How you can assemble your understanding of urbanism from IKEA

I needed a bookshelf so I took my bakfiets to IKEA. Along the way I saw that, as my city has grown, car dependency increased and the bike infrastructure became worse and worse. This video shows how a trip from the older, central area of my city to a power centre in the suburbs can teach you about the urbanism of the city.
#urbanism #bakfiets #cargobike #cycling #mobility #urbanplanning

[@POINTS2]

Fair point about the narrow bike lanes not being able to ride side by side. It also looks really annoying to have to weave back and forth around the parking spots.

[@GWu-uu4qv]

I live in a car dominant Californian city with decent recreational bike paths. Even though they are not great for getting to places, it is better than the vast majority of cities in the state. I bike to Costco here regularly. It starts with quiet neighborhood street, then bike path, then quiet street again, then some side walk, then crossing of a monstrous intersection, then through the multi-football-field-sized parking lot occasionally having to deal with a couple of entitled massive SUV drivers that don't think they need to look back when backing out, and then I'm here!

[@DRL1320]

Terrific slice from f life video, man. You really show how over time 1)Edmonton’s infrastructure embraced and adapted to pretty much compel people to get into SUVs; and 2) how IKEA sells itself as a Euro-centric lifestyle choice but really is happy to embrace SUV infrastructure choices if its convenient for this quarter‘s returns.

[@NoahBirnel]

I bike to Lowes. The bike rack is behind the dumpster.

[@test40323]

Cool cargo bike, is it power assisted? Lovely to hear from cycling advocates across the country!

[@Droxal]

As a person who cycles alot and an ex Edmontonian, I commend your effort to bike all the way to Ikea and utilizing what were essentially arterial roads with no biker protection. Those roads would have been too stressful for me to be honest, and I would have stuck to sidewalks or found another way to get furniture. I hope Edmonton's investment into bike infrastructure helps improve things. g what were essentially arterial roads with no biker protection.

[@jasonriddell]

I was in Edmonton in the late 90's early in my "driving life" long before "biking" was little more then a kids pass time and now live in Winnipeg MB - a town that has "bigger issues" then bike lanes but HAS BETTER bike lanes in the SUBURBS then what this video showed and is low key adding them in all over the city and there is a bike route all the way to IKEA that is an a greenfield development built in 2015 +/- far outside the core area OR the university

[@ttopero]

I just got home from my local Ikea in the metropolis 1200 miles due south of you. Fortunately, I can take the LRT to a station that is a little over half a mile away, albeit adjacent to the freeway some 12 miles out of the city center. I can only purchase items that fit in my backpack or panniers if I want to use my bike on transit as cargo bikes are not allowed on the train and three steps are required to be ascended to get on the train. Fortunately I can get things ordered if I spend enough.

[@JesusChrist-qs8sx]

The Ikea in my city, pretty close to Downtown, not only has a parking garage in the back but a massive lot in the front

[@baddriversofcolga]

I live in a semi-rural neighborhood and so biking to get things is definitely pretty crappy, though I would say not as bad as some of the roads in this video. One route I take is longer than if I was driving, but it keeps me on mostly rural roads and connects me to our main rail trail. I just wish we had more bike infrastructure that took you more places. Other than the rail trail there's probably a total of 2 miles of unprotected bike lanes. They are going to expand the trail network, but it will likely never be what it needs to be. One of the main stroads we have here is now getting widened where it gets into a more rural area because new neighborhoods keep getting built and I guess they just want suburban sprawl to get worse and worse and to spend lots of money doing that instead of building a healthier city.

[@bbqturtle]

This is dumb to say but this video is the one that convinced me of urban bike lanes vs street parking. There was room for car parking on every single house you passed.

[@5688gamble]

The bike store near me is in a car dependent place like this, getting to the bike shop seems to be something you are expected to do by car, good luck picking up spares on your bike! Getting in there forces you to use a shared path over a massive wide road that has slip roads for a motorway, you have to cross an entrance and an exit that are elevated, so you have to climb a two-storey ramp, it has a cyclist dismount sign, but nobody walks there so screw that! Then you come down again before having to climb another massive bridge that also expects you to get off and push! Imagine if they put a sign requiring drivers to get out and push their cars up a big ramp? Finally, you cut across the pavement into a quieter EV charging station that goes through an industrial area to avoid traversing the horrible road parallel, then turn right and traverse the massive retail park car park (UK equivalent of a strip mall with drive thrus and such) you realise there is nowhere to park a bike at the bike store, so you just push it into the store with you and at least nobody seems to really care! That is as accommodating as it gets! People complain about random bikes chained to stuff, but cars get dumped everywhere and people just ignore them like elephants on the street!

[@kailahmann1823]

"this is the best bike infrastructure in my city"… showing a bike lane similar to what Hamburg had in 1958 on their first main arterial (today's "Willy-Brandt-Straße"). My next Ikea would be some 45 km from here - and if I am not completely wrong, there is bike infrastructure for the entire trip (actually a lot of it is on a tourist trail, so that's even far away from cars…).

[@donpuer]

If I were to go to Ikea on my bike, best my city can do is around 6% of pictocorridors - that's a picture on the road that means nothing. Not sure I will live to see anything close to the infrastructure in your video :(

[@micosstar]

0:51 city nerd ray delahanty?!?!?!??!

[@nickfielding5685]

I would be more comfortable riding next to a bus lane then next to the Cars

[@bobalinga]

On the long stretches with houses to the side it looks like you'd have to lug your bike up a kerb to get to a house. Annoying if so.

[@micosstar]

11:02 this is BIKE PAIN jesus christ

[@micosstar]

MAD RESPECT FOR CREATIVE COMMONS i do that for my videos tooooooooooo!

[@katzazi664]

I'm from Cologne, Germany. We have 2 IKEA Stores. The newer one is relatively close to where I live and I usually go there by bike. The infrastructure to get there is fine enough (beside of one weird T-intersection where I'm unsure how they intend bikes to cross over). There is bike infrastructure everywhere beside these streets where its just not necessary as they are small and slow enough to go safely w8thout. But the nicest part is the bike parking. Its weather protected right beside the entry or exit of the store. With most of them at the exit. While drivers have to cross a big parking lot to get to their cars. There is also some public transit available, but not as direct as the store you showed in Vienna. But regarding Vienna, there are older IKEA stores as well. And at least the one in the south is a hell to get to by bike. My partner happens to live about as close to that store, as I live to the one I described above in Cologne. We tried a lot of different ideas but its in a totally car dependent place blocked off by a highway with the only r4al way to get there by a 6 line road without bike infrastructure. Your route was actually much better than what we would have to race there. Now, there is public transport (as its Vienna). But you have to cross a lot of concrete to reach that. And then there is the new store in the center that you showed in your video. So, while in Europe you usually can go to IKEA without a car, the quality of those trips differs a lot. They can even be worse than yours.

[@micosstar]

the best part with posting videos on the internet, you get to delete 'em on your camera and start anew with another video; produce asset after asset (:

[@jfmezei]

Not comfortable being told to bike on a glorified sidewalk where I have to worry about mothers pushing twins in a wide pram or people in roller skates going all over the place. I was always told bikes don't belong on sidewalks, in Québec, they are considered vehicles. Also not comfortable with the narrrow path separated from street by a tiny sidewalk. Makes it impossible to clean in summer"fall or to celar snow in winter, and the weaving in and out around trees on such a narrow path is bad. No room to pass very slow cyclist. I would much rather have no mini sidewalk and have its space allocatred to a wide bike shoulder on road rather than some urgan furniture that looks good on paper because it separates bike from cars, but ends up making the path for cyclist too narrow. In St-Lazarre QC, they thought they were good by putting plastic sticks to separate the shoulder from cars. Only problem is the shoulder, once to add the sticks, is too narrow, and to make matters worse, the shoulder can't be cleaned and is foll of gravel from the few gravel driveways along the way. But the politicians can make the claime they made a grade separated bike path. So I have to run in middle of road and prevent traffic from passing me until after that stretch. Bravo politicians. You can look at Chemin St Angléique at 45.3993813 -74.1340671 (sorry, can't put URLs otherwise KZbin suspends me for 24 to 48 hours for some reason they wont explain).

[@vincewhite5087]

I think nearly All free parking needs to be eliminated & enforced.

[@Gnaaal]

What does this have to do with Ikea?

[@GaigeGrosskreutzGunClub]

The theme of the video is how despite IKEA projecting a more bike/transit accessible ethos in their home continent, they've morphed to accommodate the car-centric planning of America. They've also left a huge glut of parking in a dead mall in the city and are repeating themselves by moving to one of the biggest power centers. Parallel to this, the older neighborhoods can better accommodate bike infrastructure, but as you travel outside to the newer expanse, the biking gets less and less safe and effective and will continue to do so.

[@Gnaaal]

​@@GaigeGrosskreutzGunClub Thanks for the answer, but whatever such accessibility they've been projecting I've seen none. It also makes little sense I my mind for a furniture store to cater to others than those who would be driving to them, unless possibly if located in densely populated city centers, since you wouldn't be able to bring a large part of their inventory home anyway. I have an Ikea within bikeable range (30 min or so) and with better paths to get there than the one in the the video, but I could never see myself riding a bike there since I wouldn't be able to get whatever I'm buying home. Regardless you can hardly blame Ikea for the infrastructure if it's bad in your home town, it would be a bad experience to bike there for everyone not living close by wherever they put their store.

[@GaigeGrosskreutzGunClub]

@@Gnaaal you're very close to getting it!

[@jasonriddell]

@@Gnaaal a large percentage of people in "bike friendlier" places likely would arrange delivery IF they bought a LARGE item and Ikea in Canada does offer delivery at all the IKEA's I have gone to lang before the "internet" / APP powered GIG jobs

[@derekjolly3680]

I really do try to see the value in the "urbanist's" perspective. I do see the value, but there is always conflict with the innate First World/American perspective. Obviously there are boneheads on both sides of it. It comes out with some conservative talking heads promoting bike registration. Wall to wall people and housing seems to be part of the message with it, and the lack of possessions resultingly by design or otherwise. Americans don't want to live like the Chinese or North Koreans, or in communist era Eastern European type apartments, if we can help it. We all see the problems with too many cars on the freeways and highways with the smog and congestion. OK, I get that. Plenty of us would object to the concept of a Los Angeles type lifestyle. Going down there for a couple of days and I've practically lost my mind. I think the main idea is balance, bicycling improvements, exposure to less car use, and not radical social urban change, or forced socialism, which "urbanism" always seems to be similar to.

[@natik2136]

What does bikeable infrastructure, bikeable cities have to do with communism or even socialism? Why is there nothing in between for North Americans? Car-dependent road infrastructure is largely socialized (or Americans would call even that idea socialism, when it comes to other public goods they value less) paid for by everyone and the state or city rather through taxation. It's a public good. The 20 most bikeable cities in the world are in the so-calle (capitalist) First World. Like what are you even talking about with First World/American perspective. It's so silly, that you either drive an SUV everywhere or it's communism LMFAO. There are like 20 different housing types and urbanist neighbourhood planning designs between communist era housing and super low density american style car dependent suburbs. North Americans have them too they just chose to build way more of the latter.

[@kailahmann1823]

America (or in this case Canada) isn't "First World" for transportation infrastructure. Actually it's sometimes worse than third world countries…

[@DRL1320]

@derekjolly, Man! How much weed were you smoking when you riffed that comment? 😅😝😅

[@katzazi664]

What about Western European cities? Like Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Barcelona, Vienna, Paris? A lot of "best places to live I the world" list usually feature Vienne quite high, often at the top.

[@derekjolly3680]

@@katzazi664Meaning that these places are 1st World as well and are "Urbanist" accepting? Wouldn't it be a mixture and a balance of it in those places, and not simply everywhere and everyone being urbanist for mindset? As long as it's not forced or coerced by the jurisdiction in terms of housing or lifestyle I'm fine with most things.

[@richardearl9711]

Thanks for 15 minutes of complaining, I would suggest that you plan more clearly what message you are trying to convey, if it was that you dislike everything and it is all someone else's fault then you have succeeded, if your intention was to point out that your city has missed opportunities to improve the lifestyle and sustainability of its citizens then you have failed. For the record I agree that cities should become less car dependent and provide better options for moving around, but I found this video to be about as affective as Just Stop Oil protests are at winning people to your point of view, please include explanations of what you think should be done and the benefits of your solution, if you do not have a solution then you will not convince people to change from what they are doing.

[@urbanbike23]

You missed the point then. Start at 3:38 "The purpose of this video is to show how the quality of the bike lane corresponds to the quality of the neighbourhood". The video starts in walkable and rideable areas and then degrades. All the good examples are at the beginning.

[@GaigeGrosskreutzGunClub]

Dude, you typed in five and a half lines to complain about what you, in my opinion, inaccurately, perceived as bbnn complaining. It's not bbnn's job to come up with solutions. Transit is a solved problem, or rather, a self-created one. Even so, he did mention that when communities come together and fight against car dependency, they can get victories like in the example of the roadworks project adding in bike lanes. I would encourage you to take your own advice about the complaining without any clarity or point and pay a little more attention to the content people you apparently agree with are putting out.