a road trip on a weekend. I think that could mean going through a few countries in Europe and often we haven’t even left a state or province after 8 hours of driving.

In the west the transit system has vast distances its trying to cover for a lot less people than in the east. It’s overloaded often and there’s not enough of it in many places. It’s a tricky issue with not enough population condensed into a smaller area.

The suggestion of 15 minute cities is viewed as evil oversight by government by some of the car culture people in the rural areas. While it would make more sense to have people living closer to their higher paying jobs many just can’t get use to this type of thinking outside of the city cores which many left decades ago for the promise of safety in suburbia.

During covid it was proven working from home is a pretty good option for many so that is a partial solution, however many companies have called these workers back to the offices and the congestion has returned.

Then there is the issue of the homeless in many of the city cores and the rampant bike theft.

For me I do wonder coming from a wet most of the time in winter Vancouver how those that commute by bike in the rain stay dry?

Yes we never really know what someone else is up to. Often they can be straight up A-holes, but there are those in emergency situations.

When driving especially my truck and camper many were confused why I pulled over so often to let vehicles by on 2 lane roads. I slowed down in passing sections to manage traffic behind me safely to pass. They were expecting people to hold them up as it is everyone else for themselves especially when passing lanes come and the slow pokes only speed up for those. The worst are those that ride in the passing lane without moving over and get into the I’m going to show them and block them in.

I loved driving down in the states with several lanes to the highway with lanes for every speed. I could pick a lane and not hold up people that wanted to go faster than the 80 miles/hr in Texas. 80 m/hr is pretty fast for a loaded truck and camper so I was relieved I didn’t need to hold up people in these situations especially people like me in my Volvo 850 T5 that have places to go!

Just go around… Tailgaters are trash, if anyone is creating a dangerous situation by following that close, i couldn’t care if their entire family is in the ER. Putting other people in danger is not okay.

If you had done IT, you wouldn’t be needing the intro book