car / bus / bicycle

    Comments and faves

    1. ★

      kvitlauk, Yiskaholina, Edmundongo, Dan Georgescu, and 128 other people added this photo to their favorites.

    2. Seaners4real (38 months ago | reply)

      If every person gets his/her own car and bicycle, why doesn't each person get his/her own bus?

      Why can't people sit 4 to a car?

    3. Stephen Rees (38 months ago | reply)

      The graphic is based on average occupancy. Obviously this varies a bit by time of day and city but in Metro Vancouver BC, car occupancy is 1.3.

      Versions of this graphic have appeared all over the world but the message is the same. You can get 60 people on one bus - but if they continue to drive as they do now, there is no street space left.

      Judging by the buildings this looks to be of Dutch origin - and iscertainly not the copyright of N Lloyd!

    4. Natasha Lloyd (38 months ago | reply)

      Correct, this is not my image. It was a submission to a poster remix challenge posted on Aza Raskin's blog: www.azarask.in/blog/post/remix-challenge-car- bus-bike/.

    5. bbourgeois87 (38 months ago | reply)

      Still, this doesn't address the main reason cars are preferred. Bicycles are slow (and run the risk of being crushed by a car or bus) and buses don't give you complete freedom to go where you want - you have to follow the bus route and get off at bus stops. In medium to large cities, it works fine. In the suburbs & country? Nope.

    6. alfredkayser (38 months ago | reply)

      Note, the picture is often said to originate from Munster (Germany) around 2001, but it is way older than that, and coming from The Netherlands:
      "In De recreatieve stad (The Recreative City) published by the Ministry of Culture, Recreation and Social Work of the Netherlands in 1979, very similar photos appear at page 13."
      I remember it using it in a presentation at high school around 1980.

    7. gittenlucky (38 months ago | reply)

      Interesting. I agree with the one person per car coomment, but this is assuming everyone is going to the same place at the same time in the bus, which is usually not the case. Sometimes public transportation just doesn't work. I would like to see the cost / travel time included as well. I know when I am traveling around Boston, MA, it is often cheaper and faster to drive than take public transportation (with 2 or more people). I prefer the bike route when possible, but then again mode of travel alway depends on distance, where you are going, when you need to get there, who else is going, etc.

      Thanks for posting the pic and following up with the source.

    8. momostallion (38 months ago | reply)

      the problem with this picture is that the bike picture is zoomed out some, and the bus picture is zoomed out even further.

      if you do stuff like that, even if you had a point, it discounts your credibility.

    9. Jaron Roberts (38 months ago | reply)

      Another thing that would be a useful bit of information on here would be the cost of each as well. Just a thought

    10. tsilb (38 months ago | reply)

      Looks like the best way is by bus. Until you realize the TIME it takes to get everyone from 60 starting locations to 60 destinations. As for the bikes...

      When I drive, I hate pedestrians. When I walk, I hate drivers. I always hate bicyclists.

    11. Checkered and aMUSEd (38 months ago | reply)

      If the one person per car is supposed to be the 1.3 average person per car, why isn't the bus also representing an average? I doubt that the bus occupancy average is 60.

    12. Russ Nelson (38 months ago | reply)

      Obviously created by a political partisan with an interest in obscuring the truth. It's inaccurate in both pro- and anti- car. As several people point out, bicycles are limted by distance, weather, and health.

      Buses are limited in that they're one big chunk, and in order to carry the same people as on the left it needs the space occupied by the bus for a much much longer time, because they don't all come from the same place.

      And ... you don't see the subway in this photo, do you? That's because it doesn't take up ANY road space because it travels underground or up in the air.

      But it's also inaccurate on the anti-car side, because those cars are parked. In order for them to be moving, they require a lot more space as buffers for movement between the cars.

      If you ask me, I much prefer the RUF -- www.ruf.dk -- which has the best characteristic of the automobile and the train. Why are our transportation technologies stuck in the 19th century?

    13. Tom Farrell (38 months ago | reply)

      I agree that if average occupancy is the consideration, there should be a bunch more buses shown: my extensive experience riding buses tells me that they usually have 5 to 10 occupants. If you're going to assume the bus is always full, you should assume the cars are always full, in which case there should be about 15 of them.

    14. TheKackler (38 months ago | reply)

      That is why scooters are popular! XD

    15. SuReSh, the Traveler ? (38 months ago | reply)

      good comparsion, thanks for sharing

    16. Sean Farnum (38 months ago | reply)

      I love it.

    17. Michal Osmenda (38 months ago | reply)

      so true

    18. brassplayer (38 months ago | reply)

      But wait! What would it look like if all the bicyclists got off their bikes and walked instead? That's right. The street would be EMPTY. If this graphic was being truly honest, then that should be displayed as well.

      Another problem with the bicycle picture: All the bikes are on the street. In my experience, a good number of those bikes should be on the pedestrian sidewalk ... where they don't belong.

    19. Russ Nelson (38 months ago | reply)

      I made a version of this photo including the subway:
      www.flickr.com/photos/russnelson/4480318327/

    20. raw11 (38 months ago | reply)

      So guys: get a bike:)

    21. Russ Nelson (38 months ago | reply)

      I have a bike. Can't always ride it. Sometimes I travel.

    22. Stefan Schlautmann (38 months ago | reply)

      @alfredkayser: You are wrong. This is 100% the Prinzipalmarkt in Münster, Germany. The building on the left in the back is the famous city hall of Münster where the Peace of Westphalia was signed in 1648 to end the Thirty Years' War in the Holy Roman Empire and the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Netherlands.

    23. digdugprophetie (38 months ago | reply)

      Spot on. This should be seen as a call to rethink the way cities are planned going forward, so as to nullify the moans of those who can't see beyond the current suburban land-is-limitless mentality.

    24. y ü (38 months ago | reply)

      Cars only exists for a economic question to the automobilistic corporations. Is just a fetiche of the consumism. Is a social unequality. If the collective transport is not good enough to attend to population is because the Government gives more attention to a property private, the cars.

    25. speedreed66 (37 months ago | reply)

      60 people can fit in 12 cars, or 8.5 minivans. This picture is misleading. Stupid

    26. Kevin Steinhardt (35 months ago | reply)

      @speedreed66 The word is 'can'; 60 people tend not to fit in twelve cars. I really can't think of five people I know who live and work in the same locale; unless one went out of their way to pick up and set down colleagues, those five people would not commute in one car. They would commute in four or five cars. Let's assume that two partners do live and work together, then it's four cars; another car is shared with a colleague who lives on the High Street of a village yet to be bypassed—three cars. Three cars still occupy a large amount of roadspace; another thing to mention is that the higher the speed, the greater the thinking and braking distances, the lower the road capacity.

    27. shuydts (27 months ago | reply)

      Yeah, probably a flawed picture, but at least it gets people thinking... The reason 60 people do not ride in 12 cars seems economical to me. With energy seemingly abundant and certainly cheap, in a society that promotes individual convenience at all cost, where is the incentive to make more intelligent or even practical choices? Cars have not only polluted, stagnated and endangered public urban live, the problems they created have given birth to a whole dependent economy. Our politicians and media make it clear—the health of our economy is measured in car sales and the price of gasoline. Besides, 4 or more people to a car—you guys want to go back to socialism??

    28. Russ Nelson (27 months ago | reply)

      There are no problems. There are only unmet business opportunities. What opportunities does this poster suggest to you, and why haven't you acted on them yet?

      I'll bet that the reason you haven't is because a government is preventing you. In particular, Ottawa has an online ad-hoc ride-sharing program, only they don't because the taxi drivers have a franchise from the government, and they got the government to shut down the program.

    29. arju.r (19 months ago | reply)

      this campaign is totally political... its like trying to satisfying bigger vote bank with minimum expense. its not related to road traffic problem or environment issue its a matter of society management..

    30. sea_myst (19 months ago | reply)

      And some studies (don't know how recent) claim most car trips in the US are 4 or less miles from home. A little long to walk, but kind of a waste of gas to drive (if the price is high). Bikes could be ideal for this if the roads were safe. If you have a few more minutes and are counting your pennies, you can't beat the price -- free!

    31. kdeuwall (16 months ago | reply)

      The same experiment in LUBLIN'S [Poland]:
      www.flickr.com/photos/kdeuwall/5585248701/

    32. KillMoto (8 months ago | reply)


      So...
      Get on a bike, and hate yourself.

    33. ratexla (3 months ago | reply)

      This is one (... some) of the best pics ever. :D

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