'Pretty remarkable': UBC study finds e-bike rebates led to decreased car use
'Pretty remarkable': UBC study finds e-bike rebates led to decreased car use
There's new evidence that offering people incentives to purchase e-bikes can significantly reduce their reliance on cars.
I don't see this mentioned often, but ebikes just feel good to ride. People are hesitant until they try them. Once they try them, it's over. Especially if it's a nice torque-assist ebike they tried.
I prefer my normal bike to my e-bike... Granted, the e-bike is a cheap Decathlon one...
I guess you're right that cheap cadence sensored ebikes might not feel that great, especially to people used to nice pushbikes.
I love any kind of ebike to be honest. I've tried heavy front hub rideshare bikes, and a considerably nicer mid-drive specialized como 2022. They get me from A to B really comfortably and with ease, which is all I really need.
That said, I sadly don't own an ebike myself, my personal bicycle is a dutch-style upright with a 7sp internal hub, and fully enclosed drivetrain.
The infrequent maintenance is a major convenience factor for me, so much so that I want my next bicycle to be belt driven, better so if I can find an electric one 👌
Time to install a front hub. Small geared like the Bafang G311 for lightweight or Grin All-Axle for the same reliability as the rest of your bike. 😁
I run a rear G310 with 11sp drivetrain but to be honest if I knew everything I do now when I designed the build, I'd have left my drivetrain intact and used a front hub instead. It's way easier to do, fewer compromises and it could even end up lighter.
Yeah, compared to my regular bike, my ebike rides like shit. I wish I'd bought a more traditional bicycle-like ebike rather than my cheap folding Chinesium bike shaped object.
Some BSOs shittiness can't be overcome by any number of watts.
A nice bike with a small front hub (1.8kg), torque sensor and a small battery (2kg) can feel amazing. It adds very little weight so the handling doesn't change much but you get superpower that feels like it's connected to your legs.
I once had to use a share ebike to grt somewhere. It was just over, bought one the day after now I use it for everything. Even riding it for 2hours a day is still so much fun.
The south side of Vancouver where a lot of UBC students live is on a bit of a slope. Regular biking would take a lot of energy out of people who just want to get around, not for the exercise.
An e-bike really takes the dread of the hills away which is really nice. Couple that with Vancouver's bike infrastructure that's not perfect but well above par, it's no surprise that car usage goes down significantly with bicycle and ebike rebates.
As an e bike rider a growing problem is a lack of repair ships. In my town there are 2 shops . Each only works on the ones they sold. There is no other place for everybody else
It's s tough problem since a large part of the market is internet sales from random brands that are using non standard parts in many cases. Quality is sus, electronics are not UL listed, they are largely viewed as disposable , etc. Also separately I think many local bike shops have been bought by manufacturers and only service their stuff. These ebike brands need to get serious about standardizing component and building relationships with bike shops, but that costs money.
This is why if ANY government is serious about reaching climate targets, achieving "vision zero" goals, or improving the quality of life of their people, they should be highly subsidizing the industry and also offering rebates to anyone (including businesses) who wants an e-bike.
Even just nixing one road expansion project could likely pay for tens of thousands of e-bikes in a region.
Not just that, but it also puts significantly less wear and tear on the road vs cars. So you can save money there by getting more people to bike.
Do we really need every road to be dedicated to cars anyways? It's a lot of repaving. You could dedicate a few roads to bikes, or bikes and buses, and potentially repave way less often. And repaving and repainting isn't cheap. The more you think about it, the weirder it is that we've paved a massive grid of roads so that anyone can drive in a 500x500 foot square. Dedicating some foot traffic, some to bike and bus/rail, and some to cars could help people get away from having to drive everywhere because anything else is too unsafe due to cars.
Not just that, but it also puts significantly less wear and tear on the road vs cars. So you can save money there by getting more people to bike.
Yeah, there was a video or podcast, I forgot from whom, where they talked about costs. They showed that cycling infrastructure actually MAKES cities money, and car infrastructure always loses money.
When you factor in lowered healthcare costs, less infrastructure costs, increased local business and community involvement, more equitable transportation options, and climate - giving everyone an ebike could be one of the best things that any place could possibly do.
I love that modern cities like Paris and Amsterdam and unfucking their transportation system by making fewer car roads available (or making them narrow, rather than expanding them) and putting an emphasis on cycling and other forms of micro and public transportation.
Every city in the world should be following their lead.
Not just that, but it also puts significantly less wear and tear on the road vs cars.
And that translates to lessened pollution from concrete dust. The roads wear down, and when they do, it gets into our lungs. Yet another benefit of switching to bikes.
And that's even before considering the decrease in dust/pollutants from repaving like you mentioned:
You could dedicate a few roads to bikes, or bikes and buses, and potentially repave way less often.
Every time we re-pave, we spew a shit load of concrete dust/pollutants into the air we breathe. The less we do that the better.
Plus less concrete means less CO2
E-bikes are wonderful in that they democratize cycling. You no longer need to be a Cyclist™ to get around town on a bike. You can be in the process of getting in shape, and progressively use less pedal assist while still enjoying functional biking that can enable errand running or a commute.
While I am a Cyclist™ and truly enjoy leg power to get me all over the place, if I were to get an e-bike, it would for sure help with those errands that are 30km+ away. Even shorter errands where I'd prefer to get to my destination in regular clothes would be easy with an e-bike.
For shopping, it makes a lot of sense too. The shop I need is across town. Hauling stuff back on my bike would suck if it wasn't an ebike because there are steep hills, and I'm carrying back like...bulk soap refills and other cleaning products.
It also makes biking a lot more safe when bike lanes end, as you can keep up with cars in "sharrows" until you reach the next painted bike lane or protected bike lane. I know people freak out about ebikes doing 30mph, but when traffic isn't doing 25mph like the sign says, it's nice to be able to keep pace with inattentive cars. Most of the time, I go slower than traditional bikes anyways to save on battery and get a solid workout with a heavy bike. It's like one of those training bikes at the gym, except it goes places and has a battery when you need it!
It's gotten me into the best shape I've ever been in for downhill mountain biking. I ride so much more and push a much heavier ebike daily, makes the mountain bike feel ultra light and responsive on the days when I'm biking for fun. :)
My ebike got me back into regular cycling too so now I can get around town on a regular bike, or even a few cities over.
Oh wow financial incentives work? Who'd've thunk it.
This seems like a no brainer to me, but absolutely. Cuts emissions, saves you tons of money on fuel, makes you healthier. Unless you are hauling something, there's usually no reason you need to drive 4 miles when it can be biked instead.
I rarely drive anyways, but did the math and I'm saving around $800+ in Costco fuel alone. This would be significantly more expensive if I bought gas anywhere else. That's enough to buy a new ebike battery every year and still have savings left over for gas money when you actually do need to drive somewhere without public transit.
The end result is that I'm basically getting an ebike for free in gas savings alone after two years of use, lmao. The vaguely sickening part is that even pedaling around 15 mph, I still manage to arrive at my destination only 10 minutes slower than driving, which is insane. At certain times of the night, even in suboptimal conditions (eg, construction on the bike lanes), I've actually made it home by bike in the same amount of time it takes to drive through dozens of traffic lights, traffic, stop signs, etc. And charging my bike costs pennies.
I assume in large cities? In the burbs, people riding bikes for fun.. not for transportation.
I live in burbs and use cycle for transit. collar burb though and our public trans is good to.
Interesting.. in the midwest, the burbs would be difficult to cycle for transportation. Stores for example aren't as crammed as it is in the cities like Chicago, Detroit, and NYC. However in some parts of the burbs there's plazas right as you leave the neighborhood.
I personally couldn't use cycling (including motorcycle) as a transportation for just about 99% of the things I do outside of my neighborhood.
There are absolutely people who live in the suburbs and still use some form of micromobility as regular transport. I live in a suburb and commute by bicycle or ebike almost every day unless the weather is really bad or I have to haul something very heavy/big.
Read the article. 😊 I mean, it's even in the one sentence summary.
I live in the suburbs. Luckily, my city has a somewhat good trail network that can take me 10-15 miles to downtown and I only have to cross a handful of roads at grade. There are places I can't easily get to with a bike, but the number of places I can get to is much larger than I had thought. A lot of these paths and routes weren't known to me because they run along creeks and drainages where I can't see them easily from the road.
On a recent weekday during evening rush hour, I found myself speeding down the freeway at a whopping 5mph wishing I had ridden my bike.
To be fair, there are a lot of places in the suburbs that aren't bikeable at all, but I think people would be surprised.
Skill issue. The only reason people there are like that is because the suburbs were designed wrong.
I live in rural suburbia and after buying an ebike I almost never drive. That'll change when winter comes. For now, everything I do often that doesn't require taking the kids with me, I take the bike. Liquor store, cafe, corner store, park, pleasure ride, picking up a burger or sandwich but not a pizza, exploring, all better on a bike. Better fitness, more enjoyment, and cheaper.
Seems to be specific to Saanich, BC. It's about 2k pop/mi2, which is like medium density suburb (single family zoning with small yards).