Road design, transportation and walkability

[danbrotherston]

Recreation is limited?  How?

  Walking and biking could be used as primary means as it pertains to the individual or their situation.  I just wouldn't want to take my son to hockey practice on a 7 am January morning on our bicycles.  Walking or biking down to the grocery store to pick up weekly groceries for a family of five is not something I really feel like doing.  But, I can and have biked down to the neighbourhood Zehrs to pick up a small individual item.  Guess I could cycle the 25 km to work but then I don't have shower facilities when I get there and again I would never consider it in winter.  I commend you for these two modes being able to be your primary means, just doesn't work for me. 
 Even those who are able to have those two modes as their primary means at some point still rely on someone who uses some sort of vehicle to deliver a product or service ( pizza guy, plumber, UPS, service tech etc. ).  Now that I think of it, when I was younger I did try to bring a pizza home on a bicycle.  It didn't look great when I got home but I still ate it.

As danbrotherson said, recreation is limited means that it's good to be able to use the bicycle as not just for recreation but also for living one's daily life. I do actually have a friend living in downtown Toronto who takes his kids to hockey practice on his cargo bike; it's probably as fast as a car would be. In other places (and when there's no pandemic) there's not the expectation of doing once-per-week groceries. Electric cargo bikes are probably going to become popular for urban deliveries also, and I think there are a lot of urban food-delivery workers that use bicycles. Plumbers probably need a truck.

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Not a plumber specifically, but my grandma knows a generaly handyman in her building who doesn't have a truck or car, he rides his bike, with a ladder and cans of paint, tools etc., and occasionally uses the bus. Definitely not typical, but it is good to have options, and given that delivery trucks are being replaced by cargo bikes, bikes are a lot more capable than most people believe.