Dequindre Cut photo by Detroit Greenways
Living without a car in the Motor City -- is that even possible?
A Reddit Detroit reader asks:
How bike-able is Detroit and the surrounding area? I'm from Michigan but am living in D.C. right now, and I'm really loving how accessible the city is by bike. I don't have or need a car there, and though my experience growing up in the Detroit exurbs tells me a car is essential to life in MI I thought the city itself might be doable by bike only (i.e., it's possible to commute, do errands, and see friends within a ~5 mile radius of home using no mode of transportation other than a bicycle). Is that the case, or am I kidding myself here? .
Here's some responses:
TheBimpo: It greatly depends on where you live, where your work is, and where your friends are. Not really going to have a great time doing this from November-March and public transportation is an absolute joke.
selppaukik: It's definitely doable, although you'll have to rely on some combo of uber/zipcar/rent-a-car to do errands outside of your 5mi radius - we don't have so much downtown that you can stay inside that radius forever. i usually get a zipcar every one or 2 weeks: you can rent one from 6pm-8am for $31 on a weekday. that helps with big-box store errands.
Yes, the weather can be shitty, but if you can ride in DC winter you can certainly ride in our winter. the truly terrible biking conditions are not really that long (i.e. there was no snow up until a week or so ago), it's just cold for a few months, which means if you have a hat, good gloves, and socks, you'll be fine.
infrastructure-wise, we don't have very many protected bike lanes - the flip side of that is that we have virtually no traffic compared to DC, so you can basically always have a lane to yourself.
AKDragonFly: As you may remember, it gets really cold and snowy/icy here. And stays that way for a good while-- months and months. It's 17 degrees now, and we have frozen snow and ice on the ground. My morning commute is looking like 2 degrees.
The protected bike lanes I drive by on my way to/from work are currently ruts filled with chunks of ice and chunks of frozen snow-- hazardous to impossible to cross even for the motorist who's parked next to them intending to get to the sidewalk. And they'll no doubt be that way for a good while, as we go through our typical almost-thaw, then re-freeze cycle.
No matter how many bike lanes of any sort are built here, they're simply not going to change our weather.
Public transit is a joke, or not, depending on where you live and when you typically want to go, where. It is entirely possible to situate yourself where you can rely on public transit to commute to a 9-5 type job that's located downtown or Midtown.
