Debate on 15 minute cities on Radio 4 now.

[Bmblbzzz]

*curtailed bike travel to the tune of a 1500% drop in cycling modal share since 1949 and a four fold drop in in cycling miles (pop adjusted) since then.

I'm trying to get my head around the arithmetic of >100% drop in share. Can you explain it please?

1949 29% modal share to 2% modal share
1949 14.7Billion miles cycled with the then population of 48.8Million to approx 4bn cycling miles with current 68 million.
Not seeing how that's so difficult to get your head around tbh?

That's not a 1500% drop. 2 is 6.8% of 29, so it's an 93.2% drop. It's impossible to have a drop of over 100%, cos 100% is the total. If no one at all was cycling it would be 100% drop in modal share. Any larger drop means you've invented some sort of 'negative cycling'.

But never mind the mathematics. We probably all agree that governments since at least the 1950s have pushed more and more motoring and ever greater facilities for drivers, to the detriment of cycling, walking, public transport and (IMO) society in general.

What I'd like to know about is:

And when you have the country set up for motoring (US is even worse of course) by having shops miles away, primar schools shut down and spread far and wide, build housing estates with nothing but a Tesco/Sains 'convenience' store and no dentists/GP etc then this means people are tied to their cars and will pay more to use it because riding a bike is simply not a viable option for the vast majority (whether you see/accept it different or not). Pollution and 15 minute cities are a part of the smoke and mirrors to bigger agendas.

What do you mean by "bigger agendas"? What are these agendas? Whose agendas are they and how are they being carried out?

[SwiftyDoesIt]

I'm trying to get my head around the arithmetic of >100% drop in share. Can you explain it please?

1949 29% modal share to 2% modal share
1949 14.7Billion miles cycled with the then population of 48.8Million to approx 4bn cycling miles with current 68 million.
Not seeing how that's so difficult to get your head around tbh?

That's not a 1500% drop. 2 is 6.8% of 29, so it's an 93.2% drop. It's impossible to have a drop of over 100%, cos 100% is the total. If no one at all was cycling it would be 100% drop in modal share. Any larger drop means you've invented some sort of 'negative cycling'.

But never mind the mathematics. We probably all agree that governments since at least the 1950s have pushed more and more motoring and ever greater facilities for drivers, to the detriment of cycling, walking, public transport and (IMO) society in general.

What I'd like to know about is:

And when you have the country set up for motoring (US is even worse of course) by having shops miles away, primar schools shut down and spread far and wide, build housing estates with nothing but a Tesco/Sains 'convenience' store and no dentists/GP etc then this means people are tied to their cars and will pay more to use it because riding a bike is simply not a viable option for the vast majority (whether you see/accept it different or not). Pollution and 15 minute cities are a part of the smoke and mirrors to bigger agendas.

What do you mean by "bigger agendas"? What are these agendas? Whose agendas are they and how are they being carried out?

I added a 1 by mistake, so it was a 500% or five fold drop. yes you can have a drop of more than 100%, it depends on which way you're looking at it.
your math is shown from a different perspective.
Either way, 15min cities isn't for the benefit of people riding bikes, nor will it increase riding bikes by any significant number, it's less easy to extract resources and control the plebs when the are on bikes.

[mattheus]

What your teacher never told you; maths is just a matter of perspective.

[Jdsk]

"California Forever":
https://californiaforever.com
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... n-planning

Jonathan

[Jdsk]

"Why Japanese cities are such nice places to live":
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/why-japan ... -such-nice

Jonathan

[Jdsk]

"Why has the ‘15-minute city’ taken off in Paris but become a controversial idea in the UK?":
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2024 ... los-moreno

Jonathan