Yeah exactly. Taking mass transit like trains and planes is mindless and communal and you can pay attention to or ignore what you’re passing. Driving leaves you having to pay a little attention to it, but only a little and you’re in control but not like “I can stop and enjoy the sights or easily duck out for a breather level of in control. And yeah that really gets to the point of it, cars are extremely anti social. You’re left outside the experience of community with them.

And you’re exactly right. It’s low level stress. To do anything or go anywhere and it has a ton of perks but they’re all relative to how many people drive. If society is built around an assumption of cars, bus service is at best decent but inconvenient and restrictive with no sympathy to transit related issues. If you’re one of the few drivers it’s just way faster because the roads let you do it. But for every perk there’s cost and it compounds across all of us until our cities are filled with parking lots and we don’t know our neighbors’ faces

I think off driving like having to navigate an obstacle course and if you mess up once you're financially screwed. driving is such a hassle, and everyone kinda knows it. why do people like to do big ass grocery hauls if it's supposedly so convenient to drive? because it's actually a pain in the ass. the only fun driving is rural/road drip driving and that's a whole other story

Exactly. And even when I tune out on my bike I am moving an easily comprehensible distance at a comprehensible speed under my own power. And for public transport it feels like a feature of the location “this spot takes you to any of these spots” much like “this spot lets you borrow books for a few weeks”. For cars you have to kinda isolate, tune out, and become traffic.

There’s some things that frustrate me about panniers. For instance, let’s say I’m going to visit a friend, and then might do some grocery shopping on the way home. Now I need to bring my panniers, and since they’re valuable alone, I don’t want to leave them on the bike when it’s locked. So I carry them with me to visit my friend, and then have to reattach them coming back. Then, same thing bringing them into the grocery store, or it could turn out I don’t have time that day.

I can certainly appreciate this. There are a few ways around that, depending on your needs.

For example, a front basket (either permanent or detachable) might work in that scenario. A pannier backpack is also another option to consider. More outside the box would be a packable/stuffable backpack, which could fit in your pocket and open to a full size (albeit, thin) backpack. For some basic grocery stuff, it would work.

I like to bring the Arkel Metropolitan if I'm going to be somewhere, and I might need to run some errands afterwards. It's a stylish bag that doubles as a functional pannier. It can expand if needed, but the size is smaller than a messenger bag if left as-is.

The Burley Travoy is yet another option if you need a trailer, but also need to be able to take it with you off the bike (either folded or as a handcart). This has been one of my favorite bike things over the last two months.

I do plan my bike trips so I know what gear to bring, but I've been in situations where I've been over (and under) geared, so I do appreciate that these things happen.

A cargo bike basically seems to keep more options open for a lot of trips, just like the versatility of driving around the city with a 4-person car.

Absolutely, but to me, it's like driving around to visit friends in a large pick-up truck "just in case" you need it to run to the Home Depot for 500lbs of lumber.

If I had a cargo bike, I'd probably only take it around if I knew for certain that I would need the carrying capacity. Pretty much the same as leaving the panniers and bike trailer at home unless I know I'm going to need them.

Electric ones are crazy expensive. Like, "more than a car", expensive.

If you can still find a non-electric version, and you've got the leg strength to move it, they are generally less than < $3000 Canadian. Not terrible, but still way more than a regular bike + extras to add cargo capacity.

The biggest problem I have is that cars are incentivized all the time, especially electric cars. But most places don't have e-bike or cargo bike incentive rebates at all, and the ones that do are frustratingly bad.

If governments were really serious about reducing car dependency; traffic; pedestrian safety; and getting people to move more, then we should try to make it easier (more affordable) to buy these bikes.

Aww ya bby. Now add some cargo buckets 🪣

Edit: they have dem buckets!