A little while ago I rode to a coffee shop a mile from my house. It took me 5 minutes to get there. In a car it would have taken 10 minutes, at least, because I would have had to find a parking spot and walk from it to the shop. (That’s bike parking by a McDonald’s in an Eindhoven suburb.)
Along the way there I passed a half-dozen bikes and e-bikes. A cargo bike shared my parking place with me. Like a suburban station wagon, it had plenty of room for passengers and groceries.
This is just one example of E-Transport in action. Millions of trips will be made in just this way today. If you’re 5 miles from your destination, you’re a half hour away by E-Transport, but could be 40 minutes away by car, and that doesn’t count the cost of parking.
Cities that embrace E-Transport are changed. The air in Paris is cleaner than it has been in decades. The air in New York City is cleaner than in its suburbs. Density is no longer a net cost to your lifestyle, but a net benefit.
It does require some adjustment, from the suburbs.
In the suburbs everything is personal. My house, my car, my commute, my kids’ trips. In a city, much is shared. It may be my apartment, and my e-bike, but it’s our coffee shop, our park, our roadway. This costs less, in both time and money. If we can build enough housing, it makes a comfortable lifestyle practical again.
Isolating the Exurbs
Exurbs are becoming the havens of the wealthy. Reporters want this to scare those of us who live in town, implying that cities are only for the poor.
But in Atlanta the urban slums close to downtown, the Old Fourth Ward and even English Avenue, are now being replaced by condos and coffee shops linked by bike paths. Poor people are being shoved out to the suburbs by gentrification. More people are living closer to where they need to work, learn, and be entertained.
This idea is spreading to wealthier suburbs, which are starting to create their own city centers, and bike paths spreading a few miles outward in each direction. Connect those paths and you have alternate routes between suburbs.
The bones are there for a better city. All that’s needed are density and bike paths.
Cars will still exist in this new place. But their use will be more limited. The biggest change will be in finding places for the new vehicles to park.
This is already becoming a problem on college campuses, where scooters and e-bikers with limited income are flooding labs, classroom buildings, and bike parking. But solutions can be found, as they’ve been found in Europe, and bike parking garages are always going to be smaller than their automotive counterparts. They can also be at the center of life, not around the edges.
The urban lives of our grandchildren can be far different from ours thanks to E-Transport. The more people become accustomed to getting around in small, 15 mph electric vehicles – bikes, chairs, scooters – the more they’ll demand the infrastructure to make that comfortable.
When you need to go somewhere far, get a Waymo.
